mndsm's new... (toy)olla!

That's because water doesn't generally have sinusoidal currents. Fortunately, you generally only deal with DC in cars.

mazdeuce wrote: It's amazing how many people really don't get electricity. Or even worse, don't try to get it. One of the coolest things I learned in college was that the flow of water in pipes and the flow of electricity in wires is governed by the same basic equations. What this means is that you can use water as an analogy (as long as the systems are simple) and it works. People can visualize water flowing much easier than electricity, and suddenly they understand.

I can work out plumbing/fluids no problem. Fluids are easy. Electrical, not so much. I can't for the life of me figure it out enough(for the most part, IMO, I have a better grasp on it than most people). My dad's also an ex-Navy electrician.

Wires are pipes. Battery is a pump. Pretty much every device in the car is a little paddle wheel pushed by the electricity to do it's work. Switches are valves. Relays are little pipes that open valves on big pipes. The car itself is just a big pipe and the big reason we ground to the chassis instead of back to the battery is because it's cheaper.
Once you understand that, everything else just builds on it. All you're doing is pushing electricity around.

Spring might show up! It hit the 40s today, which is warm enough for me to work outside. I only had a little light and limited hand strength, so I could only do a little, but the piece that started this whole odyssey is coming together. I've also been shopping suitably gaudy lugnuts for it, I cant decide if neo-chro is right, bright effing green, or gold. The wheels are white.

Not as bling as you want, but I still have the aluminum lug nuts from the Mazda2. Pretty much the last pieces I've been hanging on to. Just silver, but they have provenance. Yours if you want them.

I may take you bup on that... Are they 12x1.5?

99% sure they are. They say on the side, I just need to open the right bin and pull them out. I'll try and find them tomorrow.

Word

That GL logo will look pretty boss on the hood like that.

Tom are you still going to do the paint pen rising sun on the hood?

Gorilla makes spline drive lug nuts in assorted colors including gold. They are not jdm tyte and do not cost an arm and a leg. I found the plating to be much more durable than the pep zone tuner lug options.

Ill be using gold ones on the 5

These are what I have. If they're not going to cut it style wise, no sweat. In all likelihood I have a Civic coming to live with me so they will live on as 'race' parts.

failboat wrote: Tom are you still going to do the paint pen rising sun on the hood? Gorilla makes spline drive lug nuts in assorted colors including gold. They are not jdm tyte and do not cost an arm and a leg. I found the plating to be much more durable than the pep zone tuner lug options. Ill be using gold ones on the 5

Yes. The whole thing was that I was going to sharpie on gl on the hood. Then people saw what I was going to do and wanted stickers. Then deuce demanded a hoodie. So.... Yes.

As far as those lug nuts go, your call. Free good, but they're yours. I don't mimd either way, as I will probably.buy the gaudiest ones I can get.if.you keep.those. I'd say if youve got pending use.for them, keep them. No sense in giving away parts you can use.the neos are the ones I have on my ms3

mndsm is awesome and texts me updates and pictures of Miyuki, kind of like he adopted one of my children. (He sort of did.)

That reminds me- I haven't texted you the best update ever. But that has to wait til my brother is back in town. You're gonna love this one.

U_U_U_U_UPDATE!

So- 204k on the clock. It's summer. I wish to put summer wheels on it. I was searching for lug nuts. You've seen the Neo Chrome ones I posted earlier. I was pretty well set on the gold version of those, then these happened-

MOTHER OF GOD. Yeah, don't care. Spiked lugs? TOTALLY happenening. I was originally going to go with the gold ones, but then I made the mistake of talking to SF1 one night while I was shopping. I should NEVER EVER EVER do that. Because, he idly mentioned that the Sickspeed catalog was full of all sorts of Neo Chrome hilarity- and wouldn't you know it- HOLY HELL

After a brief vote (and by brief I mean one person), it was decided that neo chrome window cranks needed to happen. Miyuki's an old girl, she likes it when you use your hands. So... I need two sets of those.

Then I remembered, I own a serger. I can run ANY KIND OF STITCHING I WANT. Color, size, whatever. And it will do suede. GREEN suede. So.... yeah. Things are starting to come together.

Yep. totally just ordered the neo chrome lug nuts.

Couldn't figure out what neo chrome was. I've decided it's awesome.

Yep. I became obsessed with it a while back. Ordered a set of lug nuts for my ms3 in it. I sense danger since ice seen all the things in neo. Window winders, steering wheels, shift knobs, tow books....

...konig wheels with neochrome lips.

Talking to me while shopping is a bad idea.

I've been considering doing what you're doing, but plorple on the plorple car.

So Neo Chrome is basically chrome after it's been heated up?

E36 M3, now you have me second guessing my choice of gold lug nuts.

Gold is right for the 5. It's more bippu. The neo was accidental. If it wasn't for the winders, I'd be doing gold too. ANYHOW- so Sickspeed for being a ricer company has fantastic customer service. Monday AM I got a courtesy call to make sure I ordered the right thread pitch for the rolla- as I'm guessing most of their customers are idiots. (I imagine I'm at the far end of the bell curve when it comes to people that order spiked neo lug nuts.)They said they were going to ship them that day. TODAY- these showed up

They priority two day'd this E36 M3 for 5 bucks. That is apparently their standard shipping. The best part is, the spikes are removable, and I can order them independently from Sickspeed- so the options are....endless. It's sort of hilarious. The window winders are actually nice billet peices- overall I'm very happy with what my 100$ got me. After some assembly, and some cajoling to get my 3 year old to pay attention (If I get him to help, it makes the wife happy. And if she's happy, everyones' happy) it was game time.

Well, it would have been if I didn't need a 19mm 12pt deep well socket. Who the hell needs one of those on purpose? It was off to the Oreilly- who had nothing, and then the Ace hardware- who carries Craftsman, who apparently makes every weird socket ever (Seriously, when I needed a shallow 36mm for the stupid MINI- Craftsman. And Kobalt. But Craftsman.) and 7$ later, I am the owner of yet ANOTHER single use socket. Damn things collect like I lose 10mm sockets.

The rest of it went without incident. Other than the tires being wider, the rotational size is nearly identical to the stock size- so I didn't have any real fitment issues. I THINK I might have a bit of a rub- but I'm not 100% on that- and I own a fender roller. I can fix it at will. Or a grinder. I DID notice one other pretty significant spot of rust developing, the passenger front door is pretty scruffy on the bottom. The rockers are AMAZINGLY clean however, which is unheard of for a car of this vintage- and other than the rear quarters and that one door, she's not in bad shape. I may bribe the one friend that's in body school to take a whack at the quarters and replace the door and just wrap the car- I'm not sure yet. ALSO- I have to re-assess my plan for the hood. The red paint didn't hold up for E36 M3 over the winter and you can barely tell the difference. I may have to revise my plan. The sharpie will still happen, but most likely in a modified form.

ANYHOW- on to the show!

DIS. SO MUCH. The spikes stick out a good bit from the wheels- which I like. It looks utterly ridiculous. The wheels are awesome. Big ups to failboat and sky-render for putting this package together. NEXT-......

That steering wheel is awesome.

Its actually green wood, too. So its even better than that.

That thing needs a couple of coils cut. And tint. In neochrome.