jbaker

What if it's a dirty girl? Then is it ok?

Thanks for the pics. I gotta say that a color matched bug deflector, especially on black or darker vehicles, doesn't look bad at all. I'm thinking well worth the protection it gives. Is the clear protective film safe for the painted parts of the grill, too? If so, what about the bumper? Just asking b/c I notice more nicks, etc in the softer plastic parts than on the hood.

Seems that the quality of opinion and discussion here can vary a heck of a lot more than the quality of the vehicles being discussed.

I like to keep the truck as clean as possible, but not specifically for a date. Seems to me like there's some hidden scale of women if they actually care about a guys vehicle(s). On end end it begins at... "Oh my, you have your own car!" Which somehow moves into the... "Is that a hybrid? Don't you feel guilty for wasting that much gas on this thing" To... "Why are you driving your bad weather vehicle when it's nice out? What kind of other car you do have?" And finally the... "Why are you driving yourself...where's your driver?" The..."Bitchin truck, it looks fantastic. What wax do you use? Cool 22's...and is that the whistle of a supercharger? To bad you already cleaned your truck, otherwise I'd show you how much fun washing your truck really is. Instead, how about we order in, get it on, and then dial in that tune a little"...is quite a rare breed we, for the most part, only dream of.

I would like to see a vette yellow color on an sss. After seeing it, then I'd decide if I wanted mine to be that color.

I have two opinions or thoughts that I'd like to toss out here... (Edit - well, actually there are a ton of opinions in here) On the matter of quality - I agree that quality, both for foreign and domestic, and for individual auto makers goes through an ebb and flow cycle. There are likely many things that influence how quickly each company transitions through the resulting final output quality. I would like to point out that there is a difference between "Quality Control" and "Quality Assurance" and I think it is relevant to this thread. QC is a defined set of processes used to determine whether a particular product at meets a predetermined minimum acceptable level of quality. If it passes it goes out. If it doesn't pass, it..whatever. QA is every piece of an organization and its employees that goes into 'assuring' that what gets created is of the highest quality possible. The more effective a QA approach is, the fewer unacceptable products are identified in QC. I guess I'm just trying to say that there is a whole lot that goes into a quality product. Heck, even a companies ability to have happy, satisfied workers influences QA and the bottomline of an organization. I address these matters frequenty and right now I would oversimplify this as QC is a specific operation, QA is an entire attitude or environment. Here's the angle that I think Toyota has had - they have done a better job at acknowledging the importance of the entire process. Bottom line - they were smarter and more innovation and business savy before the avg american company. Traditionally, large domestic companies have not been very nimble, and the slowness to react, IMO, created many of the issues through the 80's-90's w/ regards to quality and profit. After my mini-novel above (sorry for that, btw, but I'm going to be too lazy to go up and edit / revise - I have work to do! ) Personally, I think the purchase of a vehicle has squat to do with patriotism and pride and respect for US workers. This is a global marketplace and consumers should 'vote' on the best companies by buying their products or services. US consumers buying Japanese cars is what drove the big 3 to get their acto together. Blindly giving a company one's patronage leads to that company being stale, bloated and ignorant w/ regards to (necessary) change. And one last thing - people are going to lose jobs as products are either assembled off-shore or by robots. The thing we need to do and embrace is training those employees to be the ones overseeing those robots or offshore workers. Sorry for the long post. Here goes.

Mr. P: I'm almost hesitant to reply as I know that there are far more qualified detailers here, but I have experienced similar results and chalked it up to being caused by the contaminants being held in the clay. It seemed that the cleaner I could get the paint using good wash techniques, the more mileage I could get out of a claybar. So my goal has been to make the claybar do as little as possible and to replace them the first sign that its at the end of its useful life. Does this fit what you are seeing? Or are you coming to the conclusion that if you used a zaino cb and a meguire's cb equally that you would see micro scratches with the meguires before the zaino? JB

I realize this was directed towards Mr. P, but being in the industry (but not a programmer) I thougth I'd try to help out if I can. Have you tried using the scriptomatic download from MS? It let's you choose from a list of available operations and will generate a script for you. If this wasn't the help you were after...hopefully Mr. P. will be able to provide more info than I. Good Luck! JB MS Scriptomatic

Acetone in Gasoline interesting EDIT: Well, hmm, now what to think? Mythbusters - Acetone is BUSTED

I'm of the old school energy drink...coffee. Sometimes get too busy to refresh my cup, but I like to have a hot mug next to me all day long.

Unfortunately I won't be around for the show on the 22nd, but I'm shootin for the cruise to the woods. I won't know for sure until we get a little closer to that date. Look forward to hanging with you all again.

On the 'other bushing' front...I have made more of a formal inquiry from Energy via email and asked for a complete list of applicable parts and part numbers for our trucks. More info to come.

Hmm, just trying to avoid confusion...mine or somebody elses... You mentioned Boone above, which Madrid is in Boone County, but the actual show is in the city of Madrid, not the city of Boone, right?

Odd. I haven't called a reseller yet, but I can't find this part number listed on any of the Chevy / GM truck pages of their 'online catalog'.

And you replace it with offensive clowns instead?

I'm in. Dang, wings sound good right now - I'm starving.

Proceed very cautiously and deliberately. Have her document everything if she has not already been journaling any related events. I can't see what state you are in from this reply screen, but it is important to know if you live in an 'employment at will' state. If so, it's much more likely that you'll only have standing if the case involves her being fired based on race, sex, creed, etc. I'm sorry to hear about what sounds like a crappy situation. Time for the champagne - new opportunities are around the corner. JB

I sure would like to see a pic of these installed and an update on your review after having had them installed for awhile? Please?

Just more proof that money and/or wealth doesn't buy you taste or style.

That's hilarious...but ain't that the truth! Speaking of which...we're having a homemade salsa contest here at work today. It's gonna be one of those days I'll be glad to just pee out the right hole.

I'd vote that there really isn't one best - let me explain. Sometimes I'm doctoring something up that really needs some flavor along with it, but nothing that is sweet, so I go with a little Pickapeppa. Looking for a little tang / sweetness along with your zip??? - I like the Tiger Sauce. For standard run-o-the mill hot sauce I reach for whatever tube of hungarian red pepper paste we have or the bottle of Sriracha. Going to have to check out the Franks.

Aha. So is the "NO MORE than 2 washers in the 2nd accumulator cup with the Transgo Kit unless you have fully hardened internals" is the only manner of taming the 1-2 shift? Or are there other PCM settings that can help with this also?

So given AWD w/ shift kit + Vette 2nd servo + billet 4th/OD servo, what amount of TM do you think should be left in place?

Yup, I was set on Zippy kit, too, but recently came in contact w/ a shop in town that quoted me $250-300 for HD2-C kit + 2nd vette servo. The owner / service guy said to just add the cost of the 4th servo if I wanted that too (no extra labor). I'm not all that knowledgable about transmissions, but the guy did walk through and ask what engine modifications I planned on having when done, etc - it sounded like he knew his stuff. I'm kinda torn now. He did ask that I have the PCM tune done prior to the shift kit so that he could install / adjust...does this make sense? If so, can I get a tune that is intended to run on an sss w/ shift kit and run it without the kit installed for a few hours?...days?...weeks? JB

Ok, enough talking and waivering - it's time for a shift kit. The sss is my dd and does get used to tow 4-5k lbs (boat) on weekends. My main interest in the upgrade is for increased tranny lifespan. I'm game for a performance kick to boot, but still need the WAF, so conservative shifts during normal driving is needed. That being said...I'll take 3/4-WOT shifts as hard as I can get'em. My question is this... How does Zippy's "4L60E/65E Towing shift kit" relate to the "4L60E/65E Zippy Kit Shift Kit". Do I need them both? And if I'm interested in the "4L60E/65E Towing shift kit", should I not just go for the "4L60E/65E Tow700R4/4L60/4L60E/4L65E/4L70E Clutch and band upgrade"? Zippy, here comes another new customer! JB EDIT - Here's the link: http://zippyperformance.com/_wsn/page2.html