caffeineslug.com

A productive weekend

Seemingly the entire weekend was spent on car-related stuff, and lots got done. Clint and Brad came over on Saturday, and the previous statement about spring compressors held true to an even greater extent.

First up was the task of putting the stock shocks, springs, intake, and exhaust manifold back on the car. Intake and manifold were pretty straightforward, and removal of each shock/spring takes about 4 minutes. Then the spring compressor fun began.

Basically, we couldn't compress the stock spring without the compressors slipping to one side, and just trying to compress the first one took a solid hour. Final solution? Buy another set of spring compressors, and just put so many of them on that they can't slip enough to create a problem! :-P After that, everything went pretty smoothly.

So now I have the car back at stock ride height, and man, it's not fun at all any more. Turn-in is slow, it rolls all over the place, and ride height feels like that of a small SUV. :-\

After that, we attempted to put my new camber plates in the Evo. The instructions were entirely in Japanese, so they were of no use. The stock strut assembly came out easily, and the whole process went pretty smoothly, except for a couple little spacers that seem to have a place to go.

So both plates go in, I shove the struts all the way in to max out the camber, tighten things up, and go for a test drive.

"Clunk clunk clunk"

Fantastic, it's making noise, and I'm running out of time. I had to leave by 5:20 or so to make it to a softball tournament, and the car work isn't complete.

Fortunately Brad and Clint come through, and offer to stick around and fix it for me. As it turns out, those spacers were needed underneath the top mounting bolt, as otherwise the bolt runs out of threads before it's all the way down. I drove the car when I came home, and it felt great. Now off for an alignment this week, wait for my wheels and tires to come in this week, and I'll be ready for this Saturday's autocross.

Sunday I spent plenty of time cleaning up the Integra parts I removed so they can go up for sale, and cleaning up the garage in general from the previous day's activities. Evan also came over to put a new fuel filter in his Camaro, which made the garage smell all kinds of fumey.

Finally, I went to two different Costcos today, including one I had never been to before (near Val Vista and the 202). :-D

A bit of car work

Last week Clayton and I put some Mazdaspeed springs on his new Miata one day after work. A few things came of it:
1. Working on clean new cars is way better than working on old dirty cars.
2. Spring compressors are a huge pain.
3. My impact wrench is pathetic.

Items 2 and 3 kind of go hand-in-hand. Using the impact wrench is definitely the fastest and easiest method of closing up the spring compressors, but mine is so incredibly weak and inefficient that it took forever, and my decent-sized tank was emptying pretty quickly. It's the one that came with my compressor, so I suppose I should expect this weakness, but it's still lame.

That said, I'm not looking for a new one. I think a few good price/performance models are the Husky Composite, Ingersoll-Rand Super Duty, and Craftsman Professional.

But back to the Miata, overall the install went fairly well, and I got a set of wheel sockets for my trouble. The car sits low enough that it's pretty close to "just right," and to my surprise, it seems to actually ride better as well. Win-win!

More GH, azsolo2 stuff

I found a little time for some Guitar Hero on Friday night. I finished a number of expert-level songs that I hadn't completed previously, then went back and got better scores on some of the easier expert songs. Finally, I finished up by beating Bark at the Moon on hard (just barely), thus beating the hard level. :-D Time to work on those bonus tracks!

Finally got the new azsolo2.com site up last night as well. My lack of creativity really came through with the text logo I decided to implement at the last minute. ;-) Hopefully I don't slack off too long in putting in those other features we wanted...

Jury duty and such

Got stuck with Jury Duty on Friday, but it wasn't bad at all. It was for county court, there was only one trial, and the defendant didn't show up so we all got to go home after a few hours. :-P

That said, I "finished" up the work on my car Friday afternoon, with "finished" in quotes because I really didn't complete all the work I intended to complete. Three of the hoses were just not accessible with the intake manifold there, and I wasn't going to take it off to replace them. Not at the rate I work anyway, when I don't really know what I'm going to do. Besides, I always secretly hope that the first time the IM comes off, ITBs are going back on in its place, and I don't have those right now. :-D Anyway, at least I'm driving my car again instead of the Neon, and maybe I'll try to address the stalling problem in that car again.

Got some good time in on Guitar Hero this weekend, and scores are starting to improve. On medium difficulty, I have five stars on every regular song except Coyboys From Hell (I have five on most bonus tracks, but I've only played each of them once). On hard difficulty...well it's a little harder. :-P I've unlocked the final set of songs, but they're just too much for me at the moment, so I'm going back and replaying the earlier songs. I have five stars on the first 7 or 8 tracks, plus a couple others. I beat a few songs on expert, but that's still way beyond me in general.

The azsolo2.com update is closer to being done - I believe all of the pages are complete, now I just have to make some minor changes, update it for 2006, and review the whole thing.

Football camaro mount

Went to the ASU vs USC football game on Saturday, and despite ASU's loss, it was really a good game. Held them off until the very end of the fourth quarter, but that was it. Should be interesting to see where we fall in the rankings after the loss.

After the game, I went with Evan to pick up some lightly-used race tires for his Camaro, some meaty 265/45-16 V710s. We meet the guy to buy the tires, and for whatever reason Evan's car won't start. Fantastic. Somehow AAA takes two hours to arrive, and the car gets towed to the dealer. That's exactly how I wanted to spend my Saturday night.

Sunday meant Camaro parts buying, with a trip up to Rippy's to buy some used shocks and look at a stack of ESP parts for sale. He just came away with the shocks, but we got some good advice when it comes to actually installing them.

Finally, I built the in-car camera mount that I bought parts for last week. It turned out...mostly ok, I guess. I didn't have a drill press, and I'd say it's near impossible to cut through box aluminum walls in a straight line, at least the way I was approaching it. So the holes for the post are kind of scraggly, and the whole thing has a bit of a tilt to it. Bah. Should still work at least, but it would have been nice to turn out a better-looking product. I still have enough aluminum left that I could make another one of the same dimensions and just re-use all of my hardware, so I might give it another shot when I can use a drill press.

More azsolo2.com

I didn't get started until late, like after 10:30, but I'm pleased with the progress I made last night. The main admin page is here. In my previous post I mentioned the ability to add event information, but last night I added the ability to change event info, or delete it completely. Both of those functions seem to work ok. :-)

The more public page is the schedule . Last night I added a filter for the events, so you can choose to look at all events, or only one region's events. I realize that I don't list region on the schedule itself, and I really need to do that. ;-)

Anyway, a lot of the primary functionality of the program is done now, IMO. It needs to look better, and eventually accept more data to generate event details pages, but for now I'm pleased with how it has turned out.

azsolo2.com development

Working on the revised azsolo2.com site, one thing we wanted was a section that lists the date of the next event for each region in AZ. Easy, right? Well, that has basically turned into what will hopefully be a full event schedule and details app, where someone can add/edit/remove event information through a web interface, rather than manually updating and uploading HTML files. Given that our event details pages are essentially the same each month, I don't think it should be that difficult. I created functional pages to add event information (but not details) and display the current list of upcoming events, but they're certainly not pretty yet. ;-)

IF it goes according to plan, the display page linked above would eventually replace the current schedule, and details pages would be auto-generated based on some additional input (like event chair, special event, run order, etc.).

This is the current outline for the new site. The calendar will probably be eliminated, leaving just the upcoming events. The weather will most likely just be links, that should be easy. "Most recent forum posts", that one is interesting. With the current forum software we have, I think I can only get the most recent posts from one forum, not the most recent from all of the collective forums, but I'm still looking in to that. Might have to leave that feature out for now. The photo in the center will be smaller. The site search currently works, and the drop-down menus just need their links to be fixed. Most of my work right now though is going into the scheduling thing, which should be nice if I can actually make it work. :-P

Site update, a rolling ball, and some pics

Not an update to this site, mind you, but I finally started the azsolo2 update project last night (you can see it here). I found a free drop-down menu program, and I started to integrate that. The colors and such will be changed, of course, but the idea is there. None of the options in the menu work yet, but that's easy to fix. I also added a random picture to the page (which might end up getting made smaller), and added Google's free site search. I think the calendar and recent forums posts sections will be the toughest to add, so we'll see how that goes.

I ended up buying Katamari Damacy last week, spent way too many hours playing it, and beat it a couple days ago. Really fun game, I wish I could take some screenshots of the stuff I rolled up. There's little more satisfying than rolling through a town and picking up every single building. :-D I should still try to do better on the constellations, but whatever. As far as I'm concerned, I already got my money's worth and then some. Of course, I'm definitely looking forward to the sequel, whenever it happens to come out.

Picture time!

Rest stop along I-40, just inside of New Mexico. Fire hydrants for the dogs!

The stupid radiator hose that broke on the way there. >:-O

Several images from the SLAC tour I went on at my sister's graduation. The building in the first picture is over 2 miles long!

Finally, big wheels of cheese.

Update-o-rama

Laziness has once again gotten the better of me, obviously. My updating skills are lacking.

Break-in of the new car is going well. Over 600 miles as of now, probably closer to 700 by the end of the day thanks to an expedition out to a new kart track on the west side this afternoon.

This past weekend I was in Palo Alto, CA for my sister's graduation. It was interesting to really see the Stanford campus (I had been once before, but didn't see much of it). Lots of large old buildings and huge trees. :-P They offered a tour of SLAC, the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. They claim it's the longest building in the world, at around 2 miles long. It really wasn't much to see, as the outside of the buildings aren't kept in particularly great shape. Overall, perhaps a bit disappointing. I took a couple camera phone pics, but of course, they're still on my phone.

The commencement ceremony was a bit odd at times. It seems that the tradition is for students to go out on the field, not in an orderly manner, but rather in whatever unusual way they can think of, and just do crazy stuff for about half an hour (something like this). Some of my favorite things to see were people dressed like Lego men, some dressed as Domokun's, and a large group playing tetris. Again, pics on the camera phone. Steve Jobs was the invited speaker, and that was kind of odd. Wired offers a pretty decent summary of his speech.

I'd say the most interesting part of the whole weekend was noting the differences between a state-run university, and a university that can throw as much money as they want at pretty much whatever they want. I'm sure they spend way more than ASU just in day-to-day activities and operations, yet probably have a third to half as many students.

Played Halo 2 several nights last week, and playing regularly was definitely helping. I still didn't like the fact that we kept being matched up against people at least 5 levels higher than us in other game types, but whatever. Hopefully the skills learned won't wear off too fast.

Plans have been made to update the azsolo2 site, and I think that will really turn out well. I'll probably start keeping whatever I'm working on at azsolo2.caffeineslug.com or something, but nothing of interest has been created yet. I'll post updates as the new look progresses.

This is where I lament the fact that I don't update more often, as I can't really remember what else I was going to put here. Maybe the fact that Evo's are awesome, I don't know. Probably something along those lines.

AZsolo2.com ideas

Someone mentioned to me that azsolo2.com could stand to look a little better. I'm not the webmaster, but I threw a basic style together, with a couple different color schemes.

1. Blue theme. This blue is somewhat close to the forum's colors.

2. Home Depot theme. Basic color scheme adapted from Home Depot's website.

3. DP Review theme. Basic color scheme from dpreview.com. Perhaps too dark. ;-)

I've just been modifying stylesheets and taking screenshots once I got a basic layout. No images or anything have been created to make those, so it would look a little better with some real graphics. You can see the HTML here, and here are the stylesheets:
Blue
Home Depot
dpreview

Know of another site with a good color scheme that you'd like to see my try? Let me know.

good to have it back

My car has working a/c again. :-D

clean car

Finally got my car back from the paint shop last week. It's not perfect, but it's MUCh better than it was before. After sitting out all week (while I was in San Diego), it was quite dirty. I cleaned it up tonight, vacuumed the interior, cleaned the glass/mirrors inside and out, and cleaned the front half of the interior. At that point, it was really too dark to continue (about 7:30). I'll probably try to clean the rear half of the interior tomorrow afternoon, as it's probably the dirtiest part. Some pics in the mediocre light:

Ready for paint!

Taking the car in to get painted tomorrow. They told me I could save an hour's worth of labor if I took the wing off myself. :-P Therefore, I present you with the wingless Integra:

This is an interesting picture...you can see the outline of the wing on the faded part of the car. Things really show up well in fluorescent light!

And finally...the old VTEC badge is getting replaced. I'll take a pic of the new one when I get the car back. :-)

Working on the car...again

Such torment. On Saturday, Teresa came over and helped me put the front bumper back on the car. We thought were were just about done, when what happens? It turns out that we can't get the passenger-side turn signal back in. The bent part of the bumper is in the way! So off with the bumper cover (again). After talking to a couple people, we decide to try and bend it back (as a new bumper is ~$260). First, a stop at Sears for some basic tools:

A 12" wrench and 7" Vise-Grips. We went from this:

to this:

That was enough to get both the turn signal and the "front bumper gusset" back on the car. After that, it went pretty smoothly. Here's the finished product:


Next stop, the paint shop!

Another day with the car

Worked on the car a bit more this afternoon. It looks like the old lower bumper is ok, so I took that off the old upper bumper and put it on the new upper bumper.

The bumper:

Bumper on the car (not bolted down, just a test fit):

More work on the car

Yesterday I went to Certifit and bought some of my new parts - a pair of headlights, a fender, and an upper bumper cover. The bumper cover doesn't have the word "Integra" on the front of it, but that always made it a pain to wax anyway. :-P Otherwise, everything looks good so far. I put the headlights in last night - they're so clean! Here's the comparison pic (click for larger):

They both seem to work fine, and it was really easy to swap them out.

Here's the fender:

But wait! What's that warning down there?

No bare feet? Huh?

My internet connection at home went down last night, so I have a post about a concert I went to that's just waiting to be put up. Oops

More car stuff

Worked on my car a little more yesterday. Was able to get the a/c tensioner pulley out, and it's notably out of balance - probably the reason it has been coming off. My hands are about 4 sizes too large to try and get it back in though. We (Evan and I) also put more brake fluid in the abs unit - and my abs light finally turned off. :-P Now I need to see if I can buy just an accumulator, then pay attention to all the warnings concerning its replacement in the service manual. I have a feeling it's not going to be cheap, and if that's the case, I'll probably just keep adding fluid to my system as necessary.

Oh, and an Acura dealer finally opened up a couple miles from my house. :-)

Pics are up

I took some pics of my car in its current stage of destruction. Click for a larger image.

While I was there, I also took a new engine bay pic, a pic of the header everyone gave me, and a pic of my evil ABS unit.

Time to work on the car

I mentioned a few days ago that I got in a minor car accident. After looking at the estimate and getting a check from the insurance company, I decided to fix if myself (with the help of friends). Should be able to save quite a bit of money.

Tonight, my friend Evan came over to help me disassemble the car. We took off the front bumper, front passenger fender, passenger-side side molding, and the hood. All in all, it was much easier than I expected. My service manual had more than adequate instructions for removing the bumper and side molding, and the fender was just held on by a number of bolts. Everything (from finding the tools to cleaning up) only took a little over 90 minutes.

When we were done, we took a pressure washer and some Simple Green to the engine bay to clean things up (much to the shock of those who give me a hard time about my car always being dirty). It looks much better now, and probably better still tomorrow in the light. I'll be taking some pics tomorrow. Hopefully I can get replacement parts this week!

New format

Yep, I finally caved. I'm now using blog software (Movabletype) instead of updating the main page by hand. This makes it much easier to have updates, it archives everything for me, I can do updates from anywhere, and it basically just saves a lot of work. It was relatively easy to set up, too. Hopefully everything works out well!