Random thoughts thread

512detail said:
I say good morning to my neighbors with a cold start from my 6.1 with headers and no cats. :)
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Wonder if that [ticks] them off as much as our neighbors [tick] us off...utterly different schedules, they seriously interfere with our sleep. I tell Accumulatorette that it`s just Karma being a [female dog] because of all the times I did such stuff back in the day :o

jrock645 said:
I watch ancient aliens regularly. I think it’s 99% nonsense but I find it to be entertaining and interesting conjecture...
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Same here.

House of Wax said:
Going to Harbor Freight makes me understand what my wife feels like when she goes to Target
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At least your wife *goes* to Target rather than letting you "just take care of that" ;)

I got a pair of polypropylene utility carts at HF last week (pre-coupon expiration) to further expedite my nutty carwashes.
 
Accumulator said:
At least your wife *goes* to Target rather than letting you "just take care of that" ;)

I got a pair of polypropylene utility carts at HF last week (pre-coupon expiration) to further expedite my nutty carwashes.
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True, bit that can be dangerous for the family pocketbook hehe.

I just love Harbor Freight for all the random stuff they have and to pick up some of those random tools you won`t use much and don`t want to spend a boatload of money on


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I make it a challenge to *never* pay full price at HF, waiting until whatever I need has a good coupon :D Sometimes I need something yesterday, but not too often.
 
Last night I went to our Monthly Tower Of The Americas car show. I was rummaging around in my trunk when a man and his wife approached me and immediately asked, "Is this car ceramic coated and polished? It really stands out!"

"Yes, and a few kitchen sinks from Germany." Was my reply :)



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Jaddie said:
Dear Dan & Friends

With the utmost respect for your beliefs, I concede that I`m a nonbeliever. I don`t want to raise my son without exposing him to spirituality, but that can be done without the Sunday morning fight. And it is a nasty one that involves threats, punishment, and tears.

My son has been going to church for about four or five years mostly every Sunday. He was in a youth program that met once a week (Awanas) and eventually decided to stop attending after the close of a session. My in-laws asked me to force him to continue, saying it was important, but I countered with the fact that we force him to go to school five days a week, on four of which he has to come home and do homework. They held their ground and I held mine.

My son has ADHD. He feels caged when he knows we expect him to be quiet and still for an hour, especially without his ADHD medication. (We don`t give it to him until after lunch on Sundays because it kills his appetite.)

I seldom have complete confidence in a course of action, but I decided that I`d continue to force Max to go to church every Sunday (he doesn`t have to go when his grandparents are out of town) until his tenth birthday (in August). Then it`ll be up to him whether or not he attends, except for two occasions per year. I excepted the two occasions to accommodate his grandparents` probable desire for him to attend an Easter and Christmas service.

This was a unilateral decision. I told my wife that was my decision and that`s the way it was going to be. I don`t ever do that.

I will continue to encourage my son to be open-minded when it comes to religion and tell him the truth, which is that I believe people who are spiritual have a leg up on those of us who aren`t. Spiritual people have a very strong resource to lean on during hard and uncertain times.

Max doesn`t even know that I`m atheist. To him I always say nice things about church and churchgoers. My preference is that he find strength in something greater than himself and all of humankind, but I don`t believe I can force that on him. He`s too much like his old man for that.
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Mi Hermano Jaddie,
Thanks for your post, I really feel for what you are going through with the In-Laws..

We all know they mean the best for you and your family, but sometimes, they may need to just love you guys even more and support you...

I commend you for doing all that you feel in your heart of hearts for your son now..

It is more than obvious what a great man you are Jaddie; for sure your Sweetheart is the greatest too, and your family - the BEST !
I would love to have you guys as neighbors..

I look at the lovely picture of you two and can see that the bond of love you have is stronger than anything else and that alone will help keep your family together, which is what we should all be striving to do every day..

We have all gone through a lot of things over these decades, my good friend, and there will always be a hearty welcome and a big hug from any of us when we meet..

Love you guys !
Dan F
 
512detail said:
I say good morning to my neighbors with a cold start from my 6.1 with headers and no cats. :)

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk
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Hahah, I do that with the GTI. Even stock cold start is ridiculous, rumbling and popping. My neighbor beside me just shakes his head. My other neighbor complains, guess the turbo whistle annoys him from what I understand. They`re gonna be in for a rude awakening (literally) when it gets the new turbo downpipe...
 
Nizmo said:
Hahah, I do that with the GTI. Even stock cold start is ridiculous, rumbling and popping. My neighbor beside me just shakes his head. My other neighbor complains, guess the turbo whistle annoys him from what I understand. They`re gonna be in for a rude awakening (literally) when it gets the new turbo downpipe...
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VWs are also known for an incredible sounding two-step. Just putting that out there.
 
Kinda serious for a moment- you guys with loud exhausts have no compunctions about disturbing your neighbors? Not just waking people up (who might not be able to fall back asleep), but I have neighbors with *serious* health issues and those folks simply don`t need any disturbances during the time they have left.
 
If it was my day off and I was awoken by some loud exhaust, I`d be pissed! I used to live in a neighborhood with a guy who owned a Harley with straight pipes. You could hear him down shift as he hit the residential street 2~3 blocks away and then proceed to rattle every window until he pulled into the garage. Needless to say he was not popular with the neighbors.

I`m a gear head of the highest order, but I don`t understand the latest trend in loud exhausts. I love the low burble or a red-blooded American V8 and even the growl it creates at highway speeds or any other well tuned exhausts with sane volume levels. What I don`t get is the road car exhaust which crackles and pops like a 60`s vintage Le Mans winner or the latest entrant in the WRC...in 30 MPH stop-and-go traffic.

I longed to drop an aftermarket exhaust in several cars until one fateful day I test drove an S4 with an exhaust mod. The exhaust was so loud I had a hard time conversing with the salesman at any speed. The joy of the great soundtrack ended about a block from the dealer lot and simply became an annoyance. I simply couldn`t handle that on my rather short, easy commute, and on a road trip it would drive me insane.
 
I have had my share of "louder exhausts", but my idea has always been to open the exhaust at the heads with a good set of tuned headers, bigger diameter exhaust pipes, and then put big flow-through mufflers at the other end so that it would not slow down the exhaust and be louder but not "loudest"..

And this was back in the day when a company called Thrush sold mufflers that came with flanges to bolt right on the end of headers... And even those things were not so loud it was annoying, but it was louder inside since the sound was bouncing off the pavement right back into the interior..

And the sound regulations were not even as strict back then as they are today..

I will be happy to register as a hater of those Harley straight pipe people that love to downshift them all the time in neighborhoods - what a bunch of maroons...
It`s just too loud... Bet all of them go deaf way earlier in life because of that.. And they are not even fast.. :) Why bother??? :)

I love my neighbors, wherever I live and try hard to not bother them with excess noise coming out of my garage..

Well, those 2 Ferrari Modena 360`s I detailed were rather loud in stock form... Sorry... :) Oh yeah, that Ferrari Top Speed, well, that was really loud in stock trim.. :) Sorry, sorry... :)
Dan F
 
Desertnate said:
If it was my day off and I was awoken by some loud exhaust, I`d be pissed! I used to live in a neighborhood with a guy who owned a Harley with straight pipes. You could hear him down shift as he hit the residential street 2~3 blocks away and then proceed to rattle every window until he pulled into the garage. Needless to say he was not popular with the neighbors.

I`m a gear head of the highest order, but I don`t understand the latest trend in loud exhausts. I love the low burble or a red-blooded American V8 and even the growl it creates at highway speeds or any other well tuned exhausts with sane volume levels. What I don`t get is the road car exhaust which crackles and pops like a 60`s vintage Le Mans winner or the latest entrant in the WRC...in 30 MPH stop-and-go traffic.

I longed to drop an aftermarket exhaust in several cars until one fateful day I test drove an S4 with an exhaust mod. The exhaust was so loud I had a hard time conversing with the salesman at any speed. The joy of the great soundtrack ended about a block from the dealer lot and simply became an annoyance. I simply couldn`t handle that on my rather short, easy commute, and on a road trip it would drive me insane.
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DesertNate -
I totally relate to everything you posted..

Don`t know how old you are ,but when I was a teenager and from then on, the absolute BEST Sound was the slightly erratic idle of a solid lifter, high lift, long duration cammed, high compression engine, with tuned headers, flowing out at the end through those wide, short Corvair mufflers to exhaust pipes that exited straight at the rear bumper.. Oh, wow, absolute Music to my ears !!! :) :) :)
And the sound at speed was not raspy, loud, popping, all that nutty stuff, it was just right..
Even back then, decades before "hooning" was a word, ( :), we car guys loved our cars but we were still respectful of the neighbors AND the Law.. :)
I so wish I still had that `69 Camaro SS/RS... :(
Dan F
 
Desertnate said:
If it was my day off and I was awoken by some loud exhaust, I`d be pissed!
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Heh heh, my wife and I are retired, so *every* day is our Day Off ;)

When something wakes me up in that manner, I`m AWAKE and I generally don`t get back to sleep for quite a while, if at all. Good when some emergency strikes in the wee hours, not so good *every time they drive/ride those things*. With the considerable distances between our house and our neighbors`, and the woods that`s in-between, when something`s loud enough to be a genuine issue for us, it`s not just "a bit more than stock" can I call "Bull". (But hey, we`re the "unfailingly nice neighbors", very conscious of not being the "[jerks] in *that* house". But it`s not like our dogs make noise that anybody else has to listen to.


Stokdgs said:
DesertNate -I totally relate to everything you posted..
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Yeah, same here.

And hey, I remember Thrush Mufflers :D They`re what I fitted when Cherry Bombs got to be too much. I always ran full-lenght exhausts though, paranoid about fumes even as a dumb kid.

And I`ll admit that I`m cynical about about the power gains from loud systems. MOST applications I know of seem to do just as well with something quiet (though that`s often pricier), and I`ve yet to meet somebody for whom those extra few hp *really* make any diff at all (talking street cars)...so many variables matter so much more IRL. All just so much bench-racing to me, but hey, guess I`m becoming that Cranky Old Guy.
 
Nutbread said:
Why do I have to clean the inside of my dishwasher? Shouldn`t it be self cleaning?:hmmm:
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True Confession- We`ve never cleaned ours! I`ve quick-wiped a few areas a few times, but simply never had the need to do "what you always have to do with them" even after..what?...17 years or so.
 
Stokdgs said:
DesertNate -
I totally relate to everything you posted..

Don`t know how old you are ,but when I was a teenager and from then on, the absolute BEST Sound was the slightly erratic idle of a solid lifter, high lift, long duration cammed, high compression engine, with tuned headers, flowing out at the end through those wide, short Corvair mufflers to exhaust pipes that exited straight at the rear bumper.. Oh, wow, absolute Music to my ears !!! :) :) :)
And the sound at speed was not raspy, loud, popping, all that nutty stuff, it was just right..
Even back then, decades before "hooning" was a word, ( :), we car guys loved our cars but we were still respectful of the neighbors AND the Law.. :)
I so wish I still had that `69 Camaro SS/RS... :(
Dan F
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I`m in my mid 40`s, so I`m a child of the 70`s/80`s. When I was in highschool, guys were tuning 60`s and early 70`s American iron because that was all they could afford. A guy I played soccer with on the school team had a beautiful Pontiac Catalina which sounded exactly as you describe. It was perfect.

When I was stationed in the UK, I was fortunate to work a couple times as a flagger/corner worker at a local road course for a few low-level club races. I clearly remember working on turn 2 for an event attended by all sorts of vintage cars. There were several AC Cobra`s and Mustang`s on the grid that day. Turn 1 was not visible due to a hill but you could hear the American V8`s roar as they came out of that turn and headed our direction long before you could see them. We were again serenaded as they tore through our corner and shot off into the distance. Even the Brit I was working with would pause and get this huge smile each time they passed. None of Jags, Astons, Mercs or other vintage European cars that day could come close. Sadly, there were no Ferrari`s in attendance.
 
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