Pontiac GTO Forum - The Lounge

Trip So Far

fergyflyer — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 04:44:16 GMT

It's been a wild adventure so far.

In Georgia a double trailer set up decoupled directly in front of me. The second trailer's brakes then lock up since there isn't any air to them. I swerved hard right and found out how good the Kia Forte I rented handles, it did great.

It took me 2-1/2 hours to get through Atlanta's traffic at 3:30 till 6pm.

The next day a Chevy trailblazer had the spare tire drop down directly in front of me. The tire hit the pavement and lifted up, throwing the trailblazer rear end to the right and then the tire and wheel flipped around like crazy. I managed to miss both the careening SUV and the tire and wheel combo.

I got to St. Louis and a truck flipped over there. Shut I 70 down for 2 hours.

From there I stopped at a casino in Booneville Mo. and ate lunch and then proceeded to play $20 in a slot machine that paid me $970 in 45 minutes. Hope that continues when get to Vegas.

I made it to Omaha and we had a great reunion.

GM runs in my families blood. We looked at vehicles, here is the list. A Saturn Vue, two Escalades, a Corvette vert, a pair of Caddy CTS's, a Jaguar, a pair of GMC Denali's, one an XL, my Vette wasn't present but still counts, a Mercury Mountaineer and a brand spanking new Buick Regal. All but two were GM.

My sister did a family tree. William C Durant is a 3rd cousin. None of us knew that, but now I can definately say GM runs in my blood.

I'm off to Rocky Mountain National Park next.

Understanding 3 speed with 2 rods shifter on race stock cars

daveh70 — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 23:49:44 GMT

Can you tell me how this shifter type is operated? Both rods in center for neutral? Then is the right shifted forward for reverse? Then down for 1st? Then is THAT rod returned to neutral so the other lever can be shifted to 3rd and 4th? Thanks,
Dave

An Excellent Adventure

fergyflyer — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 00:43:36 GMT

I'm leaving tomorrow for a great American tradition, the road trip.

First I'm heading from Florida to Omaha NE for a family reunion.

Then it's off to Rocky Mountain National Park. I'm driving over the Independence Pass near Aspen. It's at 12,093 feet and it's the highest pass I can find in the Continental US.

Then Mesa Verde in the southwest corner of Colorado. That's where all the cliff dwellings are.

From there it's off to the Glen Canyon Dam and then the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. I'm hiking down to the river and back in a day. Not quite sure if I'll make the river, but that's my goal.

Then on to LA to visit my family that isn't coming to the reunion. (different side of the family).

Then on to see a GTO forum members car and meet him in Mojave California. Then on to Chowchilla to meet a friend and former boss. We are flying his private jet to Vegas for two days, staying at the Wynn.

From there it's through Yosemite, Tahoe and Virgina City, Nevada.

Then I follow the lonliest road in America, Hwy 50 across Nevada, also it's the old Pony Express route.

I'm going to take the Pony Express route through Nevada, Utah, Wyoming ( with a side trip up to Jackson Hole, The Grand Tetons and Yellowstone) back to St. Joe Missouri.

Then I head to Bowling Green for a tour of the Corvette plant and Museum that a friend has arranged for me. He is the head of a Corvette club and had the pull to get me a better tour.

Then home.

3 weeks.

Best part is, I rented a car!! :lol::lol:

Wait till they see the miles on it when I get back. My estimate is just over 8000 miles.

I took out the insurance too so if I hit a truck retread it's on them.

I'll be on here from time to time. When I get back I'll post pics.

:party: :seeya: :party:

Simply V

fergyflyer — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 22:42:07 GMT

Very cool Video of V.

YouTube - Cadillac V Day in Shanghai

Too many lawyers in the US for them to do this here.

Get ready to learn Chinese, we are about to be overtaken.

Forget "F & F", what are the best car movies out there?

ALKYGTO — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 13:37:08 GMT

Ok, just list your favorite car movies or movies that feature great car chases and action. "The fast and the furriest" should not be on your list.

I'll start. Anybody seen "Ronin"? Or the original "Gone in 60 seconds" (yeah, the one without Angelina Jolie)?

I'm bad in that I'd rather see great car action than actual acting or a plot (I love old B sci-fi movies too) so I love Toby Haliki's original "Gone in 60 seconds" so much I bought all "3" movies including "The Junkman", "Deadline Auto Theft" and "Gone in 60 seconds 2" even though all the sequals have footage from the original spliced in :lol:. The chases and crashes in these movies are "real" and awsome!

They are filming Fast & the Furious 5

batmans — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 16:17:53 GMT

Photos from the set of Fast and Furious 5 - NSX Prime

Got an offer on the car...

Rukee — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 20:17:59 GMT

Was at a local car show today and when I was away from the car some guy comes by and offers my wife 80 grand for the GTO. She tells him it's not for sale and he would have to talk to me anyway. So when I come back she tells me the story and points the guy out down the block. Later she goes for ice cream and here comes the guy back. He tells me he's been up and down every row of cars and mine is the best one and he wants to buy it and now offers $100,000.00!
My answer is always the same, sorry, you just don't have enough money to buy the car. He's like, come-on you won't sell it to me? Not even for a Million Dollars?? To which I said; show me the money!! :D

We talked for a while and then we parted ways, but I did give him a business card in case he changed his mind on the million dollars thing. :cheers

Baby Sitter only gets 8 years in prison for beating up 11-month old?!?!?!

batmans — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 23:29:29 GMT

Nannycam Video Lands Babysitter In Jail - Video - WJXT Jacksonville

Good thing there wasn't any sound of the baby crying..... would have drove me crazy....

Which one BATMAN costume is better looking? Begins or Dark Knight?

batmans — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 18:03:08 GMT

Getting ready for Halloween and I'm on the fence between the 2.

Batman Begins:

Batman Begins Replica:

The Dark Knight

The Dark Knight replica:

What do you guys think of this exhaust sound?

batmans — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 16:41:00 GMT

Nope, it's not for the GTO, but I like an "outsiders" opinion.

For the NSX.

The STMPO Messiah Exhaust - NSX Prime

You Tube

32 valve heads!

dustyminpin — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 23:53:17 GMT

I came across these in the October '10 issue of Corvette Fever. They don't tell you in the magazine how much they cost, lol. $7500-$8500 for street versions and starting at close to 11 grand for full blown race only versions. The street versions flow 405 cfm, not sure what "stage" that is. I'm assuming the $8500 stage 3 one. Ridiculous mod but fun to look at. Enjoy.

High Performance Machine Shop

iPhone 4

AlanSr — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 05:53:35 GMT

The whole family just got iPhone 4s. We had to say goodby to verizon.......I waited 2 years for them to get the iphones.
Only bad part so far is the battery life and there are no extended batteries.

Shy 25-year-old sloth slow to have sex

batmans — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 16:32:26 GMT

Sloths are slow by nature, taking a month to digest their food. They spend a lot of time hanging around. And, it seems, they can be slow to mate, too. Prince, a two-toed sloth, has yet to mate with blonde bombshell Marilyn even though the two have been zoomates since Easter, ZSL London Zoo officials said Thursday.

The male sloth Prince, 25, may have good reason for apprehension. His last mate turned out to be another dude. The story behind the story: It is notoriously difficult to determined the sex of a sloth, and only recently had advances in ultrasound led to the discovery that his original mate, Sheila, wasn't a "Sheila."

Zookeepers then replaced Sheila with the playful Dutch sloth named Marilyn in the hope that the zoo could successfully rear its first two-toed sloth baby in more than 100 years.

Prince and 3-year-old Marilyn are in the zoo's new Rainforest Life exhibit. It seems the presence of Marilyn has given Prince a dose of anxiety. So keepers have been leaving trails of fragrant herbs around for him to follow as a way to encourage him to move around the rainforest more and make friends.

"Two-toed sloths are very secretive creatures so we are never quite sure what they're up to but we like to encourage them to meet as often as possible," said senior zookeeper Lucy Hawley.

"It would be amazing if we were to have a two-toed sloth baby at ZSL London Zoo; we havent bred them since the 1800s so it would be a very special baby."

Two-toed sloths (Choleopus didactylus) are from Brazil and are classified as endangered by the IUCN Red List. They are usually brown in color, with lighter fur around the face and head. The hair grows from its belly to its back so that the rain in the forest will run off more easily. There are two claws on each front foot and three on the hind feet, which help them climb the trees. They spend much of their time hanging upside down from tree branches.

And since sloths take so long to digest food, storing it in their very large stomachs, they only come down from the tree tops once a week to go to the loo which protects them from predators.

What is that blue car following the U2 spy plane?

batmans — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 22:14:46 GMT

YouTube - James May from Top Gear rides in a U-2 spy plane

Looks really familiar.....

Crash! The Goat went down.

dustyminpin — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 19:56:30 GMT

My best friend was killed in a car accident last Tuesday. Someone hit him while he was working on his truck broke down on the side of the road with his wife's mustang sitting nose to nose with his truck trying to jump it because his alternator had gone out. He was crushed and killed instantly. Her face was smashed up and lost all her teeth but she survived.

I was driving home to IL last Thursday for the visitation and funeral with my wife. We got up to withing 1/2 mile from our exit on I-65 in IN by the Remington exit when a semi dropped its driveshaft in the middle of the interstate. Cars shot every different direction. I was in the right hand lane getting ready to exit the interstate and saw a little white 4 door honda smash into the driveshaft and send it sailing into my line, whipping around like a helicopter blade. I swerved to the right, as far off the interstate as I could go, but not enough.

The impact was on the front left side of the car, right about where the fog light is. The SAP front fascia and bumper around the fog light were crushed. The front driver's side rim is smashed and split in half down the middle. The rear rim is bent. Both tires shredded. Luckily, I didn't hit it head on and it didn't damage anything underneath the car. My Kooks headers, DMH cutouts, and Borla exhaust were spared. I don't know what kind of suspension damage was done.

The truck coasted about a mile up the road with no driveshaft before coming to a stop at the side of the road. Indiana state police filled out the accident report and got his insurance information for me. The truck's insurance is paying to have my car fixed, but my insurance had to eat the rental car and tow bill for me since the truck didn't actually hit me, it didn't fall under collision, it fell under some form of comprehensive. The truck has to fix my car, but is under no obligation to pay for a rental car, tow truck, or anything like that. I thought that was bull****.

I let the body shop know they would have to go to gtogrills.com to get me another sap front fascia since gm doesn't make them anymore. He got the car to his shop yesterday and is suppose to call me after the car gets appraised. On the bright side, 3 out of my 4 tires were practically bald and needed replaced (the 4th was replaced no too long ago from replacing the tire that picked up a nail that couldn't be repaired). The 2 tires that were shredded were luckily 2 of the bald ones.

I got a 2010 Chrystler Sebring Limited with 2,500 miles on it for a rental. It's really nice. Heated leather seats. Sirrius satellite radio. Bluetooth. Voice recognition. DVD. No sunroof or navigation though. It's got like a 2.7L V6. Is painfully slow but gets awesome gas mileage. I was getting over 400 miles on a tank of gas. It averaged 26 mpg real world miles with the cruise control set to 80 mph with the A.C. on. I thought that was great. The insurance company said they would pay for my plane ticket back home to pick up the car when it gets done to get it back down here, up to $500 worth. I will keep all posted... My wife has a few pics on her facebook but I was too sick to post any on here...