Cagalli Yula - Snow Tires

We bought snow / winter tires for our 2014 Subaru BRZ. The old tires we had, Continental Extreme Contact DWS (All Season) were a good set of tires for commuting, road trips, etc. At five years of ownership (and tire age) we started to autocross. The additional tire wear severely reduced traction and tire performance, even in normal driving. The car got a lot more skittish.

By skittish I mean the car was a lot more prone to spinning the rear wheels and over steer. We decided that despite the fact that our old all season tires had only been stuck in winter twice, it was time to replace them.

Extended Test Drive 2019 Infiniti Q50 3.0t AWD

We were down in Florida for a family event and needed a rental. I like to rent cars of varying types to keep the rental reviews interesting and different, and my wife accommodates me. We rented a "Luxury" tier vehicle through Budget, which was stated to be a Chrysler 300 or similar.
We ended up with a 2019 Infiniti Q50 3.0t AWD.

In summary, it was nicer than our normal rental, but did not make a compelling argument for ownership if I was looking at this market segment.

C-Quartz Reapplication; Photography / Photo Shoot Information (Part 2)

We decided to follow up our midnight parking garage photo shoot with a daytime one. Recap: C-Quartz reapplication after two years by Arlington Auto Detailing, car super clean, and we decided to take some photos.
Because we had bright sunlight I decided to do these photos in a different way. For the majority of the photos I took them fixed at 100 ISO and then overexposed, at middle white balance, and underexposed.
Lens used, 

EF-S 10-22mm | f/9.0 | ISO 100 | 1/15 | overexposed 2 stops

C-Quartz Review & Reapplication; Photography / Photo Shoot Information

It has been over two years since we first did a C-Quartz application, which is the expected life time. We had Arlington Auto Detailing do a full detail, including removing the shallow swirl we had acquired, and reapply C-Quartz. Arlington Auto Detailing has been my go to shop for my bi-annual auto details since moving up to the Boston area.

In terms of two year satisfaction with C-Quartz: I am happy, it makes it really easy to keep the car clean and makes a lot of things that would otherwise damage the clear coat just wipe off without caring. At the same time it does not protect against small rock chips at all. In the future (any new car and/or repaint of a car) I would do a full PPF wrap with a ceramic coating on top to get the best of both rock ship / minor scratch protection and easy to clean paint / film protection.

That all said, with the car looking rather clean and pretty and my building having a parking garage as part of its complex I decided to do a midnight parking garage photo shoot.

EF-S 10-22mm f/9.0 ISO 100 20"

Cagalli Yula, Gilly's Auto, Krown Rust Proofing

Second year taking Cagalli Yula (2014 Subaru BRZ Limited) to Gilly's Auto in Grantham, NH for her annual Krown treatment. Josh and his wife are good people and company during the process. This time I decided to take some photos underneath while she was up on the lift.

As you can see, the exhaust pipe has some real rust to it. But aside from the exhaust rust she is much cleaner than expected of a 2014 that has seen five winters.

Nausicaa - Project Update

My other half (the person who lets me get away with this shit -- her words) was in Chicago for a work related trip and decided to go take a look at our project at P&L Motorsports while she was in town. She took some pictures.

Engine held in with mounts and with front strut bar and traction bar seemingly in place.

Safety Equipment - Bell Helmets M.8

The Nausicaa, 1993 Honda Prelude, track car project is continuing. We decided we would like to go for some Autocross (AutoX) and / or High Performance Driver Education (HPDE) events to work on the most important modification, the driver mod.
We signed up for an AutoX event with Cagalli Yula, 2014 Subaru BRZ, and decided now was a good time to invest in helmets.
Based off of recommendation of a friend who spends a lot of time doing track days I was looking at Simpson and Bell Helmets.
We elected to go with the Bell Helmets M.8 because of relative cost, Snell SA2015 homologation, M6 terminals (for later use with a Head And Neck Support [HANS] device), and availability in sizes small enough for my spouse's head.

Nausicaa - Project Update - Images from P&L Motorsports (2nd Set)

P&L Motorsports sent me some additional images of the continuing progress. This is an update on our 1993 Honda Prelude, Nausicaa, which is a project car undergoing a K24 engine swap and a lot of track oriented updates.

Since the last update from the shop it appears the intake manifold has been swapped:

The new fly wheel installed:

Nausicaa - Project Update - K-Tuned Parts Finally Ordered

Despite my dislike for PayPal I decided the headache of not being able to get the parts I wanted was not worth it. I exhausted all resources / possibilities. If you want to see my issues with PayPal see here. So, basically, this prior post has come to a resolution. Final part order is as follows.


K Series Parts:

Nausicaa - Project Update - K-Tuned Parts Ordering Blues

All right, so in a prior Nausicaa update I showed a list of parts that included a bunch from K-Tuned. (Nausicaa is our 1993 Honda Prelude project car.) K-Tuned makes some absolutely fantastic parts for the K series Honda engines. In fact I previously ordered from them, they delivered, there were no issues.
Apparently K-Tuned has had a lot of issues with fraud (I am confused by this) and therefore are very hesitant about shipping parts to addresses that are different than the billing address. On my previous order they made an exception and shipped directly to P&L Motorsports, the shop doing the work for us. (I live near Boston, MA and P&L is located near Chicago, IL; shipping to my home address is not very helpful.) And there were no issues, everything was great. So, on February 6th, 2019 I got in contact with Sean at K-Tuned and told him which parts I was ordering next and if based on the prior order being issue free if they could ship to P&L again. Sean said sure and that when I order to place that we had this conversation in the comment section along with the address I wanted it shipped to.
Sounds great!