mikeatrpi

Very nice Dave! You need a bigger garage...

In addition to & maybe repeating the suggestions here - Bronx Zoo The Intrepid Central Park - tons of stuff to do here Times Square - you can walk through it now, no traffic Rockefeller Center Broadway (TKTS booth in Times Sq has "cheap" tickets) South Street Sea Port (its by Wall St) Battery Park The Met, Natural History, etc... Museums Grand Central Terminal Be sure to ride the subway. Walk up and down 5th Avenue. There's designer stores, American Girl (maybe too old for your daughter?), Chinatown, Little Italy / Mulberry Street NBC has free concerts, "Today show concert series" Brooklyn Bridge Canal St if your wife / daughter are into the knock off pocket books I've never done the red bus tour, but they're all over the place and you can't miss them if that's your thing. O'Luney's if you like an Irish pub We like Famous Ray's for a slice (by Macy's). Avoid SBarro!! Carmine's is touristy but tasty for Italian food I've never done the Ellis Island thing. We did check out the Statue of Liberty when I was a kid, and while cool, I remember standing in line for a while...! AND that's just the city...

Glad you got it - if you're still in the area I'll buy you a beer! EvilC and Cygnusx1 are somewhat close to Rye as well. By the way, your job sounds a LOT more exciting than mine...

Funny, Clive. I believe the MBA is certainly more well known! The trick to two years - summer courses. Load 'em up...

Good luck, Clive! I did my MEng. in two years, distance ed. It is hard - you're absolutely right - to devote such a large block of time to going back to school. But it will be worth it, for sure!

This is fantastic! Thank you all for the tips! John you're right. If you see two newly-weds who look like Casper the ghost prancing around the beach - well, that just might be us! I'll update you all as we continue to plan our route.

Congratulations, Clive! I hear you on the outrageous housing prices and taxes. Its killer up here in the 'burbs... I can't imagine how bad it is by you!

OK Californians, you've got a New Yorker coming your way at the end of April. "Move ovah! Aahhhhhh, forget about it!" I desperately need advice. Here's the deal. This is my honeymoon. We have a rough plan to fly to San Francisco, drive south 2-3 hours a day and stop in Monterey, Paso Robles, Los Angeles / Long Beach to San Diego. We've got about 10 days for this. She wants to see the famous hollywood stuff and do a celebrity tour, bonus points if we happen to spot any stars. I want to see cars and coffee in Irvine if possible. We are trying to have a rough itinerary with a reasonable amount of driving on US-1 wherever possible, but not be overwhelmed with too much to do. So - what would you recommend we do? I see the rental car companies charge 2-3x for a convertible, and absolutely kill you for returning at a different location... so we're thinking about making a circle on the voyage even if we splurge for the convertible. What should we see that is inland? Thank you guys!! Mike

Did you drop a wheel weight?

Now that's an interesting point. When one sets their trigger angle in MS, you wonder where in the "wipe" is referencing as '0'. Because, Ben - the maximum could be different for different configurations. If one needed more advance, they would have to rotate the distributor clocking and correspondingly adjust the trigger angle.

I had an issue where I was accidentally running more timing than I knew, when I blew my HG. I received some sound advice from "x64v" which I'll pass along... verify that the timing on the megasquirt screen matches what's actually happening. Set your MS to a fixed angle... 20 degrees, whatever you choose. Check it with a timing light at idle - and across the RPM range.

Dave it looks great! I'm looking forward to seeing it in the spring!

Sean, you're a pretty smart dude for figuring all of this out and making it work. I hope you're able to use these experiences as resume-fodder, or at least talking points at the career fair and interviews as you prepare to leave college!

Such a nice engine bay MAG... but the oil filters are upside down! Every change = a big mess!

Hi Mat, I did use the VE analyzer, but my wideband is an AEM and I had to adjust the equation it uses. Maybe my equation has a larger error than I realized? Or our cars are just a little bit different? My car drives pretty well, but its not perfect, especially when you really step on it - and maybe you're fixing the problem areas? I'll compare your tuned map to mine and see how it goes...

THIS is a 1985 Maserati Quattroporte. They call it that because it has *four* doors. And that makes it the most interesting car, in the world!

Another vote for the spud gun / melon mortar! With a computerized trajectory system you could easily get rather sophisticated in a hurry...

With the 3.0 board you shouldn't need the HEI module. You can remove the vacuum advance actuator, then weld (JB should work fine too) on this set of pieces: You'll also want to weld the center shaft to this part where the screw is. That's very important - I skipped that step, timing went way advanced, and I blew my head gasket....! So, don't do that...!! Also you will need shielded wire for the VR, and some - myself included - have needed to use Magnecor ignition wires to further cut down on noise.

And, you'll know if you're dipping into AE. Megatune lights up, and log viewer will show you when you enter AE. Can you post a datalog? Maybe we can look at it for AE and also battery voltage, tach spikes, etc.

Relays clicking? Are you seeing MS resets? Megatune will beep and increment the "Reset x" light in the bottom right corner. In a data log, you'll see a red line. How did you set up your switched 12v source? Mine was a little bit weird if the battery wasn't fully charged. In fact, it still is weird, I have power supply noise and occasionally my relays dip low enough that they click off and on, causing a reset. For now you might consider running that 12-v switched source to the battery, so you can make sure you're not dropping out at the relays. Just remember to unhook it when you're done.

What's so awful about that? Sounded pretty good to me for the first time you've (really) run the car! First, is your timing on? I mean, you set it to 10 degrees fixed and verified that with the light? The car should idle for you on 10 degrees fixed. Once you get that dialed in by adjusting the trigger angle, set it to use the timing map (-10). What do you have for an idle air controller? I used the stock datsun one. To me, it sounds like you need to play with the idle a little bit. Mine did that, rev up, choke, stumble... repeat. It would come back and idle if you opened the throttle a bit, but not too much. By the way, if you used my MSQ file, turn off the accel enrichment for now. And make sure your TPS is calibrated. For that matter make sure all of your sensors are giving reasonable values. But yea, open the idle screw a touch, shoot for 800-1000 RPM for now. I race mine a bit around 900-950 and keep the AFRs in the 13.6 range at idle.

Oh the drama! They nearly had a fist-fight at one point... So then if Force won, he'd have raced Ashley in the finals. Then what? Its a sticky situation for sure.

I'm assuming that's a question for me. Piston heads were fine as best I could tell. You can see the dirty / clean versions in the picture above. I don't know what the ring lands are.... No scoring on the cylinder walls though. I accidentally ran waaay too much timing - I botched my MS / VR Distributor lock out - and blew the gasket after some serious pinging.

That gasket is from MSA. Here's the one that blew... I'm not seeing a big difference??