Let me tell you about my day
 

11/14/08
I was up by 5AM, which is fairly typical of me on a weekday. Spent the morning preparing for the day ahead: packing, prepping, getting paperwork in order, getting money from the bank, starting insurance coverage, etc etc on the car I was to pick up.

My ride came about 12:30, only 30 minutes late. I was chauffeured to a terminal for Atlanta's public transit system, MARTA. Because my ride was late, I was not able to pick up a burger on the way. :jerkit:

I got to the MARTA station to find out that they no longer accept "tokens". How lovely, I'm glad that I purchased that bulk pack of tokens all those years ago and saved 10% off their individual total retail value. :jerkit:
Also come to find out that MARTA now uses a pass card system, and the rider is forced to purchase their own card for only $5. How awesome; I have to purchase a $5 card in order to purchase a $1.75 ride on public transit. :jerkit:

I get the MARTA pass situated and gain access to the terminal. I'm carrying 2 bags, and oh the escalator is out of service. Some dumb ass parent lets their child, who was wearing Crocks footware, ride the escalator and mess up his foot. Gee, I've never heard that kids wearing Crocks on escalators was a problem. :jerkit:

So with my gimp knee I walk up the un-ending staircase to access the train platform. 2/3 of the way up, my left leg is shaking and my knee is aching. Not that oww my muscle is sore kind of ache. More like that oww I don't like being stabbed in my kneecap with a machete type of feeling. :jerkit:

However I make the best of the situation, the train comes, I board it and we go for a ride. The train-man cometh and orders me to move my luggage to the luggage area, instead of having it on the seat next to me. You see, the train was nearly empty, BUT perhaps a 3rd passenger would wish to ride in the same car as me, and there is always the likelyhood that the only seat said person would wish to park themselves would be the one immediately next to me.
I politely decline the request, and then decline again after minimal protest. The trainman got bored with the excersize, and left me. :jerkit:

Half way through my splendid public transit journey, I am forced to switch trains. I depart my empty train car and find my way to the platform appropriate for my end destination. I consulted the schedule and determined that my wait at the platform would be 10 minutes long, so I found an out of the way area to place my bags on the ground next to me while I stood gaurd beside them. A rather charming young gentleman approximately 18 years in age had quite an interest in my bags. I could tell that he was interested because he kept walking by them, with his eyes fixed on them. He would glance at me, then stare at the bags. He then pulled up the hood from his sweatshirt and covered his face. I relocated myself and my bags to an area that had adjoining walls behind me such that I could not be approached at any angle that I could not see. The young man decided to follow me over. I placed the bags behind me and to my weak side and was sure to keep eye contact with the young man. The train came. I borded it, and so did he. :jerkit:

This train car quickly filled up. However I held fast to my luggage. A woman sitting diagonal from me had obvious AIDS blisters on her neck and face. Nice. My stop came up, and I exited. The young man from earlier did too. He continued to eyeball me and my bags. :jerkit:

I exited the station and waited for my associate to pick me up. We had phone contact which confirmed he was a couple minutes behind me. The thug decided he needed to hang out at the station too. I slightly lifted my untucked shirt and allowed it to bunch up just a little over and slightly exposed my Glock, secured at 4 o'clock in a Don Hume IWB holster. The punk lost interest and went back into the station. He apparently already had a pass card. :giggle:

My associate, RotornutFD3s, arrived at the MARTA terminal and picked me up. We drove to Birmingham International Airport to catch our flight to Dallas. The plane was late. The weather was rough so the flight was turbulent and we were unable to sleep. Rotor closed his eyes once, right as we were hitting a severe spot, and smashed his noggin on a bulkhead. :giggle:

The very attractive lady sitting to my right was a flight attendant for the airline, assumably just catching a ride to Dallas. She went to the galley and came back with 4 travel bottles of vodka and went to town. 3 with sprite and the last in a bloody mary. She then left and came back smelling like she bathed in an entire bottle of perfume. Too bad she was good lookin :jerkit:

I met the seller of my new vehicle at the airport. All goes well and we conclude our affairs. At 11pm eastern, Rotornut and I depart Dallas and head towards Atlanta. I drive for about 2 and a half hours or so while Rotor sleeps. The radar dector falses at very high volume and goes off. We decide to pull off and get some fuel, and I ask Rotor to drive. He drives for a short time, and we decide that it's time to eat dinner. A this time it's 3AM eastern so the only place we found open was Waffle House. Yea, 3AM Waffle House in the middle of nowhere. But it was fun. Rotor then continues our drive eastbound, however he starts falling asleep at the wheel. So we decide it's probably in our best interests if I drive. So I do, we chat for a while, then Rotor is out again for another 2 hours. I drive until 7:30AM, and I just couldn't anymore.
Rotor wakes up and I ask him to try again. He ends up becoming alert and was able to drive for the remaining 2 hours to pick up his vehicle back at Birmingham. I even managed to get a 30 minute nap in.

So, in summation:
I have been up since 5AM yesterday with exception to a 30 minute nap which occured around 8AM this morning. I made my way from my home in a distant Atlanta suburb to Birmingham, where I caught a jet to Dallas, and drove back in one shot. The return drive was 820 miles and took 13 hours and 15 minutes including our food and gas stops. Total travel time 23 hours 45 minutes!

Here is what I have to show for it

Nice Ben! What's the setup?

99 AE with all equipment that implies
+ Bell Stage 4, 2560r with ceramic coated turbine, Xede, RC 550s, ACT clutch, etc etc etc

Car has a few issues to be sorted and is untuned. Still it is very smooth and has power to bury the speedo needle at 145. Averaged 28 mpg with two full size male passengers and a FULL complement of cargo. The trunk and package shelf were completely full. And there was quite a bit of jackassery and tomfoolery with the loud pedal once I got close to home.

Very nice indeed. I'm sure it is worth the ordeal that you went through. Zoom Zoom!

Schweet! A BEGi boosted 10th Aniv. congrats man.

Concealed carry FTW! Glad you were ok.

Also, big thanks to Rotornut for his help with this expedition!

You're going to have some fun with that, I'm sure! What're your plans for it, anyway? Did you pick this up from Begi? I might have to stop by Atlanta over Xmas...

No, not directly from BEGi, though the car's not been out of their shop very long. I have the BEGi invoices from September and October of this year relating to the installation of the S4 and its associated items.

Car has a couple issues to be addressed. Nothing serious. I have my 6ULs, Tein coilovers and hardtop for the car. Jason @ Enthuza is going to build a dual 3" exhaust. Car will need dyno tuning of the Xede and/or possible MS in the future?

Longer term plans include later model facelift, perhaps with RB front bumper, and 01+ tails.

No problem sir! I'm just glad everything went so uneventfully. Apologies again for being so damn tired on the drive. I did mean to get a good nap on the plane, but that got shot to hell. lol
Damn work for wearing me out this past week.

Feel free to snag some of my photos to post in here. :)

Quotes from the weary travelers:
"Here come some more sluts..."
"Pyrometer. FIRE!!!"

so sweet how you guys are all getting NBs now. sounds like a "fun" trip.

Short video of 60-145 (incomplete unfortunately)
MOV02837.flv - Video - Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

Rotornuts's Pics:

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"The Shocker" classic

this made me smile

fuck, I wanted that car. Treat it as well as I would.


Now I have to paint my 1994 that color.

I'm sure he won't blow it up though!!

Congrats Ben. Nice car. What are the plans for your 91?

Woot-woot, congrats Big Ben....and props to Rotornut for the assist

Me jealouz

This is really funny. today at work I looked outside and saw a 99AE in the parking lot and was like "Shit, that is good lookin car! I wouldnt mind a turbo one!"

Congrats man!

definately jealous :). that ss tubular manifold looks even better than i thought haha.

hey Ben you do know you could have gotten a 1-way marta pass for $2.00 instead..lol

BTW isn't marta just so much fun to ride.

Glad you got back safe. If you need a hand after work, feel free to ask man, as I am just 5 mins away.

I did buy a 1 way marta trip for $1.75. But you have to have a pass card to fund the fare to. You then wave the card in front of a scanner to both enter and exit the station.

Back in the day when I used to ride the train, you could purchase tokens from a vending machine or use a swipe card in reader. Access out of the station was not blocked or monitored.

Now you have a card with a radio transmitter in it that you wave in front of a scanner. Like the new quick pay credit cards. And you have to swipe the card to exit the station as well as to enter.

Moving Assailants Rapidly Through Atlanta

yea I rode marta for sometime to go to work. I have one of those nice 5 breeze card. They never tell you but you can by a 1-way ticket with a 50cent upcharge instead of the whole $5 card. Either way, the system is completely retarded.

The car looks great man. Can't wait to see what the car looks like with 6ul and the tein.

Nice car man, one heck of an upgrade from the 91. I really like my enthuza 3" single.

How do you like that steering wheel setup? I'm tired of the lack of leg room the stock nardi provides after daily driving the car for the past month.

Huh...

NYC abandoned tokens a few years ago in favor of magnetic cards which, in addition to buying at MTA facilities, you can also buy in stores much like a phone card. If you only need a single fare however, the vending machines in the subway stations will sell you a disposable (paper) card which includes one transfer.

The wheel is very nice. Feels awesome. However and unfortunately because it is smaller, it blocks my view of the top of the gauges. This is due to my short 29" inseem and the fact that I have to sit closer to the wheel than most. If I push the chair a click or two back, I have good view of the gauge cluster but don't have enough control over the clutch pedal. Since you're taller than I am, it won't be a problem.

I'm considering between dealing with not seeing between 10 and 2 o'clock on the speedo and tach (and the fake ass oil pressure gauge completely) in favor of its awesomeness and increased leg roor, or trading the momo for a nice AE or newer style stock wheel w airbag.

well it definitely looks like it was worth it. the car is beautiful man, and even more so under the hood :D

helluva good deal for sure

I am also very happy more of the regulars are getting nb's, this will bring many interesting threads that will help me and give me ideas on what I will do with mine.

congrats man

Due to my depowered steering the last thing I want is a much smaller wheel. I'd love Y8s setup, the more stock sized dished wheel would still give me the leg room I want.

You need to do the oil pressure gauge mod. Just get the right VDO 0-100 psi sending unit and you might have to change two resistors IIRC. Anyway, it works great.

Thanks. It's starting to look better too. Got my 6ULs on, though it's too dark to get a pic w/o a pod for the camera. The 4x4 look is because the car hadn't been moved since lowering it down so the suspension was not settled. I'm really diggin the ULs on the car though, and know they'll look great when the car is 1-1.5" lower with the Teins.

The BEGi air scooper (which is incredibly functional BTW) is a little crooked. I noticed when I had the nose up that the pass side mounting bracket is a little bent. Pretty easy fix.
I can get the car's coolant to 205° or so if it sits still for a few minutes. Within 1 minute of driving, it's decreased to 185° and usually gets to 175° or so shortly. It stayed low and level the entire 13 hour trip back with only a few short stops for food or fuel. Oil temp is usually within 10° of coolant temp, though it does take a pretty long time to come up to temp from dead cold. I don't think the factory coolant/oil heat exchanger is on the car, since it has the Thompson relocation kit. I didn't think to even look for it until just now. Car has a autometer oil pressure gauge too, so I don't see a need to deal with correcting the gay stock gauge.

Tomorrow I need to find the other frankenstein bolt that's hopefully in my garage (I've found only one so far) and I'll see how the hardtop fits with the roll bar. Might need some low pro side latches or something.

Last pic is my 91 with the AE wheels. I really like the style of them on the 91 a bunch, but think that the same style but standard finish 99 15" painted wheels would look better than the fancy polished ones.

<edit> attachments seem to be gay right now. not having luck.
<edit edit>used imageshack
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Nice, looks great. Congrats, and god luck with the sale of the old car. I'll need a ride next time I'm up that way. :)

funny, I had a set of nickel 6-ul's planned for that car too.

I'm going to fab up a splitter to incorporate the begi scooper too.

This car makes stupid power down low and pulls all the way up. It does not make near the peak power that my 91 makes, but it definately wins in area under the curve. Power comes on much smoother in the blue car. There is 0 lag. Feels like a low 12 second car as it is, untuned, on wastegate only. I think it might get a better time in the quarter than the 91, but the 91 would have a higher trap speed.

I am very impressed with Bell's kit.

Also the under radiator scooper works too well. It's gone for the winter.

Very VERY nice car, Ben!!

As I was reading, this is what I was waiting for... The C&C Part. Well played, Sir. I gotta say though, I'm the douche that would've said something to him. After bunching up your shirt, "Like those bags, huh?" :giggle::jerkit: Fucking punk bitch kid. Almost makes you wish he tried something, but hes not worth the cost of a round.

All of these NBs are making me feel like I drive a dinosaur..

Looks like a killer buy, congrats.

Car is gorgeous, congratulations. Needs more gauges, though...

God i love my car. We're NB buddies, raw as f#*k.

Has 5. Plans are to add 1 more (EGT).

Chad you scare me. You really do.

6UL + Tein SS
I'm going to drop the rear down a wee bit more.

http://img212.imageshack.us/img212/5388/pict0057cn5.jpg
http://img213.imageshack.us/img213/1769/pict0060nz8.jpg
http://img381.imageshack.us/img381/7334/pict0062jm0.jpg

I think you're right about lowering the rear a bit more. I also think you need to step up to the 15x9.

omg DO THE HEADLIGHTS AND TAILS ALREADY.