Blog entries tagged Auto

57 blog entries

Bloody Sheds and Cars

Oh man, this weekend was pretty awesome for getting things done. My car has been running like hell lately, it's been really annoying. But Saturday I met this dude named TJ, who is 21 and has already owned 7 eclipses, helped me fix my car. He knows his stuff. His car is insane, he's getting under 12 second runs in his 92 eclipse. Anyway, we fixed my car... for the time being.

I also built walls for my shed. I knew I'd get my finger with the hammer at least once during the process, and I did. I've done it a few times in my life, but never like this. I hit it so hard blood shot out the tip of it, haha. It ruled. Anyway, tonight I'm going to put the walls up. You should see my garage, 1 half is filled with lumber, the other half is …

The Nova Edit

For those of you that don't know, my first car was a 1963 Chevy II Nova. Here are some pics and a short story to bring you up to speed.

Anyway, my dad and I completely restored the car, and while doing this we shot a lot of video. I've been meaning to put together a short edit for a long long time - I finally did it, and here it is.

Just a word of warning, this might be a little boring to some of you. But it's awesome for me. Even though I didn't get to drive it long, it was a great great experience.

My Bumper's Fixed and My Drawers are Dirty

Today after work I stopped by the body shop to pick up my car. I got a new front bumper, the fender fixed, and both are coated in brand new paint. Now I'm only $1k down, ha. BUT.. It looks really really good. I am so happy with it.

So I was driving home from the shop, I went around a corner, punched the gas, the turbo kicked in, and the tires broke loose to the max. It felt good, I missed it. Then I heard a *CLUNK*, my car about died, and I couldn't go above 25 mph. (Queue my dirty drawers.) I started to pull over, but I was less than a mile from home and the car still ran. So I drove home and walked straight into the house. I did NOT want to see what blew up. Finally I got the balls and opened it up. The upper intercooler …

I Hate Body Kits

I hate bodykits, badly. To recap, a few months after installing my original fiberglass body kit, I backed into a truck in a dark alley. Obviously cracked the fiberglass. Then last winter I didn't see this snow covered curb and clipped my bumper on it. Last fall, my old mechanic at Grimes Automotive hit a curb and broke my front bumper. Then a couple weeks later I got hit in a parking lot, breaking my fiberglass blitz bumper some more. I ordered a new urethane bumper from areo_designs on ebay. It came in broken so I called areo_designs and complained, they barely spoke english and laughed at me when I told them the bumper was busted. So I sent them pics and they just told me to collect insurance from DHL - which I did. Later I …

Sun Prairie's Snowboard DJ Took an Oil Leak

This weekend I was at home again... Friday was a little weird because we found out that someone had broken into Kari's apartment garage and put a different padlock on it. After a ton of calling around, yelling, being lied to, calling the cops, finding bolt cutters, etc - it turned out that Sun Prairie rented out her garage without telling her. This is awesome because Kari still has stuff in there - stuff that we needed this weekend. Sun Prairie Apartments in West Des Moines suck so so bad. Kari and I both have had really bad experiences there. Soon I'm going to buy sunprairiesucks.com or something and let everyone know how they do business. Then I will link to it from everywhere, the people will know, and I will win. I've already …

Pull over to the right next time!

One day, during my senior year in high school or so, Jeff Wingert and I decided we'd take a drive into town in my Celica. I needed some gas so I stopped at the Amoco on Route 84 in Rapids City to fill up. After getting gas I pulled out to make my way to the interstate which is probably a mile away or so. I was just driving along and when I started to get into the left hand turning lane for the on-ramp, I see a cop with it's lights on behind me. There was also a random fat guy sitting in his passenger seat that I couldn't make out. So I sorta freaked out and stopped in the turning lane, he comes running up to my car and yells, "Do you realize that you pulled out right in front of me back there at that Amoco!?" Me, having no idea, …

Grimes Automotive

I feel like I've been complaining a lot lately. But I really don't think it's my fault. Crappy things are seriously happening to me. So, while I'm at it, let's talk about Grimes Automotive and how many times they've screwed me. The first few times I went in there, they were really honest, did a good job, etc.

Then, one time my car was acting weird. I went in there, he checked it out, told me the MAFS was bad. This is a $600+ part. He said that everytime he slapped the air box the car would almost die. I tried slapping it in my garage and couldn't get it to stutter once. So I asked my neighbor, he said it was spark plugs. I replaced them and the car was fixed. Instead of $600, I spent $8.

Another time I had an appointment …

Figures

2 days after I move in, my car breaks. I went out to my car this morning, turned the key, cliiiiiiiick. Didn't have enough juice to turn over.

So I met my first neighbor this morning. She brought her car around to jump me. After about 5 minutes or so, it started... but ran really really rough. Then I put it in drive and my Check Engine light came on. Seriously, my car sounds like a Harley V-Twin when it's accelerating... and it has zero power.

I think it's firing on 2 cylinders or something. So I drove it straight to the shop and now i'm waiting to hear the damages. I hope it's a cheap fix.

Exhaust: Installed

Alright, after months of dealing with this exhaust order and getting the wrong system I went ahead and installed it. I didn't want to wait until spring for them to correct it. So yeah, I now have a 3" stainless steel exhaust from my turbo all the way back through the Magnaflow straight through muffler - awesome. I also installed the Catco high flow cat for now... I might take it off someday. But anyway...

I spent most of the afternoon Saturday trying to get my old exhaust off. The thing was so corroded that the flanges were almost 1 solid piece, haha. So I decided to unbolt the whole thing and saw it off above the rear axles. While taking it off I spun off every bolt that was hooked to the rubber hangers, haha. The broken …

Weekend at Home!

So this was the first weekend that I've been home in weeks. It is literally the second time that I've been in Des Moines for a weekend since June, haha. I mean, I've gone to Cornerstone (Illinois), Heritage Days (Mt Vernon), L.A., Denver, Quad Cities twice, Minnesota, and Chicago Twice. The only other weekend I was here was during 515 Alive. wtf.

My plan was to relax, chill, etc. So, Friday night I watched my cousin's soccer game and then went out to dinner for his birthday. Saturday afternoon I went out to Big Creek lake to go boating/fishing with Chuck n Nathan. That was a good time. Then we picked Kari up and all went out. Lots of pool shooting/dancing was taken care of, haha.

Today I spent most of the afternoon …

RnR Racing Turboback Exhaust

On June 21 I ordered a custom exhaust from RnR Racing. I've heard great things about their products, they sound really good, and best of all, they're reasonably priced. I was super pumped when I ordered the exhaust. Here are the specs on my order:

Item: FWD Standard Turbo Back Exhaust - $675.00
Quantity: 1
Generation and size: 2g 3"
Standard turbo back
Turbo Back options:
Stainless Steel Bullet Muffler
Straight through design
Stainless Steel 3" Downpipe
Stainless Steel 3" Catback
4" Stainless Steel N1 Style Tip

Here's a timeline of how it went.

-June 21 - I placed my order at RnR Racing. The web site specifically told me that the avg ship time is 2-3 weeks.
-Ryan Fellows (who seems to be the head of RnR Racing) …

WTDT - What the Damon Toal-rossi

I love finding out that cornellians are doing cool things. Especially when they're making bio-diesel fuel. This rules, haha, Damon is making gas for his diesel vw golf. Hopefully it's not new, or else he probably voided the warranty.

So yeah, apparently Damon is begging for some interview attention. Kevi heard this on the news and sent me the article today. Then Scott Ruttencutter found some other links. Check these out:

  • http://kcrg.com/article.aspx?art_id=83632&cat_id=123
  • http://www.wired.com/news/autotech/0,2554,63635,00.html
  • http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/06/01/1729255
  • http://washingtontimes.com/national/20040610-122511-7509r.htm
  • http://us.terra.wired.com/wired/tecnologia/0,1157,26083,00.html - in spanish, if you can't …

    • My Fartcan is on Order

    So today after finding out my financial situation is not crappy, I ordered myself a new exhaust... or fartcan if you hate that import exhaust sound.

    Anyway, I got a 3" stainless steel turbo back exhaust with a 4" tip from RnR Racing. I can't wait. I'm gonna be so loud, haha. I should go ahead and insulate my trunk now.

    Father Skirts

    Hmmm, the weekend.

    Friday, Kari and I saw dodgeball. funny movie. Kevi also finished editing the third nutpunt video, which is sort of a continuation of the characters and ideas of our "I against I" video. Today he got it all converted to flash and uploaded to the site: www.nutpunt.com. Too bad the flash is a little choppier than the actual video (especially the first time you watch it). But, whatev, it's still funny.

    Yesterday my parents came to visit for father's day. We hung out for a while, which was nice. Then we met up with Kari's family to eat at Spaghetti Works and then to the Iowa Cubs game. Spaghetti Works wasn't as good as I thought it'd be. Anyway, Kari and I bought our dads matching icubs shirts to wear to the game, …

    Big Brown Titties in the Viper Convoy at the Motor Inn

    It's 8:00 AM and today is already good. I checked my mail this morning and had the Iggy Pop & Peaches - Motor Inn vinyl. Felix has this really really good mix on it. Very hard hitting - good club music. I've been looking for the record for a long friggin time. Nobody could order it, no websites had it... apparently it was just a promo or something. But Vinyl Exchange in the UK hooked it up, w00t!

    Also I drove next to this decked out RT-10 today on the way to work. Looked sooo good. I pass by someone with a viper about once a week on the way to work. There are way to many rich pricks in this area... and I wish I was one of them, hehe. (I heart cars)

    It's also fun to work next to camp dodge. The Army convoys rule. H1s, giant …

    Mustangs want me

    Alright so my MAFS went out right? I called several dealerships and junkyards trying to find this part. The prices ranged from $325-$680. And I found another guy that would give me one in trade of a case of beer. Well that guy sucked at communicating, so I sucked at trusting him. I don't know... no options were being presented, which normally doesn't happen to me. So it had to be something else

    Yesterday I pull into my apartment and the "super tuner buff" was outside his garage working on one of his cars. I rolled down my window and told him to listen to my car. He's like, "Ah it's missing, check the plugs and wires." This is a drastic difference from the $680 MAFS. Spark plugs are about $8 for 4. So I got them, put them in …

    Cars are tricky, Iowa Cops are fishy, and Iowa Cubs are funny

    Holy day. This AM I had to wake up early to take my car to the shop to get looked at. It has been idling really weird and cutting out. After talking to a few people I came to the conclusion that it was the Mass Airflow Sensor (MAFS). The shop called at 10 this morning and told me I was right. Then they told me that there were 3 problems.
    1. They would have to order it from Mitsubishi/Eagle.
    2. The part would take 2 weeks to arrive.
    3. The part costs $680.

    This is lame news... Jon, my mechanic, said that I should find one online or something and install it myself to save about $600. I agreed and went to pick my car... because it was time to go to the icubs game that Pioneer paid for today, w00t.

    When I was leaving the shop …

    INTAKE'D!!!

    I got a new intake pipe from ebay yesterday. dsmtuners.com tells you that it's the first step you should take (along with a conical air filter) when modding your car. However, I'm finding out that most intake pipes don't really do anything for a turbo 2g DSM. The Injen intake (which is very similar to the intake I got) is dyno proven to not increase horsepower. The only thing that it does is look cool and make the turbo/BOV sound cooler.

    There were also a lot of things wrong with this product from importblowoutsales. First I noticed that the inside is very very rough, but I guess this makes no difference. Even the Injen intakes look this way. Then I noticed that this might not seal very well. Also, only 1 of the hose clamps …

    Theta Formal and Kari's Car

    This year Theta Formal was in Dubuque on the Miss Dubuque dinner boat, which was nice... definitely something different than normal. It was funny because a few of the girls had just gotten back from a Carribean Cruise, so they thought that our small dinner boat was HILARIOUS.... it's a friggin dinner boat on the Mississippi and it costs $35 a person, what do you expect? It's sorta like how my car is really really funny to ride in after riding on a bus.... err... wait.

    Anyway, while on the boat, I spilled a drink on myself and Kari spilled marinara sauce on her dress, we rule. After that we all went back to our hotel where we swam and hung out. It was fun and some of the thetas are 'slightly above average,' so that makes the 'not …