Monthly Archives: January 2010

Motorcycles

A little more blingery for the 1098.

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Saturday, I got great deal on some AVVI rearsets for the Superbike. Adjustable billet Rear Sets have been on my desire list forever. I never did get a set for my 998, and 2 years into owning the 1098, I finally got it done!

The Happy Hour sale at Ducati Seattle yesterday was IMPOSSIBLE to pass up. 60% off! That cut the price of the parts from $400 to $160! That’s hardly more than the cost of replacing the bits with stock parts, perish the though, if it’s crashed. So.. picked them up, had a cheese burger, talked to Marty for over an hour about tuning the bike…. and headed home to mount the parts.

10 minutes later:

New AVVI Rear Sets
New AVVI Rear Sets

How, I need to get them anodized to match the rest of my billet parts, such as the clutch cover, pressure plate and my levers:

Billet levers.
Billet levers.

I also talked to Marty about the advantages of putting in a custom stroker crank. We looked at some dyno graphs for other stroker motors recently built. It really flattens the torque curve. A 916 stroker was cranking well into 80 ft/lb. from 4400 with at table flat profile all the way to 8500! That would be a massive kick in street drivability, and also corner exit acceleration on the track. If I can file $5000 to burn between now and Summer, I can get the crank done, the heads blueprinted and the entire thing custom dyno tuned. Tempting… very tempting.

It’s great to have a world-class dyno facility less than 1 hour away, with a technician that has decades of experience and the professional network that offers the latest in tuning knowledge to be made available to the average consumer, such as myself.

Dave Rosevelt and Ducati Seattle are a world-class operation!

Forza 3, racing, Technology

More Forza 3 Livery Fun – Hello Kitty!

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Bordem and Beer are a bad combination when it comes to creating vinyl groups in Forza 3.

I won the NSX during Season play, and immedialy the first Honda Fan that came to mind was my friend Mary (I still owe ya $30 for the game.. damn I’m a flake). The next thing to my mind, was that I had to create a ‘Mary Tribute Car’. So… here it is, just for you Mary. A 2007 Acura NSX all decked out.

Hello Kitty NSX
Hello Kitty NSX

I’m not sure who was laughing more while I spent the 2 hours laying out the 201 separate layers it took to make this abomination, but I have to say much laughing was had by all once I was finished!

And to top it all off, I uploaded it to the Forza 3 Storefont, with the design for sale at $10,000 each (limited run of 3). Overnight I sold 2 of them! LOL. That matches the downloads of my FREE Shelby GT500 Mustang design (which BTW looks like a proper race design). Does this make me a professional artist?

Forza 3, racing, Video Gaming

Forza Motorsports 3 – racing video game nirvana

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No doubt about it, I love racing games. And Forza Motorsports III is no exception. I enjoyed FM2 a lot, but all I really did was race.

Since getting FM3 (and a new power supply for my M$ wireless feedback racing controller) I’ve been racing and creating custom looks for my cars.

At first I had some pretty wild solid paint on the cars. Lately though, I have toned it down a bit, changed the big red and white number circle to a very subtle black/grey (but it’s still there on each and every one of the cars I’ve raced in the game).

In a blog to be posted at a later time, I’ll talk more about the cars (I have 20 or so right now, over 1/2 have never turned a wheel in the came — those are all painted white so at a glance I know which are stock, and which are not).

Some of the fun in the game is creating custom looks for the cars. Sure is cheaper than doing it in real life. In fact, if you are good enough people will pay our in-game credits for your masterpieces (I sold 3 in the first 8 hours they were posted). I can win enough credits in the game, it’s not about that, it’s about customizing, exploring a little artistic expression.

Once you have a car you really like, you can upload them to the FMIII website, then save them to anyplace you like. So, I have done just that.

Now, if you are still reading this, you might wonder when I’m going to post the ‘great graphics masterpiece’ I created that has been so popular, it is now sold out. Well, it’s in the last photo (more on that).

Here is the first car I bought in the game, and the only one not painted black. It’s a smoking Ford Fiesta. Wee. Now it’s pretty over-done, and basically impossible to drive. LOL. Still, I can win races with it.

Forza Motorsports III - My first Racer
Forza Motorsports III - My first Racer

Next is a the most recent of my racers, and the first with a proper racing stripe on it. Not very exciting I realize that. That’s sort of the point, understated but unique enough to get spotted in an on-line race with friends.

Lexus 'Racer' in action.
Lexus 'Racer' in action.

OK, so here it is. The beast of my fleet (currently at ‘Supercar’ status due to mods). The V10 powered BMW M\\\5. Woo! And what did I sell out on the Forza Storefront? The license plate. That’s right. That little license plate graphic. All 95 layers of it. It does not look like much but it’s right with vector graphics detail. Measured and re-created from one of the many actual German EU plates I have round the house. I uploaded that template (users can change the letters to anything they want, or remove the registration tags, whatever). It took about 2 hours to figure out how to use the FMIII in-game editor. It’s not what I would call ‘easy’ but once you get the hang of how they manage layers, it’s not that difficult to get a basic result.

Black Beasty
Black Beasty