So I go back and forth on this all the time and wanted to get some input and also see who else was in this situation during school. I want to start to do HPDE while in school with my current car and eventually with an E series BMW once money allows. 

What I want to know is who while at JMU did this at the track if anyone, and if so how often you did this and how it worked out. I'm not sure how many other people who are current students think about this, but I know I really want to get into this, hence why I work at the track all the time and build up credits. It's safe to say after my first hyperdrive this past weekend with Jake (Thanks again for the great instructions), that I'm now addicted to driving on the track and ride alongs just don't do it for me anymore.

So who was tracking their car in college, and if not then are there reasons I should be aware of (obviously time and money). Also besides DJ and Jake, what current Alum track their cars either with NASA or with other organizations?

I'm helping a friend move a pile. I think it's an 89 (but will confirm) Plymouth Colt. I'm told it runs/drives but there wasn't a battery in it and all the tires are flat. I'll try and get one to validate. I think it had 123k miles
These cars were made by Mitsubishi and imported for Dodge/Plymouth here as a Colt.
It'll need some wheels and I'm sure other parts, but it's only $300 to MM/Friends Of

Who wants a rallycross car or lemons racer?

So I know this could come downhill really fast but I figured I'd ask. Does anyone have any experience adding quality back to photos using Photoshop or some similar product? I have a picture of my dog that I may want to get blown up in the future that was originally taken on my fiance's iPhone. But she does not have the original (I though photos backed up to iTunes but what do I know). She is obsessed with editing pictures on the phone using shitty free editing apps that completely destroy quality as we found out when we got a bunch of photos she had edited printed out. (maybe it was Walmarts fault but I blame the apps).

Either way, the only copy of the photo I have has pretty bad lighting and I fear it'll be pixelated as f*** when blown up. I'm not looking to hire anyone as it's not really that worth it to me and I'm not looking for someone to spend hours editing each pixel but if there was an easy way to plug it in and edit the picture, I would really appreciate it. I do not have Photoshop or know how to use it which is why I ask.



Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

So after blogging for weeks here lamenting the sale of my A4, I've found its replacement.



Its a 2011 E90 Wagon (E91) xDrive (AWD) with 66k miles, 6 speed manual, non-turbo (da fuq?) inline 6.  This thing will be one car for two of us for a while and has to handle dog hauling, camping, bike racing, daily driving and ice fishing while not putting me to sleep behind the wheel.

More photos to come, but, space grey exterior/black interior.  Has some nice packages, with the upgraded leather, panoramic sunroof, heated seats and most importantly no auto transmission and no nav/iDrive.  It did not have the sport package, but on the xDrive cars that just gets you seats, steering wheel, and wheels I think.  

I found the car at a dealer in Boston, it was a one-owner trade in.  I had them on the horn at 9am sharp and had a deposit on it the day it hit autotrader.  Which was fun, because I was off to Chicago for a wedding that day so I'm walking through the airport trying to buy a car.  Had it shipped down to me and it arrived Tuesday.  The dealer had done a bunch of work on the car getting it ready for sale, new brakes, alignment, filters, oil change, ball joints.

Dropped the car at the indy shop I use in herndon for state inspections, and asked them to look over the car.  They noticed the belt tensioner was likely going to shit itself soon so I had that replaced and I've got a few things to rectify, the windshield had been replaced but it wasnt done properly so a new one is going in on Friday.  There was some light cosmetic damage on the rear 1/4 panel that didnt show up in the photos and I'm going to go get an estimate on that tomorrow morning.  The interior is mint and the car drives really, really well although much more sedate than the APR Stage II+ A4 it replaced.  Ok, maybe I'm still lamenting its departure.

I ordered a trailer hitch as soon as the car hit the transport truck, that was waiting for me at home and I got that installed this afternoon so I can transport my own bicycles again.  

Once the cosmetics are cleaned up, I've got a few plans for the car.  First up is the OE 3-stage intake manifold, the only difference between the 328 motor and the 330 is this thing and 30hp.



I have one here already, because buying parts for a car you dont own yet is totally normal.  You need an ECU flash for the manifold to do its thing, so I need to make some arrangements to have all that done at Mach V soon.  

I'm looking for the E90/91 sport package seats, steering wheel and some OE 18" wheels so I'll just pick those up as they come available locally.  Will likely change out the interior trim from the dark wood that's on there now for silver like i have in my 135.  The dark wood is too 'old man wagon' for me.  I'd like to put on the BMW performance exhaust & short shifter, but after getting the car cleaned up my budget is empty until the 135 sells.

Past that, I'm not sure what else this car needs.  Everything I read said that the xDrive handling was a giant bag of dicks but I dont agree with that.  Some FSD's would be nice, I put them on my A4 and was very pleased.  I'll wait until Koni does one of their sales and then think about it.

Long down the road, if this thing is paid off and I still have it I want to buy a wrecked RWD 335 and ship the lot down to DJ to swap the turbo drivetrain into it.  But thats a pipe dream for now....

Probably no takers here, but spread the word.... MM tire kickers and test hooning welcome.

Up for sale is my 2013 135is, asking $26,500

Currently at 55k miles, will go up although not by much.  I picked up an E91 as a daily driver and consolidating down to one car so this needs to go, unfortunately.  The car is well cared for, a blast to drive and I'll miss it.  The car is in really nice shape, the exterior I'd give it a 9/10, with some rock chips and a paint scrape on the rear bumper and the interior a 9.5/10 with some wear on the shift knob. 

I bought the car in January of this year from a dealer in Providence, RI.  At the time they installed a new set of tires, oil change, front & rear brake pads, alignment and cabin air filter.  I had the oil changed again at Auto Scandia in Herndon in September.  I have a new set of plugs & coils waiting to go on the car, they will go with the car unless you prefer I install those for you.  

The car also has a Dinan software package - it is fast, and a riot to drive.  Did I mention I'm going to miss this one?

The last year 'is' package include:

Quote:-Performance Power Kit bumping it from 300hp/300tq to 320hp/317tq.
-Performance exhaust (lots of pops and burbles!)
-M Sport package:
--Sport seats with lots of nice bolstering
--M sport steering wheel
--M badged door sills 
--Aero Kit:
---Rear spoiler
---Front air dam
---Side skirts
---Shadowline trim
---Lowering springs (0.6" lower than stock)
-BMW style 313 wheels

Quote:========================================
Vehicle information
========================================
VIN: WBAUC9C56DVM13695
Type code: UC93
Model: 135I (USA)
E-F-R series: E82
Series: 1
Type: COUPE
Steering: LL
Doors: 2
Engine: N55
Displacement: 3.00
Power: 225 (306 hp)
Drive: HECK
Transmission: MECH
Paint code: 416 - CARBONSCHWARZ METALLIC
Upholstery code: LWNL - LEDER BOSTON 2/S
Prod.date: 2012-10-16
S1CA SELECTION COP RELEVANT VEHICLES
S2NF M LM RAEDER DOPPELSP. 313 M, 18"/MB
S2VB Tyre pressure control (TPC)
S4MG Int. mouldings aluminium glacier-silver
S4NE BLOW-BY-HEIZER
S6AA BMW TeleServices
S6AB Control, Teleservices
S6FL USB/audio interface
S6VC STEUERUNG COMBOX
P7MF Sports Edition
S8SC Telematics access request,country-spec.
S8SP Control unit COP
S8TN TAGFAHRLICHT UEBER LICHTMENUE EINST
S249 Multifunction f steering wheel
S302 Alarm system
S321 Exterior parts in vehicle colour
S403 Glass roof, electrical
S423 Floor mats, velours
S441 Smoker package
S459 Seat adjustment, electric, with memory
S473 Armrest front
S481 Sports seat
S488 Lumbar support, driver and passenger
S494 Seat heating driver/passenger
S502 Headlight cleaning system
S521 Rain sensor
S522 Xenon Light
S524 Adaptive Headlights
S534 Automatic air conditioning
S540 Cruise control
S570 Reinforced power supply
S639 Preparation f mobile phone cpl. USA/CDN
S645 BMW US Radio
S663 Radio BMW Professional
S688 HARMAN/KARDON SURROUND SOUND SYSTEM
S693 Preparation BMW satellite radio
S697 Area-Code 1 for DVD
S704 M Sports suspension
S710 M leather steering wheel
S760 High gloss shadow line
S775 Headlining anthracite
S823 Hot-climate version
S840 High speed synchronisation
S845 Acoustic fasten seat belt reminder
S850 Additional Export tank filling
S853 Language version, English
S876 Radio frequency 315 MHz
S925 Dispatch protection pack

Details in the Craigslist post. There's not quite 3k miles of CPO warranty left on the car.

https://washingtondc.craigslist.org/nva/...92641.html

I posted this a while back, had a couple tire kickers, got busy and kind of forgot about it. Dropped the price a little today. I also have it on eBay presently as well starting at $18500
 I'd do an MM price of $18000. If I can't sell it for that I'll probably keep it. I was trying to sell it before the CPO warranty is completely up, but as it's almost paid off, if it doesn't sell I'll probably just keep it. It's kind of an odd car - most of the manuals, which are already rare in general, were base model 2.0 cars. Very rare to find a Premium trim level manual ATS. (Cadillac trims go base->luxury->performance->premium)

Sunday, October 14th Fortune Auto is having an open house for the upcoming year, which they will be showing off their new huge warehouse. They will most likely have deals on suspension parts and food vendors. 

But the real reason people go is because it is basically a car show. A lot of my friends are going and I will be as well.

I cannot provide rides down. 

No fees to enter, but their will be plenty of tempting offers.

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Look at me, I've done it again. I've replaced my old and broken car with one that is older, more broken, and more full of spiders. I had decided when I was selling the miata that I would get something cheap for the winter and it eventually boiled down to whatever Civic Hatch or E30 I found first for a good price. I've been prowling craigslist for a week or 2 and found nothing but ETAs, but there was an 325i with the new bumpers in culpepper. I e-mailed them on Monday, and they got back to me today. I left work, got Zach to meet me at home, and we went down to Culpepper to look at it... in the dark. 

The exterior looked great for the price and he explained he had actually bought the car from one of his friends, a Spec E30 racer with NASA-MA. It was supposed to be a parts car because the motor was shot, but he decided the body was too clean to waste. He pulled the heads and reworked them, did a headgasket, water pump, and timing belt while he was at it, and even installed a full OEM exhaust. He claims the cylinder walls still had the cross hatching. I look the car over and get it. It fires right up, but the TOB makes an awful noise, but that's minor for the price. The interior is.... less than desirable. The passenger seat is essentially gone, the radio is gone, the rear seat looks like a frosted mini wheat, and there is at least 1000 spiders living inside there. The dash lights don't work, and neither does the speedometer, but all 4 windows roll up and so does the power sunroof and mirrors! 

We putter out of his driveway and the shifter feels better than I expected, but it still feels like a wooden spoon in a bowl of mashed potatoes. I make my way out of his little neighborhood in the woods guided by the pulsing headlights (I'm assuming alternator), and he finds me a straight road to stretch its legs. I dropped a gear, and floored the accelerator and the car sprung to life with no qualms, all 6 cylinders roaring up to speed. The steering was smooth, the suspension was calm, and everything was right with the world. We discussed some of the quirks of the car and the work he had done and made it back to his house. I manged to talk him down about $400 and we signed the papers while his girlfriend made ravioli. Zach and I traded driving the 4Runner and Ellen the E30 once on the long drive once and we discovered this thing has power locks! In a 1990!!!! 

The drive home was relaxed with country music playing from my phone speakers, no idea how much gas I had or the engine temp since the lights were out, and my left arm got sore from wrestling the pull to the side (he just replaced both control arms and didn't align it). We got home, parked it in a visitor's spot, and I ran back by the bank because I also lost my debit card today and I think I left it in the ATM machine like an idiot. 

Details
1990 BMW 325i Sedan
162,XXX on the odometer (Not correct)
Fresh Headwork, Head gasket, Timing belt, water pump, Lower Control arms
Limited Slip Diff
Power locks, mirrors, windows, sunroof
Seems to be extremely rust free and has a very straight body

Things to fix
Rear bumper plastic
Front bumper plastic
License plate bulb, rear running light, dash lights
Add Radio back in, antenna
Parking brake light doesn't work
Needs alignment and wheel balance
Deep interior cleaning
Needs glovebox, passenger and rear seats
Speed sensor in the diff and crimp new connector
Fluids
If I get ballsy, TOB, Clutch, Guibo, CSB, Diff seals
More things to come.

Plans
Drive this until I get bored. Fix some things and hopefully increase value over the winter, but not burn money (I know, good luck with that)
Autocross and HPDE for a while
After that, my plan is to look for an E36 M3, but maybe that will wait depending on how much I like this

Truth be known, this thread was mere hours away from being titled ‘Damn you, Lee’ and featuring


I had everything lined up to get the van, called again to put a deposit down and they only took checks or credit cards, which would have been a $100 fee on top. By the time the check could get there, I would have already picked it up, so I cheaped out and told him I’d be down the next day. He called me the next morning and said they received a deposit on it and the guy had 7 days to close, which he ended up doing, so I did the next logical thing and bought an RS6. 

I would keep an occasional eye on the RS6 market and finally floated the idea past the better half. I think after dodging the Master Ace bullet she was happy to have something better to look at. (Although Amanda may have unearthed the true reasoning behind a lack of opposition) 

A quick review for the class, these were only brought to the US in 2003 as a sedan, we never got the Avant, and it only had an automatic transmission. [Rex’s rationale in the other thread as to why this is ok is spot on] It’s a 4.2L v8 being fed by a couple of turbos to their Quattro system and was rated at 450/415 new, although it’s a healthy 4000 pounds. There were only two options, a sport package for the carbon fiber trim (this car has it) and a warm weather which had electric sun screens and a solar panel in the sunroof (which runs a fan to keep the interior cooler while sitting out during the day. (do not have)

I had a forum friend in Phoenix who knows these inside and out (currently owns 6 of them) help vet a few that I was serious about. I had put a deposit on a car in Philly with 122k miles, but maintenance records back to almost new when he said he had a friend that might be selling one of his and I should check that out, turned out his friend lived in Leesburg and also has an impressive fleet of vehicles. I put the Philly car on hold with the dealer and a couple of kids and I roll up in the 02 to meet Stephen last Sunday. He meets us in 1 of 4 of the RS6 MTM cars in the US, and brings us back to his house where we’re greeted by the one I was looking at and another RS6 Avant that he and Phoenix Dave had built together from an S6. It turns out Phoneix Dave is buying the MTM and Avant, and I get the bottom of the barrel regular one. I later told Dave I felt bad we were taking all of his RS’ but he informed me that Stephen would be fine since he’s keeping the Bentley and Aston. These guys live in a whole-nother world than I do.  

Stephen was super gracious and let me drive the Avant and MTM also, if I had a spare 40k, I would have tried to snipe the Avant from Dave. Anyway, enough story time, on to the car. 

Maintenance work done
Torque convertor & transmission replaced by Audi in 2008. (bad seal in early TC’s was a common issue)
Dynamic Ride Control recall/rebuild complete. (Known to leak oil, everyone pulls the DRC and switches to koni’s or coilovers if when it fails) They still use this system on their R/RS cars but 2003 was the first attempt for it.
Full timing belt service at 72k miles. Car is at 74k miles currently. (these are due every 35k miles per audi)

Laundry list of upgrades done about 50k.

[*]Apikol intake system
[*]Apikol intercoolers
[*]10SecondTune (haven’t found an exact spec on this map yet, but should be ~550hp/580tq
[*]Transmission Tune
[*]Euro Nav head unit (RNS-E)
[*]Full Milltek Exhaust
[*]Hotchkis front and rear sway bars
[*]Bailey diverter valves
[*]Superfancy Aluminum paddle shifters (+10whp)
[*]and maybe other goodies to discover as I get time to crawl around it.
[*]


Stephen gave me a few sets of wheels with the car.
18” Stock 9 spokes (4) (currently on winter tires)
19” Sportec (6) on S-drives
18” Ronal 5 spokes (Stock for Euro) (5) 18” [Winter Setup]
Originally he was going to swap the stock wheels to the MTM car to send with Dave and give me the 19” Vorsteiner, but when the shop was mounting them, they realized they wouldn’t fit, they would either rub the control arm or stick out past the fender with the spacers he had, so now I have none Vorsteiners. [/coolstorybro]

There are also some spares like the original carbon fiber air boxes, stock intercoolers, head unit, etc.

So real talk, this isn’t going to be a project/build thread as much as it is a ‘here is why the car is broken this week’ documentation repository. I am fully aware of the level of stupidity I have sunk to in purchasing a one off car with a propensity to self-destruct, but this scratches a huge itch I’ve had for the last 14 years for me; and I feel somewhat prepared to enter into an abusive relationship again even if the S4 was like a drunken spouse who verbally abuses you where the RS6 is one on bath salts and meth that likes to get stabby.

If nothing else it should prove entertaining and a PSA for others not to make the same mistake. 

Immediate plans are to run it through Mid-Atlantic for a post purchase inspection and see what we’re dealing with here, then hopefully find someplace to get an inspection sticker while not having cats. 

*Edit* - Replaced bad photos with some slightly less bad ones.
Here’s a photo dump of poor quality driveway shots, and a bad exhaust video I tried to make as another clue for the 20 questions thread, but never got to use. Hopefully we’ll get some better ones up in the future.


























[*]

The Help loading wheels.
[*]


The stock paddles are laughable 
<br />

These are the one he had made for a group buy
[*]

Its a big black tacticooool backpack. Honestly forgot I had this, which means I do not need it. Used maybe twice.

http://www.511tactical.com/rush-72-backpack.html

Comes with Rush Tier system straps.

$100