Protege5: Harder, not Smarter!

The amount of attention the car gets after the wheels/lowering compared to before is hilarious. I get all sorts of weird people trying to well...I'm not exactly sure really. People in huge trucks will pull up next to me on the freeway and punch it trying to make me race them?

When I'm stopped at lights every single car around me I can see heads peering out of lowering windows. Feels like I'm in a fishbowl sometimes.

But its weird because nothing besides the wheels/height have changed from what I've been driving the last 6 months every single day, but the car gets like 500% more attention. Not sure I like that, rubberneckers are dangerous.
 
Same here. My car draws lots of attention. Everyone assumes my car is turbo'd for some reason. Had a motorcycle ride up to me Monday, get next to my window, open the throttle which sounded like a two-step system installed, bounced the tach, shot flames, then took off between two cars nearly killing himself. Not sure what he was trying to accomplish but I continued to drive the speed limit and use my turn signals. For every car enthusiast, you will find 10-15 idiot, self-centered, douchebags. Whether they are import rice douche, or american muscle douche is up to them.
 
JDM_Pro5 said:
Same here. My car draws lots of attention. Everyone assumes my car is turbo'd for some reason. Had a motorcycle ride up to me Monday, get next to my window, open the throttle which sounded like a two-step system installed, bounced the tach, shot flames, then took off between two cars nearly killing himself. Not sure what he was trying to accomplish but I continued to drive the speed limit and use my turn signals. For every car enthusiast, you will find 10-15 idiot, self-centered, douchebags. Whether they are import rice douche, or american muscle douche is up to them.
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/Agree

The shame is that "normal" responsible car enthusiasts get lumped with the other people by law enforcement and general public. I get followed by police almost every week all the way to either my house or college.
 
I know, it is a shame. We need to build a commune, a reservation, for car enthusiast. We will have no police and multiple tracks
 
JDM_Pro5 said:
That would be both awesome and far away from me!
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Yea same, haha I'm almost in Canada already. But its sure a lot closer than Europe xD

The other day I'm sitting in a massive rainstorm trying to buckle in a bag of carrots and box of coke into my passengers harness when I just started laughing at how hilarious this must look for other people...best grocery getter ever.
 
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I have car seats in my backseat and I strap in important things like booze. It's a great life. I move amazing things in my car. Band equipment. Hundreds of pounds of fire wood, etc.


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Resistance is futile.
The CNC machine is taking shape. Will be great to be able to cut out foam blocks for fiberglassing cores as well as making one off aluminum parts when I need them. :)

Just a small desktop machine, but having it available in my own garage is really neat. I've had many custom little parts made, but It always takes a week to get them back in my actual hands as I get my dad to use his works machines after hours.

Still browsing around for a suitable vacuum pump and MIG welder.
 
I know you are on a hunt for lightweight, but also MPG? On the highway today, doing about 70mph and watching my tach sit there at 3.5k wishing I had different gear ratios or a sixth gear. You should find a solution to this!
 
A taller gear or a 6th gear would be nice for dropping the revs. Problem is the rev would fall out of the power band and we would be down shifting all the time. I thought about it (taller 5th gear) and that is the answer I got. Makes sense to me.
 
Well, if there were 6 gears, all of the gears would have different rations rather than adding a 6th to the existing transmission. I'm talking full custom transmission. It would be nice to have the 6th gear in the 2k rpms while cruising at highway speeds. What range is our powerband?
 
Hp and tq are up there pretty good, iirc 3k to near redline. I may be wrong though it's been a while since i've read any specs.
 
SO, if we hit a 6th gear and was under the powerband, what would that do to our speed and acceleration? Would we be able to hold a constant speed at lower rpms or would it start slowing down?
 
Oh man, I just grimace at the tach and think of how much better mileage I could be getting when cruising on the highway.

I briefly thought about trying to swap a different manufactures transmission into the car. If you really have cash burning a hole in your pocket, could always buy a PAR transmission and you can specify what gear ratio's you want. But I've always thought...ok that's nice...but their has got to be a better way.

Someday I may try to put a different transmission in, but it's not on my priorities at the moment. If you utilize pulse/glide driving, you can eliminate quite a bit of those revs for city driving anyways.
 
Yeah, I'm real conscious of unnecessary revs, I can cruise for a long time in neutral at 1k rpms where most people would keep it in 5th and run 2.5-3k
 
JDM_Pro5 said:
Yeah, I'm real conscious of unnecessary revs, I can cruise for a long time in neutral at 1k rpms where most people would keep it in 5th and run 2.5-3k
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coasting down a hill my scangauge shows between 100 and 250 MPG when im in neutral, but it will max out at 9999MPG if i leave it in gear. i have an AT, not sure if that makes a difference
 
Justin2129 said:
coasting down a hill my scangauge shows between 100 and 250 MPG when im in neutral, but it will max out at 9999MPG if i leave it in gear. i have an AT, not sure if that makes a difference
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My buddy has an auto 3rd gem Mazda3 and it does the same. It has a current MPG that trips out for moments like that
 
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