Adrian_D

Of course now the DIY tow bar (made by the previous owner) does not fit because of the skid. Until I get another tow bar I have no rear recovery points, boooo

Ryan, check out my car luck: Fuel tank was leaking when full on the Jeep, and I suspected there's a crack where I dented the brush guard. So I track down an OEM skid (3 times the thickness of the brush guard), get it cleaned up and powdercoated, find another fuel tank, replace everything and go to fill up. As soon as the pump clicks, fuel gushes down. It turns out I mangled the sending unit gasket, so down comes the fuel tank to replace the gasket.

I've actually been home for 10 days now but I only caught up with the ihop today

Well, I'm alive, back home from France (3 weeks this time), next visit is probably in March. Renault is happy, our company is happy, everybody is happy.

Congrats Mike!!!!

I remember seeing it live on TV, it was in the afternoon for us, and a few days before that I read about that plane which accidentally crashed in the Empire state building.

This is my third week (first of this trip) so far south of Paris and I still haven't visited Paris. Work work work... This weekend my girlfriend is flying in, so we'll be visiting Paris.

The place where I'm staying is 76e / night but it's about 30 miles south of Paris and it's closes on December 11. If you don't want to stay in Paris you can try to stay in a hotel which is close to one of their railway lines. Google RER C for instance.

You guys have been terribly slow at posting these past few weeks

Eh, it's mostly gone by now. I can't say I didn't enjoy going up that unpaved driveway on fresh snow...twice...in order to...make it easier to clear up.

An interesting article to show why I'm concerned about pro-Russia gaining momentum. https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.hotnews.ro%2Fstiri-esential-21413806-harta-romania-prinsa-tot-mai-strans-clestele-rusiei-moldova-bulgaria-ales-presedinti-pro-kremlin-care-alatura-liderilor-din-ungaria-serbia-cehia-slovacia.htm

Myep, hopefully the shakedown will not be military. Again, the side effects of this are much more worrying to me. In my Facebook list I keep an assortment of people, some are pro-Russia and it's ridiculous what kind of information they help spread.

The thing that concerns me is the fact that a brick in the establishment and his views on immigration might give a boost to far-right people (and obviously Russian supporters) in neighboring countries. For Romania it's not that nice, since Hungary is pro-Russia, Moldavia is pro-Russia, Ukraine..well a part of Ukraine is now Russia. And if the citizens supporting far-right and pro-Russia movements gain confidence with this move, it's not exactly a nice place to be in. Russia is pumping tons of money into propaganda at the same time. In a worst case situation we might end up as a bargaining coin when negotiating areas of influence.

So, Trump won...thoughts?

Yup, I was impressed at the previous trip, where we had some clay hills to conquer. Now let's see some serious snow A Suzuki with the same tires did the same climb before me but he was running street pressure and open diffs front and rear, he struggled a bit.

Ridiculous, next time we have to plan in advance so we can meet up.

Plum brandy I'll be in Lardy again starting the 20th. So close.

Goulash and fire water treatment, heck yeah.

Jeep trip again Apparently there's plenty of snow above 3600 ft, our destination is a peak at about 5400 ft. Only bummer is that I still haven't changed my fuel tank. I bought the thicker fuel tank skid plate but only one place here can sandblast it and he's busy for now. It's not going on the Jeep rusty, so I have to live with a leaky fuel tank.

Are we still beating the dead horse? If so, for me, the horse = a problem of mis-understanding. There's good cheap China shit and there's bad cheap China shit, obviously we're not talking about amplifiers that are too good to be true, ie 5000w for $199. On topic again, one more thing we used to do was cover the cars with some reflective foil when waiting in line to get metered. That way the car was still cold inside without using the A/C and the battery. And it was nice to have a cool spot when it's ass-degrees outside.

In a blind test they will sound absolutely the same. Go Google the $10.000 amplifier challenge, in such a test you don;t just swap out two amps, you have to measure at least power output. The entire point is that at the same power level you won't hear any difference between two amplifiers of different topologies. You won't hear the difference between your Crunch amp and that Crescendo IF both are set up to have the same output since the human ears are not able to pick up the actual differences in sound. Take a step back, take off your fighting gloves and brand goggles and re-read.

I have my doubts that's going to do anything. A/C duct work is way under the dash. If by removing it you open up a hole in the firewall, I'm not sure it's allowed, especially in a class where everything should be sealed up. IMO all sealed up should be the benchmark. Cracking a window open or opening a door or opening the rear hatch to gain score are useless. As for the NVX versus old-school A/B and the China discussion....the new class D's take quite a bit of abuse, my plastic china shitboxes never got warm and they live in the tiniest space available under the rear seats. Using old A/B amps for nostalgia and bragging rights, ok, but if you say they are better than the new stuff, you're smoking the wrong stuff Same goes for saying you will be able to hear obvious differences in a blind test. Blind test meaning both amps are adjusted to the same measured output level. Now back on topic... Most of the gains will be in the enclosure. Huge ports, huge enclosures (screw rules of thumb, I have been using a 10 inch port for a 12 inch sub, in a 2.8cf box), orientation, bracing or lack of bracing. Heck, I retuned my port when switching up from 8 inch just by using software. It might not have been spot on but I gained an instant 0.9 dB, going from 150.0-150.1 to 150.9-151.0. Next up are car 'mods': removal of some interior panels and carpeting, bracing certain windows or doors. In my old Jeep bracing the rear-most side windows gained almost 1 dB. Seat position, sun visor position, taping up certain vents, this should be tested only after you run out of ideas or space for box improvements and after you have tested the previously mentioned car 'mods'. Most of the box ideas I found out by myself after listening to all the "oh, if you peak high you need a small box" posts on the SPL forums. I spent quite a bit trying to go over 147 dB in a 1cf box with a single 12 and a 6 inch port. Next step was a 2cf box, score went up and final iteration was 151.4 dB with the same sub / amp / power, 2.8cf box and a 10 inch port. 4.4 dB total gain by using a big box, big port, bracing rear windows, removing all side panels behind the backseat.

Quite a bit of work to do at this time of year. Boo for cold.