How Safe Is That Volvo?
The new Volvo S60 is a charming Euro barge that offers a collision avoidance system. Volvo has been synonymous with safety since forever and having such a feature further solidifies their reputation of solid, quality cars that you can trust. Let's take a look at this new fangled technology in action and feel comfortable that your next Volvo will stop if it notices anything dangerous coming up:
LOL. OK well maybe not. On the bright side, its pretty good at avoiding those flimsy barricades. Seems Volvo set up a presser to show off their S60 and somehow human error caused a battery malfunction which, in turn, caused the accident. Although slightly caught with egg on their face, Volvo assured reporters that if a real person were in the car, they would have realized that the system malfunctioned and would have had time to avoid the accident the good old fashioned way: by stepping on the brake.
Forum Madness: Body Shop of Horrors
You have a 350Z and a kit that you want to put on it, what would you do? For most enthusiasts, I'm guessing they'll take it to the body shop. Especially if the kit needed to be paint matched. Well this 350Z owner decided to take his car to a local bodyshop here in SoCal - actually in my hometown: iDesign/Import Image off Fairway in Walnut, CA. Our owner, CrimsonRockett, dropped $750 to get the kit painted and installed on the car, then proceeded to wait it out as weeks passed by. Like most times I dealt with bodyshops, they'll give you a date to pick-up and end up maybe bumping it a day to a week. I was given 2 weeks to get my car fixed and ended up waiting 3 1/2 weeks. So that I would understand, but when waiting that long you would expect a pristine job right? And most places deliver that extra care, but this place in Walnut man, puts me at a loss for words. Especially when they do something like the picture below to tack on a side skirt.
You can tell the time they spent into this project since the woodscrews (wait what?!) aren't even in a straight line or evenly spaced. Even with that, it's not the end of this CrimsonRockett's problems: crappy fit, disaster of a paintjob with bad orange peel, overspray all over the car including tires and lights, misaligned body panels, missing parts, panel dings, more woodscrews and even found a piece of wood between the panel and woodscrew. Go ahead and join our owner, CrimsonRockett, at his home at my350Z.com and see more pics and more details about this story. Hopefully Mr. Rockett will be able to get his car back to snuff - another shop quoted him $4k to fix it all. Get iDesign/Import Image to pay it cause what you got was not worth $750. Beware of rabid posters who are quick to blame the victim. Come on, whether the owner deserves it or not, it should be as bad as this.
Forum Madness II: The Internets Will Get Yooz!
So from the forums that brought you The Case of the RSX Hit & Run (news story here; actual forum posts here), they bring you a follow up that's 10x better: The Case of Stolen Skyline featuring THE CLAW.
The story begins at a used car lot up in Canada where they had a Skyline up for sale. A potential buyer has been coming by regularly with intent to buy the Skyline. Unfortunately, the intended buyer claimed to previously own a Skyline that was in accident which also severed his two middle finger. Anyhow, in a rather odd move, the salesman decides to let the buyer go on a solo test drive. Not surprisingly, the car never comes back.
Not long after the Skyline owner posts his misfortune on the forums, we get people who have sited the thief, but you would think the car would have quickly been garaged and parted. Instead, we get pictures of the thief driving the car, followed by Facebook profiles and pictures, and not long after followed by the thief's location. Next thing you know the thief became known as "The Claw," the obligatory photoshopped goodness flooded the site, forum check-ins came by the droves, and all ended with various YouTube postings of the Claw's home arrest!!!
Indeed, it is dumb of the salesman for allowing a solo test drive for such a rare car. Yet is quite dumber on the part of The Claw for parading around in said rare car as if it were actually his. Man, remind me never to piss off Beyond.ca...they are doing pretty well in the pwnage category.
[CLICK FOR A LINK TO THE BEYOND.CA THREAD: 1991 Skyline GT-R Stolen!]
Hit the split for some of the hilarious photoshopped pics...
Forum Madness: The $12k Install Job
In 4 days about 14 pages have accumulated in this thread over at 8thCivic.com. What exactly happened? Forum member, Vtecnical, took his brand spanking new Civic Si, with 800 miles on the odometer, to a Circuity City and had an aftermarket radio installed. Next thing you know the car is being held at Honda dealership where they claim Circuity City installers had caused $12k in damage to the car and the car is unsafe to drive. ZOMG! I really don't know how a dealership can hold a customer's car against the customer's will. I also really don't know how it tallied upto $12k. That's almost half the cost of the car! If someone can find out exactly how Vtecnical came across the shoddy workjob please let me know cause after wading through all those pages I'm still not quite sure.
Check out the vid and hit the split to see Vtecnical's post that has you wondering if you should ever trust a place like Circuit City with your car...
Tighten Those Lugnuts…
Happy New Year to you all. To start of another year, I thought I'd post up this clip of an RX-7 at any old autocross. Never did I think this would happen tho:
NSXPrime: Thread of the Year
So before it's time to ring in the New Year, I just had to post this up. Apparently this thread from NSXPrime has been spreading around the internet faster than the speed of light and indeed it is prolly the greatest form of "forum ownage" out there. Although most of it has been "modded" to death, you can pretty much get the gist of what happened. Short story: Spammer joins Prime. Spammer posts about winning lots o' cash from an internet site and that's how he got his NSX. Next thing you know WhoIs files and GoogleMaps are brought in to the picture. AWESOME!!! Poor guy, never had a chance as the actual thread gets resolved within the first page with his suspension. Soon after though, he was reinstated and more lies just spew forth and quickly followed by the obligatory photoshoppers and forum roll calls...it's a great read that'll sure have you chuckling into the New Year...
NSX Prime: Easiest way to own a NSX
Even a NSX_Nick got OWNED site went up...LOL.
Thread of the Week: Welding Turbo Fins
On a side note...hope you all had a safe Labor Day Weekend...especially with this crazy heatwave. It was a nice 108 today at the house. Damn can't wait for winter...
Every once in a while a thread will light up the internet and over the past couple weeks this one thread has been passed around the enthusiast sites and back. This one comes from MX6.com:
"ok my new turbo arrived... no go coz everything was way off measurements etc. so I took off my old T3/T04e 57trim and welded 1/2 of the fins (not fully closed shut as you can see) on the hotside
used to spool @ 3000rpm & get 5psi @4000rpm now only 2400rpm & get 5psi by 3500rpm.
way more torque(throttle response was amazing too) @ around 2000 rpm it feelz like my dads supercharged v8 now ^^.... weight increase by a total of 3.5grams (6 fins) + maybe 2-3 more grams from the stainless steel weld spots (pic was taken when finz had minimal weld spots). btw it has a bit of the whining sound when spooling ... I like it alot
but letz see how long it'll last."
This member even included a wonderful picture:
Read the thread for the obligatory douche comments and forum roll call: Turbo Mod with VIDEO!
Near the end of the thread you can find an actual website dedicated to the turbo build, along with the video of the turbo spooling: CopexTurbo.com
Genius? LOL...who knows, but I'll keep my eye on this one...