baconbits

Just to make the numbers easy: If I bought a house for $100k, and because of the gift if equity, I only took a loan for $80k, and the housing market rebounded and the house is now valued at $135k, how is that not an investment? Even if I paid $100k for the house, I'm coming out $35k ahead. From your tone, you should probably stick to renting. All of my friends rent save for one, and their rents are higher than my mortgage, and at the end of the day, their apartment leasing office can decide to not renew their lease and then they're on the curb with nothing to show for it. Meanwhile, I pay my taxes and live in an area worthless for civic development (no worry about eminent domain) soooo... I always have something to show for it. What's there to lose? I bought at virtually the bottom of the market so it can only go up.

Not my house per se, but improvements none the less and it's framing so I figure it applies. I've been volunteering a bit to help a guy looking to open an indoor bouldering gym. Many years ago, I spent more time at the campus rec center on their bouldering wall than I did going to class which is probably why I didn't do so well the first couple years there. I haven't climbed in years and I'm excited to get back into it, especially because I can't get motivated to lift weights the traditional way. Over a couple days after Christmas, we hung about 80 sheets of 3/4" plywood loaded with T-nuts to mount the climbing holds. Still need to fill the gaps between panels, sand, and then stain/poly. Lots more after that but that's the bulk of the work remaining. Last picture is what it'll end up being like.

I guess I got lucky with buying my house. Bank appraised it at X, my family member sold it to me for X-20% so I didn't have PMI, and now it's worth X+35%. I bought at the end of 2013 when the market was still kind of poo and the rates were low (3.375% on 15FRM) so as the market goes up, I'm only going to "make" money on it. I should sell and enjoy $70k in my bank account for a minute before paying off student loans but then I'd be stuck in the rent cycle for the rest of my life and have nothing to show for it.

That's a phrase I haven't heard in a while... Hicksta'd

Mine was the opposite, somehow. Driver's solenoid went bad and the passenger would be +19 degrees whereas the driver's was stuck at 0. Either way, an oil change and a new solenoid and I was back on the road. Also, check to make sure the banjo bolt on the rear passenger head has the screen/filter removed. Subaru put a TSB out for it.

I thought the same thing when I heard Alonso was sticking with McLaren after they signed with Renault. That guy has such bad luck.

What codes are you getting? P0011? If so, I would stop driving it until you can replace the OCV valve/solenoid on the passenger's side otherwise you're going to starve the turbo of oil and it will grenade. P0021 is the driver's side which is substantially easier to replace. Check and make sure your oil level is where it should be first. The car getting low on oil can cause the AVCS (intake cam timing) system to act funky... surging, power loss, poor idle, etc. The parts are like $120/ea at the dealer but mine price matched to one I found online for like $83.

Yup... I live in Cleveland (Kamm's) right near the Fairview Park/Lakewood border. I'm a couple blocks behind/south of the bars on Lorain/237. Plain jane silver 4th gen Legacy GT on stock wheels (horribly dirty) with snow tires now. I have gunmetal grey 6 spoke Advan wheels for summer. Lowered on coils but it's not much lower than a spring/strut combo. The exhaust is what sets my car apart from the rest locally. Yeah, I'm not a huge fan of a lot of stuff on that page. Way too much "What I know is fact" regardless of actual fact and placebo effect sufferers... "omg did this and my car is soooooo much better." For instance, compared to KW, Ohlins, and RCE Tarmac, BC coils are junk but they're 24HoL LMP1 worthy to some people on there. I also *HATE* fake/rep wheels and so many people with "show" cars on that page run them. So I stick to myself because I was told to not say anything at all if it's not something nice.

Yeah, Erik is the owner or the dude who started it. I'm not super active on the page anymore (hid notifications) because I was tired of all the "I went WOT in 5th at 30mph, what's overboost" and "Is rotella gud" threads. I mainly check there once in a while to see if there's any Corsa related exhaust questions and that's about it.

I think Ocon pinched Grosjean a little but who knows. I didn't agree with that 10 second penalty either, especially if Grosjean had a puncture. Kimi delivered a solid 3rd place so I was happy about that. I'm still lightly salted about Ferrari's strategy at Monaco that kind of stole the win from Kimi but considering Vettel was thoroughly in the title race with Hamilton at the time, I could see the strategy goof compounded with Vettel's skill...

So Vettel won and didn't exceed track limits to gain an advantage. Ferrari haters are awfully quiet today...

My brother, who isn't even a huge F1 fan, heard a rumor that Mercedes won't resign Bottas and that they might try to poach Ricciardo. Anyone else hear this? I haven't kept up on anything so I don't know if Merc has already resigned Bottas or not.

I saw the V10s at Indy in 2004... I was about 15 rows up in the stands where Ralf hit the wall coming onto the main straight. They were loud. I never saw the 8s and after seeing the 6s at COTA this year, they leave something to be desired. If they upped the fuel flow to allow 15k revs or even more boost for more noise, I'd probably be okay with it. Hell, I'd be okay with 4s if they had more boost and fuel flow allowed because that old BMW engine was a beast.

I think the only way that's possible is with removing the fuel flow restrictions. That's why these current ones sound lame - they are limited to 15k rpm in the rules but fuel flow limits them to 12.5. Supposedly to even get to 12.5k rpm, they're running AFRs above 15 at WOT which is staggering considering they're rumored to be at 12 or 13:1 compression ratios. There are four engine manufacturers now which is low but no way around it with the current budgets for engine development now. Even a giant like Honda struggled (and still is) to get an engine to compete with Ferrari and Mercedes. If you enact budget caps on development, that just turns it more into a spec series, IMO. Indy is a driver's sport but that's why I watch F1 instead - the engineering aspect of it. Indy is pretty much a spec chassis, spec engine, etc. In F1, if you aren't trying to bend the rules, you aren't going to win. Look at Brawn GP in 2009 - bent the rules and made the double diffuser successful. Was it Mercedes a few years later with the F duct controlled by a knee? What about the other team (Mercedes again?) with two brake pedals to independently control the steering under braking?

Join the NEOSOC group on facebook... there's a couple shade tree guys on there (I've used one for several things, clutch, suspension work, alignment) and then there's Slick Motorsports for a lot of stuff from turbo installs to 600whp builds. As far as true independent shops, I'd kind of like to know too.

Didn't like him either.

Racing incidents are faultless.

The amount of Ferrari hate in this thread is too damn high. Bottas was to Vettel's right, where was he supposed to go?

Rules only state that you can't exceed track limits to gain a lasting advantage. There's no need to penalize everyone every time they exceed the limits.

It only matters when an advantage is gained by doing it. Vettel going off at the start didn't matter because everyone on every single lap after that also did it so him doing it lap one, turn one is no different. If anything, penalize Bottas too because he went four off and then passed Ricciardo a couple laps later. End of the day, Verstappen races a little dirty. I like him, he's got immense talent, but none of the old timer drivers needed to be told to stop weaving under breaking, only one defensive move per corner/straight, etc. Also, don't forget this one. [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6nf2UzCAAo]F1 2016 Gp Mexico Battle Vettel vs Verstappen vs Ricciardo - YouTube[/ame]

My take on it is four off is four off. If everyone had four off in the same spot in qualifying, no one gained an advantage. Max gained an advantage by going four off on the inside - he was almost in the grass FFS - where no one else had gone four off for the entire race. Everyone went wide in turn one like Vettel did at the start, passing and not, such as the Bottas and Ricciardo fight for several laps. Passes were always made after turn one so no advantage gained there so no need to reprimand for it. Ferrari doesn't get the benefit of steward calls all the time - was it Mexico last year where someone totally cut a chicane and was allowed to keep their gained place? Max and Vettel or was it Max and Kimi again? Never was a huge fan of Kvyat so that doesn't bother me at all.

Spoilers below for those who haven't watched I'll post up some pictures later. I'm bummed Vettel or Kimi couldn't pull out a win but otherwise, great weekend. Ricciardo retiring with suspension damage from some phantom crash (??? Anyone???) and Alonso out with another Honda failure were also bummers but perfect weather all weekend, albeit a bit too much sunburn. Max had a great drive and I'm glad the stewards reversed his 4-off pass.

Currently sitting in Dallas's airport waiting for my short hop to Austin for the race this weekend. My brother fronted for the hotel and the F1 weekend general admission pass for my belated 30th birthday so all I needed to do was fly myself there. Landing in Austin around 1:30 and staying at the Aloft on 7th downtown.

Yeah, I mean, as long as it doesn't have giardia or cholera in it, I'm cool... R/O would get heavy metals out of it (Flint, MI) but then again, I trust my local water company to have their shit together too. They better, with how the rates have changed lately. "Conserve water to protect the environment" [3 months later] "Revenues are down because consumption is down, we need to raise rates"

My wheels desperately need trued so I haven't ridden much. I've had too much honey-do-list, golf league, and weddings to attend in the last 2 months.