HMT Foodstamps and a trip to North Carolina
#1
HMT Foodstamps and a trip to North Carolina
WARNING: Big Wall of text magazine article size post)
Monday, August 11Th 120 AM
Greetings HMT, it's been a hell of a weekend and once again thanks to all involved for making it happen. I'm actually typing this post out in notepad because I've arrived home from North Carolina to find my Internet connection cut off due to com cast not agreeing with my payment terms. (every other month if they are lucky)
My trip to Asheville didn't turn out quite as I would have imagined or planned for but then again what the hell ever does? I did however get a chance to meet JD and some friends, really cool people and a go-fast-car scene that until this weekend only existed in movies. Where I live the only thing that matters to most is how much you spent on your paint job and how high off the deck of your trunk your wing is. (I'll be first to admit there are certainly some aesthetics on my own vehicle that qualify as genuine rice) but that's a different story entirely.
After meeting up with JD late Saturday, I was quickly whisked off to the super secret undisclosed bat-cave location where work began to set up the car for tuning. Armed with a Motorola 2.5 and nothing to hook it up with, JD took care of the pig-tail and soldering of that ---- so we could get started. To his dismay he found a p30 ecu in the floorboard and after a little bit of cursing about that he hooked up his ---- up while I installed the wide-band and quickly replaced some brake pads on the front right of the car. They started grinding metal to metal due to a stuck caliper and descending pike's peak which contrary to popular belief is in North Carolina.
I should mention that at one point during the trip the car wouldn't stop overheating due to **** poor airflow, +25 miles of really steep uphill driving with 300 lbs. of tools in the trunk so I clipped the coolant lines to the turbo to try to drop temps a bit.(this is after removing thermostat, hot-wiring thermoswitch, and driving with hood popped.)
So JD discovers that the data-logging output on the p30 isn't working so he proceeds to desolder J12 for me...oops I mean J1...wait wait no, J12...or was it one .
The ---- still wasn't working so we proceeded to break into another car in the bat cave that we couldn't find the keys for and borrow a more user friendly ECU.
With batman in the driver's seat, myself riding shotgun, we're off to tune the HMT welfare recipient car of the year.....our friend Robin had to take his own car to whip some body's *** in a race,
Apparently only winning said race due to the other guy's window's being rolled down
Sometime in the two hours previous to all of this the headlights took a ---- on me for some reason (all fuses good) and only got high-beams working.
Street tune while blinding all other drivers in front of us FTW.
In the interest of making this really long *** story a little bit shorter, we got some preliminary tuning done and shortly there after JD has to be convinced not to chuck his wide-band controller and laptop out of the window of the car. It's 2 A.M. and we're pretty much out of time. With original base map back on the original board, I headed back to the motel while catching glimpses of several cars I'd really like to go blow the doors off of.
JD's schedule as well as my own being very tight, this weekend was kind of forced due to the other end of my family taking a 3 day weekend vacation to the area. I used the opportunity to go up there in my own car so I'd have an "escort" if anything was to go really bad. This turned out to be a wise decision after all because on the way back to Atlanta today my left side CV axle exploded on the highway with pretty much no warning. Heard a little pop last night and boot was still intact.
After getting directions from the local good-ole-boys and a ride to the nearest part store way out in the middle of bum ---- Egypt I swapped out the broke *** axle on the side of the road. (I got to the part store 4 min before they closed ---- YEAH!)
To quote a wise man and Rush Limbaugh as well, "it is what it is"
I had a good time this weekend, met some cool people, saw some cool ----, learned a few things, and most importantly became more determined than ever to finish the project, and to learn and become proficient at the whole tuning aspect myself. It defiantly reminded me personally why I love this ----.
I promised pics and ripper vids and you'll get them soon enough. Until then I still have the unopened 12 pack of Heineken that we forgot about and I got around 6 bucks of HMT money left that I'm gonna buy some orange chicken with for lunch tomorrow.
Thanks again to everyone, much appreciated.
P.S. Henry Rollins? as in Black Flag?
Monday, August 11Th 120 AM
Greetings HMT, it's been a hell of a weekend and once again thanks to all involved for making it happen. I'm actually typing this post out in notepad because I've arrived home from North Carolina to find my Internet connection cut off due to com cast not agreeing with my payment terms. (every other month if they are lucky)
My trip to Asheville didn't turn out quite as I would have imagined or planned for but then again what the hell ever does? I did however get a chance to meet JD and some friends, really cool people and a go-fast-car scene that until this weekend only existed in movies. Where I live the only thing that matters to most is how much you spent on your paint job and how high off the deck of your trunk your wing is. (I'll be first to admit there are certainly some aesthetics on my own vehicle that qualify as genuine rice) but that's a different story entirely.
After meeting up with JD late Saturday, I was quickly whisked off to the super secret undisclosed bat-cave location where work began to set up the car for tuning. Armed with a Motorola 2.5 and nothing to hook it up with, JD took care of the pig-tail and soldering of that ---- so we could get started. To his dismay he found a p30 ecu in the floorboard and after a little bit of cursing about that he hooked up his ---- up while I installed the wide-band and quickly replaced some brake pads on the front right of the car. They started grinding metal to metal due to a stuck caliper and descending pike's peak which contrary to popular belief is in North Carolina.
I should mention that at one point during the trip the car wouldn't stop overheating due to **** poor airflow, +25 miles of really steep uphill driving with 300 lbs. of tools in the trunk so I clipped the coolant lines to the turbo to try to drop temps a bit.(this is after removing thermostat, hot-wiring thermoswitch, and driving with hood popped.)
So JD discovers that the data-logging output on the p30 isn't working so he proceeds to desolder J12 for me...oops I mean J1...wait wait no, J12...or was it one .
The ---- still wasn't working so we proceeded to break into another car in the bat cave that we couldn't find the keys for and borrow a more user friendly ECU.
With batman in the driver's seat, myself riding shotgun, we're off to tune the HMT welfare recipient car of the year.....our friend Robin had to take his own car to whip some body's *** in a race,
Apparently only winning said race due to the other guy's window's being rolled down
Sometime in the two hours previous to all of this the headlights took a ---- on me for some reason (all fuses good) and only got high-beams working.
Street tune while blinding all other drivers in front of us FTW.
In the interest of making this really long *** story a little bit shorter, we got some preliminary tuning done and shortly there after JD has to be convinced not to chuck his wide-band controller and laptop out of the window of the car. It's 2 A.M. and we're pretty much out of time. With original base map back on the original board, I headed back to the motel while catching glimpses of several cars I'd really like to go blow the doors off of.
JD's schedule as well as my own being very tight, this weekend was kind of forced due to the other end of my family taking a 3 day weekend vacation to the area. I used the opportunity to go up there in my own car so I'd have an "escort" if anything was to go really bad. This turned out to be a wise decision after all because on the way back to Atlanta today my left side CV axle exploded on the highway with pretty much no warning. Heard a little pop last night and boot was still intact.
After getting directions from the local good-ole-boys and a ride to the nearest part store way out in the middle of bum ---- Egypt I swapped out the broke *** axle on the side of the road. (I got to the part store 4 min before they closed ---- YEAH!)
To quote a wise man and Rush Limbaugh as well, "it is what it is"
I had a good time this weekend, met some cool people, saw some cool ----, learned a few things, and most importantly became more determined than ever to finish the project, and to learn and become proficient at the whole tuning aspect myself. It defiantly reminded me personally why I love this ----.
I promised pics and ripper vids and you'll get them soon enough. Until then I still have the unopened 12 pack of Heineken that we forgot about and I got around 6 bucks of HMT money left that I'm gonna buy some orange chicken with for lunch tomorrow.
Thanks again to everyone, much appreciated.
P.S. Henry Rollins? as in Black Flag?