[Curmudgeon]

(IMG:http://www.frrax.com/rrforum/style_emoticons/default/unsure.gif) WARNING

I would suggest that you read all the forum rules or be ready to be roasted.

I would suggest you lurk for awhile before stepping in. It is one of the best tech site out there that I know of, but the sites admin. Does not tolerate violations of there rules.

[rmackintosh]

Before I offend too many people, let me say the below is not directed at anyone specific in this thread or on this board--but toward the vast majority of F-Body owners who like to turn corners in general.

[Begin Rant]

Most want to learn, or at least they say they do. While picking up a book or two can work wonders, most are too damn lazy to do it. These days most will learn everything from the internet. Message boards. Most only read a couple specific to their make and model as if it's the only information in existence. I've got news for you, it isn't.

A car is a car. While the techniques used to apply them may differ from car to car, the laws are all the same. In the end, it's four tires on the pavement, nothing more. If you think reading what (many times, clueless) people say about your particular car is all there is to learn about it, you're kidding yourselves.

Frrax.com is wonderful, and I'm so glad it's here. But it has only been here for a few months. Before that, we had the AutoX/RR forums on various F-Body boards. If that's where you spent all your time, yes, you have missed out. While they did get a little better over the last couple of years, overall they still sucked. I did my best to try and make them better, but I was fighting a losing battle. Much too often I got the same frustration with them that the people who started CC.com got with the Mustang boards. I would stop reading and posting for a while. I wouldn't answer the questions I knew the answer to because I had already answered them a million times!!!

Technical discussions regarding suspension design, overall vehicle dynamics, etc? Pathetic (what little there was). No, the signal was drowned out by the noise. Explaining for the bazillionth time that poly/poly LCA's weren't the best idea. Even if they come powdercoated yellow. Where it's "mean" to tell somebody he is wrong. Even if he is.

So, for all of you who won't "lower yourselves" to reading posts with attitude, I'm happy for you. Maybe if you had spent a tenth of the time you spent on F-Body boards lurking on CC.com, things like what a motion ratio is, what a roll center is, what tire efficiency is, how and why weight transfer happens, etc wouldn't be such foreign concepts to you. Maybe you'd start to understand some of those things in that book you stopped reading because it all went over your head when you hear them explained and examples given in numerous discussions. This is basic stuff, kids. In "other words" you might know your butt from a hole in the ground.

Oh, but they're so mean! That's weak. Really. Just an excuse. I've heard it all before. You guys think you're saying anything new? You sound exactly like the crybabies on the Corral have sounded for years after getting a good tech smackdown. Exactly! But you know what? Many of those same people who said those things, really did want to learn. After learning the difference between their asses and a hole in the ground, they see just how wrong they really were and why they were smacked down in the first place. They become members of CC.com. Eventually, some even have something to contribute. Some even become moderators there! The ones who don't? Well, nobody at CC.com misses them. We don't need 1000 new members a day showing up to tell us 2+2=5.

Just a Mustang site? Go ahead and keep thinking that. Your loss.

And for anybody who has a problem with what I said above, I've got two words for you. Yes, you guessed them. (IMG:http://www.frrax.com/rrforum/style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)


SUCK IT!


[End Rant]

WOW Jon.....don't quite know what to say to that......well, actually I do, but I will tone down the attitude for ya (IMG:http://www.frrax.com/rrforum/style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

A few points.

1. NOT all of us are engineers. It is NICE that analytical types have a place to go that fits your/their needs. Some of us are just out to make our cars the best WE can, and drive the hell out of them. And us DRIVERS have an opinion/experience/insight that can be useful as well. I have seen some of the "experts" lap times on that site, and I would be a winner in that group......can't read it ALL in a book my friend. I may not be able to explain through calculus roll centers, weight transfers, etc.....but guess what.....with the LITTLE knowledge I DO have I can ask the right questions and get a professional to set my car up to work pretty damn well.
2. LAZY....don't know about you bud, but lazy is NOT IN MY FREAKIN VOCABULARY! My wife and I BOTH work our asses off to support our family and manage to raise two kids the BEST THAT WE CAN! F-body owners like me, work 30 hours a day just to get the kids to school and home again, and manage to give them some quality time. If I had the time of day to pick up and study all the things I SHOULD know "to know my butt from a hole in the ground"....I SURE AS HELL WOULDN'T BE READING THAT STUFF....I would be doing something I enjoy like taking my kids to a ballgame, or hell, just READING FOR PLEASURE....which I haven't done since God knows when. If I can save myself 5 MINUTES by picking the brain of someone who has "done it before me" I will be all over that. If I need to go to a suspension shop and get the thing dialed in to a baseline so I can go out and play with it, I HAVE TO DO THIS....there isn't enough time in the day to spend on this hobby....cause, at the end of the day, that is what we are talking about here.....a hobby THAT ALREADY takes up ENTIRELY TOO MUCH TIME compared to the time my family deserves!
3. FRRAX is NOT perfect....and believe it or not neither is CC.com. It is a COMMUNITY of people who are "trying to learn"......and meet each other and learn in a CIVIL environment.....IS THAT TOO FUCKING MUCH TO ASK?????? Granted some of us are "too lazy" to do it YOUR WAY....some for my family reasons above, some for various other reasons....CANNOT devote countless hours to studying how to engineer a car from the ground up! I paid GM to do that for me, and I pay other companies to design and build systems that will work to improve that car. I am SMART ENOUGH to know I am "LAZY", and need others to assist me in picking systems that work well, and together to make me faster than I otherwise would be.
4. And this is just me here...if answering the same shit over and over gets to you so much.....don't bother! (I am sure there are guys cursing my name now, but WTF?) I myself skip over the "poly on poly" shit all the time.....but I don't go into the thread and call the newbie an ASSCLOWN and to GET A FUCKIN LIFE, or he will be banned either! (IMG:http://www.frrax.com/rrforum/style_emoticons/default/dunno.gif) I was raised to be curteous to others......if you don't got nothin' nice to say....don't say it! With the internet....people lose that concept all the time...WORST PART OF THE DAMN THING IMHO...would they act that way to a person's face????? I don't think so.....
5. Crybabies = weak? Probably, but what is JUST AS WEAK are people who don't know how to socialize in a constructive manner.

...don't know if you had a bad day at work or something today.....maybe the slide rule broke or something.....but man, you need to relax and understand the purpose of this site, and others for that matter........

Oh, and it was a REAL high note you ended on there.....might want to consider how that would play talking FACE TO FACE with someone.....

:leaving: