SteelToad

In a ZX with T-Tops, The piece of metal that has the pin which centers the t-top in place. Its about two inches long and spot welded in place. What the heck is it called, and more importantly, where can I get them ? Thanx

Some nice mirrors http://daytonasp.com/ven/vision%20hot%20rod%20concepts/files/vision%20hot%20rod%20concepts.shtml

Strtok is the function that splits a string into "tokens" based on the delimiters you give it. Basically you give it a string (a line from your file), and the characters that separate words (in your case the space char) and it gives you all the words in your string. http://www.cplusplus.com/reference/clibrary/cstring/strtok.html

Use the force Luke ... if that doesn't work, try: strtok

Just get a gps unit, dead accurate speed, and you wont get lost.

It just seems to be saying "Oh wait, ... I have more"

You cant compare a truck heater directly with what would be going into your car. Theres a huge difference in mass. Warm up a cast iron skillet and a little aluminum pan for the same time, put your hand on each 5 minutes later. If you remote start your car a few minutes early, your going to spend tons less in gas than you are in electricity for a 1K+ watt heater, starting will heat your engine the way it is supposed to be heated. Also for about $0.10 you can put a piece of cardboard in front of part of your radiator

Its all good as long as you remember the safety glases. LOL He really needed to put some decent sized holes in the bottom half of the tube so that when the "piston" went past a certain point the exhaust gases would be able to get out. Building it a quarter the size he used would be a good idea too.

Here's a good way to explain the internal combustion engine to a young kid (or wife). I wouldn't have thought you could build a working cylinder from PVC. It's a pretty interesting project though http://cachefly.oreilly.com/make/WP%20-%20Week4%20Explosion%20Engine.mp4 original article: http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2008/03/weekend_project_explosion.html

That S30 with the t-tops looks fantastic. Before you do this, please make sure you can find weatherstripping for the new roof. It'll probably cost as much as the rest of the project combined

The deadbeat was a boarder at best. He was not an owner or a renter unless he signed a lease or paid rent. You might want to tackle it again from that angle.

Those look like some of the mirrors I've been looking for too try http://daytonasp.com/ven/vision%20hot%20rod%20concepts/files/vision%20hot%20rod%20concepts.shtml or http://visionhotrod.com/gallery.php

That just plain looks HUNGRY

When you paint one part of your car, it does not make that part look better. What it does is make the other parts look worse. I'd say clean the whole thing good, apply some Meguires (http://www.meguiars.com) all over, and wait till you can afford a proper paint job. BTW, it looks great the way it is, maybe just some Armor-All on those wheels

It looks like a nice, easily accessible location to put a built in fire extinguisher canister. You could reach it from the inside, or somebody could reach it from the passenger window.

Yes, they do look pretty nice. I was going to wire some 555 circuits for the lights and flashing, but then I saw the AVR's and it looks like everything I need in one tidy package. I don't think clock speed or switch bouncing will be a problem. For flashing tail lights, I'd only need 2-3 Hz, operating in the Mhz speeds is a tad bit of overkill Transistors probably wont be a problem if I go with LED bulb replacements, might still use (ick) relays.

Thats not a garage ... it's a church ... Amen Dear Santa, Please disregard the previous letter ...

Ok, Here's an idea. When I was looking at flares for my car, I considered how they would look completely blended in with the fenders but I didn't want to do the work. I got some of the heat shrink plastic you can put over windows to insulate them. I cut it to shape, taped it to the tire edge of the flares, and the other edge to the fenders. Warming the plastic with the hair dryer shrinks it and makes it take the smoothest line possible. After that just hit the plastic with primer and you can get a good idea how it would look with about 10 minutes worth of work. You could try the same with the scoops, tape down the leading edge, and where you want it to blend to the rear quarters. You can mock up a lot of ideas with one box of plastic, and a can of primer in just an afternoon. It'll be a heck of a lot easier than mixing resin.

I'm glad to see that at least somebody out there thinks that I'm not barking up the wrong tree. I'm starting from scratch, and as I look at all the old relays and other strange "thingys" I was realizing that it could all be switched with a single controller, at least that way I'll know which wire is going where, and why. It'll be a lot easier running a couple of cat-5 cables to the tail lights, and then just have a transistor switching unit there to power them. Much less electrical drain and brighter/programmable lights. Its funny that you mentioned the overhead view, I just got done with one, on paper, last night (with wiper motor) From what I've seen it looks like the Atmel AVR's are the way to go. They've got a lot of different configurations, internal clocking, and a lot more in the way of individual I/O lines. They're also programmable in C or (ick) Basic. http://www.avrfreaks.com

1. Turn key 2. Depress accelerator The hood on the turbo has the elongated scoop area with the triangular leading edge. But thats no guarantee.

I know there's a few higher end geeks here, any that are familiar with AVR (or other) embedded microcontroller programming. I'm replacing all of my wiring, and thought an AVR would be an interesting way of controlling the lights and other non-engine electronics. At first I was going to wire up some circuits for sequential lights, but this would allow me to do various sequences if I wanted to. I've got plenty of programming and electronics experience, but I've never worked with microcontrollers before.

Z's (IMO) just cant look right with full body graphics. There isn't that much flat surface area on the car to start with. If you start putting graphics on what surface there is, then it just starts to look crowded. The ratio of uninterrupted surface : interrupted surface just gets too low. On the car in the picture, or a Neon, or something like that, you have lots of empty space to work with so they can pull it off. I would say spend the money on a good paint job or detailing, and you'll stand out just fine.

Thanks for the kind words, really, but lets not hijack vinh's thread.

Wouldnt this cause a "problem" if you had a backfire ?

I recessed mine. I remember seeing a really nice vent panel on a high-end sports car once long ago, but for the life of me i cant remember what it was. I freehanded the lines so it would take the upsweep from the door, and continue it through the curve on the t-top's. I'm planning on making panels that I can bolt in place inside the recesses. They're deep so I have plenty of options. I haven't decided yet whether I want to make them functional vents or not but I've left the option open as well. One idea I'm seriously thinking about is to mount a lipstick camera in the vent panel (discreetly) and put a video monitor on the interior where the panel is. That way when I instinctively go to look out the missing window, I can actually see what's in the blind spot. I considered scoops as well, but I figured with the other mods I was doing, it would really look like I was trying too hard.