Bought a 89 Turbo II Rx7 about a year ago. 104k on the odometer. Running around 10 psi.

Mods:
- 2.5 Inch turbo back no cats
- Hks knock off loud ass BOV
-Maxpeeding Rods 24 adjustable Ebay coilovers
- Rtek 1.5 chipped ecu
- OMP delete
- ACT Stage 2 Clutch

Problems:
- Previous owner claims it was rebuilt 30k miles ago and block does look like it was rebuild (Fresh vac lines and new oil pan) but hunts for idle on cold start (Low compression)
-Paint is disgusting
- Minor surface rust under car hoping to clean and seal before winter
- Current issue of a cut knock sensor throwing a code and retarding timing

So I jump in a look at the stuff-that-isn't-cars watch pictures occasionally. I can take more pictures if anybody needs. Worn relatively sparingly. I don't think there's anything worth noting except for light scratches near springbars. Feel free to hit me up here on asteele2 on gmails.

Shinola Runwell Chronograph - 41mm, black PVD - $550 shipped:
I paid $875 for this from the DC Shinola store less than two months ago and have only worn it a handful of times since. But I'm selling basically all my worldly possessions. Comes with box and original receipt (which should also get you their warranty, and a free first battery change).

Shinola:

Hey everyone, it's that time of year again. Unfortunately, we're behind my desired schedule for this, but I'll try to get everything caught up very soon.

Before we start anything for this year's order, I want to hear what you guys want. What would you like to see available this year? I know we had some qualms last year about fabric choice, so I'd like to get cohesive decisions made about everything we order.

I think we'll have the usual:

Screen printed hoodies if we can get the minimum order
Another order of sweat pants if we can get the minimum order
Flex fit hats ~ $20
Coozies ~ $3
Wind breaker ??
Beanie ??
Miata shirt (maybe) $15-$20
We should also have regular club shirts for whoever wants one.$10-$15

In a few days, I'll see what I can get done from Moxie.

Hey all! The lady and I have an anniversary coming up first week of November and we want to spend a weekend in D.C. doing the touristy things since I've never been to anything up there. I figure we'll drive up Saturday morning and spend the night there. Any tips on what to do and where to go?

I want to hit up the typical stuff like the monuments and I definitely want to go to the Air and Space museum.

Where's a good place to eat lunch, dinner, etc. Where should we stay? We want to do a full day Saturday and then like a half day Sunday and head back.

Hey Kids!

Yes, I said kids. I'm 33 goddam years old, and most of you current students is just weeeee babies in my eyes. All bright and hopeful, too young yet for the world to have made you a bitter and cynical old alumni.

Anyhoo for at least for a lot of you this will be the first time you get to vote for president! Participating in the democratic process is pretty dope, and not a lot of people in the world get to do it! So while I'm not gonna launch into any civil obligation tirade (you do want you want, free country and all) I would highly encourage you to go pull a lever (err, touch a screen?) for the asshole of your choice.

And that's the bit I want to hear. I would like to know who you, the Youth of America are thinking about voting for, and why! I double cross my heart pinky swear not to berate and insult you for your choice of reasoning I'm just really, truly curious who you'd choose.

Grumpy Old Alumni can contribute also, although I feel like I've got a decent sense of that crowd...they might yet surprise me.

So go on. Lay forth your political :vomit:

After the white E36 convertible was totaled thanks to some high flood waters and a bit of idiocy, I took a look at the state of my automotive union and realized I needed to do some test drives to figure out what I really wanted next.

There was talk of buying nothing. I just moved walking distance to a Metro station, so in theory I could Metro to work and drive my truck when I need wheels. That thought lasted about four days, as I decided shoving my face in a stranger's armpit is a less than pleasant way to commute home every afternoon. Driving the truck daily was tough - it averages 13 MPG in city driving and is big enough that parking in Arlington and DC is a hassle. So, I did need (and want) another "daily."

Rex was kind enough to start a thread where all of you can make a bunch of crackpipey suggestions that I largely ignore. It did get me out on some test drives though, with serious thoughts about a few other cars.

After driving some stuff and thinking 'bout some stuff, I ultimately realized that another BMW is what I wanted. My first thought was a 330ci, figuring it'd be a repeat of the white 'vert... cheap, easy to own, reliable, etc. Of course, I test drove one and it was exactly that... aka, boring as shit. It made me sad to drive because it drove like the white car, but with less of the "cool factor" that a 20-year-old BMW with cracked bumper and bent BBS's can only have.

On the way home from that 330ci test drive, I realized that shit, I'm 27 and have wanted an E46 M3 for a while now, I'm financially in a position to buy one, and the cars aren't getting much cheaper nor am I getting any younger so fuck it, that's what I'm buying next.

I decided on only blue paint, really didn't want a gray interior, refused to buy an SMG, and preferred a convertible but would have considered a coupe with sunroof. Test drove a few locally and started putting feelers out on forums. I figured a drive to get the car would be "easy enough" so long as I didn't fly to California.

The probably stolen Mystic Blue one
I found a Mystic Blue on Cinnamon 'vert in Brooklyn and called the seller about it. I was supposed to go up this past Monday to buy it, but he completely ghosted me after we made all plans. The car had smoked taillights, awful wheels and North Carolina tags on it, and the seller really didn't want to accept a cashier's check ("Cash only man, I don't trust banks") so while I was sad for the missed opportunity of bright blue paint, I was not sad to miss a day trip of traveling to Brooklyn to be mugged.

The one I bought
The seller found me on E46Fanatics and said he had a Carbon Black/Cinnamon convertible (6MT) and an Imola/Black coupe (SMG). Obviously, dibs on the 'vert.

Joey and I had been discussing all of these potential purchases (while trying to keep a secret from most of you clowns) and both thought this one was a good candidate to become mine. The only caveat was that it was in Richmond.

Richmond, Indiana. Which is a lot farther from home than Richmond, Virginia.

Some quick math at work revealed we could fly out and drive the car home in one day if we timed everything right. So, I started talking to the seller and asked what he was doing on Saturday, October 15th. And I bought some plane tickets.



The Purchase
Buying one-way plane tickets for a Saturday flight on a Wednesday means you're at the mercy of the airline as to the price you'd pay. Each ticket was going to be $355 hock: which made the trip kinda not worth it. Thankfully, I had some leftover points on a credit card and got our two tickets for the sum of $11 in tax. Trip is now worth it.

We each took an Uber from our homes to Reagan Airport and met in the lobby at 7 AM on Saturday, for an 8:15 AM flight to Dayton, Ohio. After a breeze through the strip-down-lift-your-arms-turn-and-cough TSA line, Joey grabbed an OJ and I found some coffee. We boarded a German-made bus that took us to the Miata of airplanes, operated by Air Wisconsin, don'tchaknow.





Our flight was easy... only 18 passengers meant everyone got their own row to stretch out. The flight lasted maybe an hour. We were at the airport's Starbucks enjoying another drink 10 minutes before our scheduled landing time.







I texted Don, the seller, and told him to meet us in front of the airport... which is small enough to have the parking structure across from the terminal. Joey noticed the Avis sign hanging in a window and I mused about what I could rent for $39 a day if this M3 sucked and we had to get home.

He pulled up with his girlfriend behind him in a white Ford Escape. He hopped in with her and gave Joey and I the M3 so we could test drive as we followed them to his bank, back in Richmond, IN - about a 45 minute drive due west. We made it to the bank with nearly an hour to spare before they closed at noon. The car was as represented, so I bought it!







Don took us back to his place, two blocks away, to get the rest of the paperwork and a few spare parts for the car. My goal was to be on the road by noon, and at 11:50 we pulled away from Don's house, with Joey's address entered into the car's navigation system and Waze on our phones.



The Drive Home
We stopped to fill the tank before leaving Indiana, with our sights set on Columbus, Ohio for lunch at Chipotle. We did this first leg of the drive with the top down, and figured after the novelty of the convertible wore off and the food comas set in, we'd do the rest of the drive with it up. Less wind noise and buffeting = more energy for the drive.







After Chipotle, Joey took the wheel and pointed the car east on I-70. Traffic was light all day and speed limits were 70 mph for the most part, which meant we could make some serious time. I fiddled with the crappy FM transmitter I bought for this trip (the car only supports FM and CDs stock) and took some photos. Both of us had the idea of "just get home" versus trying to meander and sightsee, so our only pit stop was in Morgantown, West Virginia to refuel and change drivers.



The stop at the Sheetz in Morgantown was brief, just enough time to refuel, clean the windshield, and grab some energy drinks before I hopped in the driver's seat and we pressed on.



Semi-trucks were blowing our doors off when we were doing 75-80, minivans were hustling at 85, so we uh, kept up. :thumbup: Miles kept ticking by and the car was a peach, very happy to just sit there at whatever speed all day long.







Waze and the car had both estimated an 8:15 PM arrival at Joey's place in Ashburn, and we pulled into his driveway at 8:18. Right on. Snapped a few photos of my new car with his E36 M3 and I headed to Alexandria, top back down and seat heater on high.



I made it home right around 9:00 - put the roof up, took one final photo and walked up the stairs for some leftovers and a cold beer, shaking my head in disbelief that I was back home after being in Indiana the same day.



Joey deserves a HUGE amount of kudos and thank-yous for coming with me on short notice to make this happen. It would have been a crappy trip to take alone but going with a friend made it a lot of fun. Counting the Uber rides and flight, we covered over 1,000 miles and six states in roughly 14 hours. Pretty crazy. The whole trip felt very Top Gear esque and I wholeheartedly recommend everyone else do this once in their lives (at least). Great experience.

The car, tell me about that

• 2006 BMW M3
  
• Carbon Black over Cinnamon
  
• 6MT
  
• 126,500 miles as of parking it last night
  
• E92 M3 (?) 19" wheels with newish tires
  
• Xenons, heated seats, park distance control, headlight washers, Harman/Kardon audio
  
• Eibach lowering springs
  
• Feels like some sort of short shifter
  
• Warranty for the next year or 12k miles (seller bought a 4-year warranty when he bought the car and it can transfer to me)

I decided to move my thread from r3v here just for funs.




Stuff about it
240k miles on body
Black leather sport interior
is goodies
Bilstein/H&R sport suspension
ST swaybars w/ ie reinforcement
Z3 1.9 shifter
M50nv w/ ZF transmission
2.93S differential
15x7 Kosei K1 w/ 205/50 dz102

I bought the car in August of 2013 100% stock from a spec guy in Chesapeake as my first car



Needed more low so i did h&r sports with e90 drophats


it looked pretty good and made good noises


then i crashed it and it stopped making good noises and looking good


the core support was pretty fucked up as well as the drivers side fender, hood, bumper, and front valence. also my pride.

after all that stuff was gone i cut out the core support


I decided to do a removable support for future shenanigans

Here it is with its "new" hood on


Also some secret bonus R80rt content


I sourced a bumper, core support, hood, and front valence from my friend who also is now addicted to shitty old BMWs

Here it is with all of that garbage bolted on


It had a certain ghetto charm but it needed paint soo I did this


My grandfather, dad, and me built a paint booth over the summer to spray the car in







While my car was sitting in the garage this was my DD


200k mile 2001 R53 Mini Cooper S
I grew to really like this car, the supercharger being my favorite part lol
It has an underdrive pulley, intake and a tune and was on 15x7 kosei K1

It was fun but I needed E30 back in my life

This pic was taken in August and was the first "assembled" shot of the car since April 2015


After some more fitting and adjusting the front end went back together mostly



I started sanding the car around April and I drove it home in late August so most of that summer was devoted to inhaling super cancer dust

I had to immediately start taking gay BMW pics with my friends





Did some autox and was slow as fuck. I had a 30 year old pirelli on the back left..



Bought some Koseis and DZ102 because tires


Koseiiiis



Then I saw Luke on r3v was having a mega sale so I had to get this


Weight reduction brah


Weight addition brah



Finally got around to painting the rest of my chrome trim


Then I opened my hood for the first time in 3 months to check if I still had an m20


Sadly I did so I bought this


Found me a rat shit filled 944 that I needed to get a booster from. Pretty sure I got a disease or two but you cant beat free


And after some coercing it gave me a boost donut



Threading the rod on the booster so it can be shortened to work nicely with the e30 pedal box


Also got a fan. Surprisingly amazon had the lowest price on a spal fan @ like $55 shipped.


oh and this thing idk how well it will work but people seem to like them. still kinda sketched out about it and looking for a 328 ds to replace it sometime


Last pic of my E30 with an M20




stuff happened here I just dont have pictures..


M20 is out after a few hours


E30 is chillin


Tried to clean up the valve cover





I have no idea what kind of mileage this motor has but the head is so clean. Was kind of a blind purchase but at least it worked out



Got new intake seals in after I cleaned up the manifold



Mounted throttle body with new gasket. So shiny on the inside. So shitty on the outside.



Then it was time to assemble these little dudes and mount the valve cover. M5x have so many more parts than M20/M30s



That was it for the first day of work. Pretty good progress IMO.



put me slave cylinder on to replace this nasty old dude. Never looked at the clutch as stupid as that sounds... this was a very budget swap.



Cleaned up the engine bay a little. Still really dirty.



Mounted coil packs. So satisfying to click into place.



Then I realized I had E34 mount arms and I needed to chase the threads on the more rearward holes. Which had become rusty mud holes. Also you can see my creative use of M20 exhaust studs.



Tap tap tappity




First time I had seen the motor together mostly




Also another creative use of an M20 exhaust stud nut



And end of day 2. Most of the day was spent cleaning random shit and breaking loose rusted bolts.



Day 3: the day of many sprites



Got new shorter bolts for the engine mount arms since the E34 mounts were much thicker than the E36




Didn't really take a lot of pictures this day because this was coming and we were trying to get the engine in that day


spoiler: it didnt happen

All that was left was to switch the e34 headers front to back and get an ICV hose.
The previous owner of the engine said that it came with a set of s52 headers and he included some random little piece of a downpipe that I assumed would've fit S52 headers. What I really got was two sets of E34 M50 headers so I had to make that work. Swapping the E34 headers front to back worked very well for some reason so I ended up using that and just tacking the exhaust together from the random flanges I had.

A random picture of my friends E28 in a field.



More things happened...


Got M50 in after some fuckery.


Wew lad its an engine


Super potato video of first start
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PLmp9a6AIg

and then i forgot to take any pictures between that and this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtPGS9qvbmU

then fast forward like 2 months and I finally swapped out the 3.73S which made me wanna drive off a bridge with the ZF for a 2.93S. The longer gearing actually makes it seem faster. Probably something to do with not shifting 3 times to get to 35.

m50nv is slow need faster

Might as well start a thread to keep document what happens with this one. While searching Facebook one night I came across a friend selling his '68 F100, 3 speed on the column, inline 6 cylinder. While looking at the pictures, my wife said she "had to have it" So I did the right thing, sent money and loaded up the trailer (because I needed another project....):



Price was right, and she wanted something to use for yard work, driving the dog around and throwing paddle boards in the back of and heading to a nearby lake. Plus she has always wanted an old truck and wanted something simple so she can learn how to increase her mechanical knowledge. After new tires, a quick tune up (plugs, wires, distributor, belt), it starts right up and stops.

It seems MM and CCVT are best buds all over again. Their president, Alex LaRose and I are scheming some cool stuff for this year now. A ton of CCVT and even some WVU people chilled at my place last night and everyone is super cool.

I'm thinking I'll lead a group of people down to VT for their show and Alex and I will get some extracurricular activities planned to make it more worthwhile.

We'll meet in R1 and roll out by 7:15 AM getting us down there a little after it starts.

OR

Alex says there are going downtown Friday night, so maybe we can go down and crash there (or Chan's garage ) and go to the show, cruise, and cookout on Saturday.

Since I didn't have enough projects going on, my wife decided she just had to have this (yes it's really her's, 3 on the tree and all), so like a good husband, I loaded up the trailer and went to go get it:
F100 by skrzastek


That means I need to clear something out of storage to make room for this new project. So.. '92 Miata, black and tan with the BBS wheels. I have every record for it from '92-02 from the first owner, it's a 2 owner car (I'm the third, I never titled it). I bought it 2.5 years ago and took it directly to storage which is where it has lived since. I pulled it out Thursday, jumped the battery and it started right up. It does have a mis currently, but it has old spark plugs, wires, and old gas in it. It has 203k on it, but according to the 2nd owner the motor was replaced several years ago with a used one, estimated mileage on the "new" motor is currently 104k (she couldn't find the documentation for the swap, so assume it has 200k on it, but I'm relaying what she told me). It does have rust in the rear quarters, the drivers seat has a ripped bolster, it needs a top and a general going through.

$1250 firm (it's what I paid) as it
$1500 and I'll include a tan soft top with a glass rear window in good shape already on a frame and ready to bolt in.

If it's not sold in a couple weeks I'm going to start sorting it myself (after I make sure the F100 is safe for my wife to drive) and the price goes up.



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