Teh Official "Dude Where's My Forum?" Thread, Brought to you by the minds of Box, and her fiancée, Lorelei Options

[Box]

Supra is looking good.

Wooo a suicycle. I'd like a bike but people don't look out for cars much less bikes. My brother had gotten a later 00's Yamaha 650cc V-Star, bought all the riding gear and got the license only to ride it maybe twice before deciding it wasn't worth it and got rid of it.

Surf City Black Max is working well for me on the cowl piece and tires, I know it beats the hell out of the Mother's Back to Black. Only thing though is it's a conditioning cream so you'll get a like new appearance, nothing artificially super shiny which is fine for me since that's what I want and it lasts a long time. It's been a month and three weeks on the tires and I'd say they're at about 75% of what they looked like when it was first applied, same for the cowl piece in a month and a week but it's also always in direct sunlight and plastic.

[Bitter]

Celica isn't out in the sun much but the black stuff looks as black as when it went on a year ago with forever black.


There goes $150 in stuff to make a 4 relay headlight harness system to run two H4 4x6 lamps for my auntie's Capri Turbo so it won't melt the headlight switch again and so I can cobble together one working switch out of two damaged ones because parts for this car are harder and harder to find without paying through the nose or getting used stuff that's as bad or worse than what it's already got!

I'm going to wire it as one set of two relays for hi/lo on one headlight and another set of relays for hi/low on the other headlight. All 12GA power and ground cable and 18ga triggers, I'm going to run separate triggers and the inputs will be fused as well as the outputs. Crap, I'm short a fuse holder....I think I have some spares here I can use though. Since it's H4 I can just run the 12GA for power input to the relays since it'll only see one filament on at a time except for a brief moment when the high beams are being flipped on or if they're flashed. Won't get a terrible voltage drop even with 100W of lamp going. I'm also going to re-do her engine and chassis grounds if I can get the bolts free or just make new ones to new places and hopefully resolve some other odd issues with the car.

Just going to leave the bulbs as the stock H4's the lamps come with, I don't think she'll need spots of sun from the high wattage bulbs but with 12ga cabling it'll be upgradable. I almost ran 10ga but that was overkill and that's a bit thick to run for pop up lights. Also need to diagnose the pop up lights to see if it's a bad switch in the one motor or a bad module. If it's a bad switch in the motor I can probably clean/repair that.

This post has been edited by Bitter: Sep 28, 2016 - 10:35 PM

[NgoFcukinWay]

Anndddd....final-ish results:

Still got a few small spots to touch up, but overall, loving it.

lip is a bit chapped. needs some back to black on there.

and stop taking pictures with a potato.

I'm not too worried about the lip. It's doing its job by taking a beating on these here Houston roads. I do need to send the plastic windshield cowel off to be either hydrodipped or just properly painted since i rattle-canned that sumbitch and it's flaking off in bits.

Photos were taken with my friend's iPotato 6S Prus. I need to save up for another DSLPotato, but....racecar is more importanterest....and so is going back to school and finishing my degree. lol

[SwissFerdi]

Wooo a suicycle. I'd like a bike but people don't look out for cars much less bikes. My brother had gotten a later 00's Yamaha 650cc V-Star, bought all the riding gear and got the license only to ride it maybe twice before deciding it wasn't worth it and got rid of it.

That's unfortunate. I'm apprehensive as well, and girlfriend is less than happy. I picked it up for a song from a coworker, so even though I didn't want a bike for a few years I couldn't pass it up. 125cc won't kill me, but I won't be able to get out of the way of anyone that's trying to kill me either.

[Box]

Wooo a suicycle. I'd like a bike but people don't look out for cars much less bikes. My brother had gotten a later 00's Yamaha 650cc V-Star, bought all the riding gear and got the license only to ride it maybe twice before deciding it wasn't worth it and got rid of it.

That's unfortunate. I'm apprehensive as well, and girlfriend is less than happy. I picked it up for a song from a coworker, so even though I didn't want a bike for a few years I couldn't pass it up. 125cc won't kill me, but I won't be able to get out of the way of anyone that's trying to kill me either.

Yeah it is, the last time he rode someone almost hit his rear tire because they weren't paying attention and that was enough for him. Hopefully drivers in Florida are better and your rides are uneventful.

[Box]

Celica isn't out in the sun much but the black stuff looks as black as when it went on a year ago with forever black.


There goes $150 in stuff to make a 4 relay headlight harness system to run two H4 4x6 lamps for my auntie's Capri Turbo so it won't melt the headlight switch again and so I can cobble together one working switch out of two damaged ones because parts for this car are harder and harder to find without paying through the nose or getting used stuff that's as bad or worse than what it's already got!

I'm going to wire it as one set of two relays for hi/lo on one headlight and another set of relays for hi/low on the other headlight. All 12GA power and ground cable and 18ga triggers, I'm going to run separate triggers and the inputs will be fused as well as the outputs. Crap, I'm short a fuse holder....I think I have some spares here I can use though. Since it's H4 I can just run the 12GA for power input to the relays since it'll only see one filament on at a time except for a brief moment when the high beams are being flipped on or if they're flashed. Won't get a terrible voltage drop even with 100W of lamp going. I'm also going to re-do her engine and chassis grounds if I can get the bolts free or just make new ones to new places and hopefully resolve some other odd issues with the car.

Just going to leave the bulbs as the stock H4's the lamps come with, I don't think she'll need spots of sun from the high wattage bulbs but with 12ga cabling it'll be upgradable. I almost ran 10ga but that was overkill and that's a bit thick to run for pop up lights. Also need to diagnose the pop up lights to see if it's a bad switch in the one motor or a bad module. If it's a bad switch in the motor I can probably clean/repair that.

Hmm, may have to look into Forever Black once going through what I have.

I figured this is what you were doing asking about headlamps for a Ford. For what it's worth the 12/3 AWG ended up working perfectly fine with the popup setup on the Firebird, but I was able to route it through the space in the core support the factory wiring went through by assembling the harness inside the car. Between the E-codes and wiring harness it'll be a night and day difference over the crappy DOT sealed beams.

[Bitter]

Yea, I'm sure it will be a big ass difference, what she has now are so dim, the fog lights are brighter than the head lights!

[Box]

I know I couldn't see for crap with the Sylvania sealed beams that were in my car, hence the immediate upgrading.

Was cool and overcast this afternoon so figured would be a good time to wash the car and reapply Black Max, somehow someway there are now two 1/8" knicks in the nosecone, one to the primer on the "beak" and one to the composite above the driver turn signal. Only thing I can figure since there was also heavy bug debris is I must've hit a gathering of beetles the other night. Le sigh, someday I'll have the money to blow on colour changing it to Midnight Purple II or Reflex Purple.

This post has been edited by Box: Sep 29, 2016 - 7:40 PM

[Bitter]

I don't know how she sees at all at night with the lights she has to be honest, I think she just guesses and hopes. With the bad switch the lights flick on and off when she hits bumps and sometimes the parking/tail lights don't come on with the headlights or vice versa!

[Box]

Maybe she has night vision. I also remember why GM is my domestic of choice for some reason.

[Bitter]

Haha, they weren't any better in the late 80's/early 90's.

[Box]

I dunno from the third gens and fox bodies I've seen the third gens are a little better. Not to say I wouldn't buy a Ford or I don't like them, I think a '99-04 Cobra with its factory IRS and a hydraulic clutch conversion could perhaps sway me some. Then again there's always the Corvette to get IRS. Hmm... or a manual swapped SC400... or maybe a later M3 or 6 series BMW... Or the new Camaro and Mustang...

Apparently Heidts came out with a IRS conversion for third gens, and last I checked fourth gens weren't too terribly different since people put fourth gen axles into third gens all the time. So I'd imagine a fourth gen specific kit isn't too far away, then again it's also $7,000 and at that rate I'd just rather get another car. Damn my pickiness. After having a V8 backed by a manual transmission I can't live without it, I just want world class suspension to go with it.

Oh yeah, or a LS swapped Z32 300ZX since there are kits now that reuse the 5-speed in the Z car.

This post has been edited by Box: Sep 30, 2016 - 2:08 PM

[Bitter]

Boosted Duratec 3.0 Taurus, that's what you need. No one will ever suspect a thing....

[Box]

I like the idea of a sleeper, I've just yet to find one I inherently like. Unless something like the 6th gen Celica counts. A hearse maybe with the vanity tag DIRTNAP? I don't know, I'm trying.

[Bitter]

1MZ swap 6G GT would be a fun fun fun car to daily drive.

[Box]

If I got another 6th gen Celica that's what I'd want to do, I would probably have bought another Celica had it not been for finding the Firebird.

[Box]

Microsuede arrived earlier than expected, so I guess I know what I'll be doing today. Looks really nice, better than I expected for the price. It matches the interior fairly well, certainly closer than black anyway.

[Bitter]

Coincidence, bunch of the wire harness stuff is going to be here today! Won't have the rest till during the week so next weekend is probably when it'll go down. I just need to for sure figure how I'm going to wire this with the safest redundancy without excessive wiring runs.

[Box]

The way I did it low and high are separated but feed both sides and then I could run a 15A fuse for what should be around a 12A load on low and then a 20A fuse for what should be a 15A load on high with the 100/80 bulbs. 12 AWG maintaining a 3% drop in voltage or better can carry a 20A load 10 feet, 10A load 15 feet, or 5A load 30 feet. So using 12 AWG I really don't see where running a separate circuit for each filament on each side would really prove beneficial, especially using standard wattage or even slightly overpowered bulbs.

[Bitter]

Hmmm....

My thought was to isolate failure points. So one 12ga power feed per headlamp but split it at the relays so one relay for high and one relay for low? That way I still can isolate each headlamp on it's one fuse but that would mean a failure that pops the fuse would disable one headlight entirely. Since this isn't my car I need to make this robust, long lasting, and failure resistant which is why I'm leaning toward redundancy. I probably should have gotten a little fuse block to mount to the engine bay, and I might do just that!

http://www.ebay.com/itm/BLUE-SEA-5045-ST-B...PBy&vxp=mtr like that, that would work great. I can run a fused 10GA to that then have a fuse per filament and a relay per filament that way should any one wire fail it's isolated to JUST that one circuit and that one filament. Make sense? If it were my own car I'd do it the most simple way, but it's not my car. I also need to keep it using easily available parts like normal blade fuses and standard type relays so should she move and I can't go fix it someone else can easily understand the circuit and readily get replacement parts.

This post has been edited by Bitter: Oct 2, 2016 - 2:27 PM