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!

Nausicaa - Project Update - AiM Data Logger Dash Ordered

We had P&L Motorsports order the parts for our data logging dashboard and camera for us. The supplier should be Pegasus Auto Racing (I will write more about Pegasus when I do a write up on the overall pre-sale experience on all my suppliers at a later date).
We ordered a bunch of AiM data logger parts and accessories.

Nausicaa - Project Update - More Parts Ordered

Today I got closer to a milestone in the current phase of our 1993 Honda Prelude project, Nausicaa.
I ordered the vast remainder of the parts that we are planning to do at this phase. All that is really left outstanding is the dashboard instruments and coilovers to be added (though Bryan Hise at Olsen Motorsports has been taking measurements and getting CAD work done for our one off JRZ coilovers).

The parts ordered today cover a lot of ground. Again, not pictures at this point as parts were ordered and none have been delivered.

The answer is not always Miata...

One more for my series on packing Cagalli Yula (2014 Subaru BRZ).
Today we picked up a 6 ft. folding table and 4 folding chairs for an event we are hosting and packed them in our car. That was along with our bin that holds our detailing, spare oil, maintenance, and emergency items as well as a snow shovel.

Extended Test Drive 2018 Ford Fiesta ST

We made a trip down to Atlanta, GA for Holly's grandmother's birthday and got another rental car. We were originally trying to rent a manual Dodge Challenger but none were available and Holly said no to a Chevrolet Camaro (plus the Corvette was too expensive for our liking this time); we rented the second cheapest car they had at $113 for 4 days (not including taxes and fees). The cheapest car was $111 for the same time span and an automatic Toyota Yaris hatchback.
Needless to say, we were pleasantly surprised.
The manual Ford Fiesta variant we rented was a Fiesta ST, the performance version of Ford's smallest econo-hatch. Also, it was orange:

Starting with styling, I rather like the front grill on this. I also think that the headlights are too large for the car though. This is especially true on the profile show below. Also, it would have been nicer if it used HID or LED headlights instead of non-projector halogens.

Extended Test Drive 2018 Ford Ford Explorer Limited

We took a trip to Vermont. One of the objectives was to drop off an air compressor and a shelving unit we previously cleared out of our storage unit. These do not really fit in the BRZ so we decided to rent something a bit bigger.
It should be noted that we had an issue with the tires on this rental, this is discussed in another post.
Our first challenge was figuring out whether or not a Ford Explorer would have sufficient space with the rear two rows down for a 78" shelving unit piece. This proved really hard to find. Apparently the dimensions with seats folded down were not published for this generation of Explorer. Holly and I spent roughly 1 hour 15 minutes collectively searching for this information and came up with some board dimensions (kind of) off a Ford Explorer forum. Just to contrast we then searched Subaru BRZ cargo dimensions and found full dimensions (rear seats up, down, and removed) within 3 minutes. Funny how difficult it is to find anything except cubit feet of cargo volume for a vehicle that people might actually haul lumbers or other stuff in.

Rear of the SUV loaded, plenty of space for the air compressor. Just enough space for the shelving unit.

Budget / Avis Rental Car Tires

We recently rented a 2018 Ford Explorer Limited from Budget / Avis. During our drive the rear stepped out (slid) on two occasions. We took a look at the tires and were a bit appalled.
The rear tires on both sides were down to the wear indicators. Basically no tread left. Keep in mind this is in the US Northeast during winter with ice and snow on the ground.
Holly picked the car up, did not check the tires. And I typically do not check the tires when I pick up the vehicle (I tend to take a closer look when I photograph the vehicle). This has never been an issue for us, but we will certainly be on the lookout in the future.
Following are some images of the tires taken with my phone:
Driver front:

Passenger front: