Your right Jag, in most of them are fakers. There are some serious ricers, however, that are putting out 5 or 6 hundred hp. :eek: I've watched them drag race and they are astounding.

Ok, >90% of the people with these spinners on their car, in my area, are black. Tangipahoa parish is so poor that we get federal money to develop our economy. Tangipahoa parish is 28.4% (in 2000) black. Parish per capita income is $14,651.

The cheapest wheels on the first page that I clicked on would pay my rent for a year.

Now, draw from that what you will, but until you've driven around my area you, or one like it, you don't understand the problem.

As a side note, a paper that I am developing for my criminal justice class is titled:

Spinners: probable cause?

i was in san bernadino last year when the guy got capped because someone wanted to steal his car but he wouldn't get out because he had just gotten spinners.

And they said Darwin was wrong...

All I can remember is working with a guy named Jeff, and sitting out on the restaurant's patio after the shift ends. As we're sitting there, two genuine, pedigreed, licensed assholes pull up in souped-up japanese cars with all the goofy decals and weird rims and such on them. They both pull up to the intersection, start revving the engine at each other, Jeff turns to me, gestures to them, and just says "Cockfight."

Won't hear it from me. I personally enjoy oogling at the car culture...on occasion, I'll watch the DJ Flex show on the man channel..um, I mean SpikeTV. And Syc and I was fascinated with "Pimp My Ride" series on MTV (http://www.mtv.com/onair/pimp_my_ride/). Love it! It made me appreciate the art of detail even more than before...all the work that goes into it and the things they came up with to put in the cars! Too wild! I think there is something sexy about a guy that works on his car. Hell, at least he's being productive *shrugs*.

So what did you think of the trend of the "car" movies like The Fast and The Furious? I thought it was cool. A lot of creativity went into making those cars look so fine. :thumbsup:

Oh i understand the problem quite well Troubleshooter. The problem of people spending their money on somthing that won't improve their lives one bit at the expense of other, more important necessities of basica life like health insurance, proper nuitrition, etc. My point is, these people should NOT be grouped in with people who HAVE the money to take care of their basic needs first, then customize thier cars second. One is plain idiotic, and the other is just expressing themselves through an outlet that you don't appreciate apparantly.

I think pimp my ride is a pretty good show in the fact that these kids are usually not finacially endowed enough to own anything other than a POS and are gettin $30,000 worth of customization (not including labor) on their cars. What seems sketchy is that fact that you neevr see them do any real engine/tranny/guts of the car work. And if thats the case that they don't, then these kids are gettin screwed over because they still have a POS, but with a shiny new wrepper on the outside.

Fast and the Furious. All i can say is wow. What complete sh*t lol. Its completely unrealistic and fake. I think the cars look sweet, especially the one Vin Diesel sadly wrecks at the end (forget what it was.. Charger? Somthin classic).
Anywho, I've heard some great street racing stories from my Uncle Jack Dolan in San Diego. He's been on the racing scene for as long as he could reach the pedals. Not illegal street racing but salt flat stuff. Time trials and the like. And now he's part of a program to get street racers off the street and into these certified drag strips where its legal and MUCH safer. He tells me stories of Marine helicopter pilots who need low level night time flying practice so what do they do? The San Diego cops get in touch w/ them and the Marines in their Black Hawks. Bust up street racing rallies. Some of these kids literally sh*t themselves when they see that massive bird chasin em :worried: . Cause they got no chance in hell of outrunnin from it or hiding from it. I think its hilarious. These kids who have no respect for the law and the safety of others gettin right in the ass, where im sure they like it too. :doit:

Wow im a bit on the.. offensive side today.. oops.

If the exhaust pulses interfere with each other, then you have MORE noise and LESS engine horsepower. Again, more noise means less performance.

For those who want to throw a grenade into the mix - yes an Indy car has better performance and makes more noise. But which Indy cars have higher performance? The ones that make less noise. All else being equivalent - less noise means a better car, more horsepower, less pollution, longer vehicle life, etc. But you cannot tell that to the fools who just know more noise means a 'cool' car. So just laugh at them. They don't even remember principles taught in junior high school science.

Posting is a car customizer. For example, five years before it was standard in Detriot, I built and installed an electronic ignition in a Ford 6 banger. Did I improve the car? No. Experimented numerous times and failed to improve performance. But learned significantly from the experience. Other problems with late 1960 and early 1970 cars that I would learn of later due to that experience. Knowledge possible because I gained much from customizing.

A difference. I customized with the intent of trying to accomplish something productive. One question that got answered - why could a teenager do what Detroit could not?

Others customization that apply to that question. Intermittent windshield wipers (that I never successfully integrated to the 'beat' of music). Burglar alarm (attempted multiple designs - some succeeded whereas others did not). Investigated but failed to make an anti-lock brake system (getting reliable valves became difficult). Played with various adjustments to the steering system (and will never go back to any car with that obsolete 'even in 1960' worm gear system such as in every Camaro). Discovered why drum brakes should never be on the front wheels of any vehicle. A system to measure instantaneous fuel economy.

So you tell me what the difference is between this car customizer verses a joker who pays $400+ for a rear spoiler or big bucks for headlights that look bluish but provide less light. A most stupid modification are those who spend a hundred to replace orange rear turn signal assmblies with inferiour red rear turn signals only because the light assembly is pretty -highlighted by aluminum foil. A major difference exists between a true car hobbyist verses a customizer with too much money and no fundamental knowledge.

In the meantime, no one was available to teach me any of this. I had to find and obtain information - in the 1960s when information was harder to locate. Again, is there a difference between this customizer verses one who spends $1000+ on wheel rims? You betcha. Big difference. So do I have the right to be critical? I am simultaneously amused and melancholy at what I see. Its an absolute shame to see so much money and labor spent with no intent for improvement and no real respect even for simple science.

For the same reason, anything with an automatic transmission becomes so much more difficult to drive. So again, I am so amused at those who fear to learn even simple things - and therefore insist they cannot drive a stick.

No. :)

I've found it interesting in this thread to find out that apparently most guys who do this are black. Where I live it's almost exclusively a bunch of silly white kids. One of the last new hires in my training class at my old office was a 22-year-old guy with a red late-model Honda civic. He and his friends (three of whom owned cars IDENTICAL to his except color, and the other an old CRX) actually took the cars to the lake and took pictures of them at the dam. In different groupings and "poses". Pointing them in different directions, getting different sun-glares. He told me that they all wash their cars two times, every day, and meet up to do so. He told me he'd spent over $2000 in the last six months adding things to the car, and the CRX guy had spent over $4K. When did they stop making the CRX? Ten or twelve years ago?
This guy lived at home with his elderly parents (he was the youngest of many children). I know how much he was making - the princely sum of $9.03 an hour. He paid no bills, he just worked on that car. Before he got that job he'd been making even less, and yet coughed up $2000 in six months (over $300/mo.!) to play with his car.
If I've come off as a racist here, apologies. Here the majority of the people who are into this crap are white kids. Further, It's not my business what people spend their money on. But when I see people spending ridiculous amounts of money on their vehicles and not having $5 to buy lunch at work, I think their priorities are fucked up.

No worries about the racism, Jane...it all depends on where you are. Currently around where I live, the ones who do that are primarily black with a couple of hispanic guys in the group. However, 8 miles away where I used to work, the ones who drove pimped out cars and clustered them in the parking lot during lunch hour were all asian, mostly Korean. I haven't run across any primarily white groups although I have seen white guys with the other groups I mentioned.

Yes.

Yes, but the CRX was a damn cool ride. Back before hybrids, the 1988-91 Honda CRX HF got 49 MPG in city, 52 MPG highway.

Why we gotta spend megabucks for efficient vehicles today, when apparently they knew how to do it 14 years ago?

- Pie, thinking about buying an Acura TSX...