Ok Brian, here goes,

I want to say that this is just MY opinion. This is the way that I FEEL about the site. I am NOT in this for the arguement. I am NOT grinding an axe.

I did not vote because I feel that there is a good mix of communtiy and technical in here. I use this site constantly (as well as others) to research. It is a wealth of info that I reference to others on other sites. There are some very experienced and bright guys on here.

Now that being said, I've always had a problem with the "tight-nitness" of the community. There are a group of guys who have been on here for a long time who know each other and have set up a repoire, friendship, comraderie together. Nothing wrong with that. But with that, I do not feel like there has been an effort to incorporate new people and different concepts in that "circle of trust" (my apologies to Dinero ). You see it time and time again (as edxmon says "I'm kinda scared to ask because I'm afraid to get yelled at and stuff"). These are the guys that you NEED to incorporate so that 2gnt can thrive (not just sustain).

I really like tuners' way of starting these guys. The new member demarkation lets others know that this person COULD be a BANME! to cars. This allows the new member the "safety" of being under a heading where they can feel free to ask something without getting "yelled at". If you look at tuners, you can see that the "BANME!s" get a lot more leeway when they get answers than others would. This is as it should be. Trial by fire does not work that well.

BUT, I also think the 'wiseman" tag is thrown around a little too easily over there. IMO

As for the different views or concepts. I have seen various people get mad and berate others because they have taken a different stance than the "company line". It has happened to me. You can't have progress by stifeling different ideas with angry answers of "you know nothing about your car". Progress comes with experimentation. In racing (or just cars for that matter), there a thousand different ways to get to the same spot. Some people act like there is only one way. Yeah, I know, opinions are like assholes, everyone's got one. And yeah, some are stinky and useless (opinions I'm talking about here) but by taking the position that all differing opinions are wrong you go nowhere.

My background is such that I have nothing to prove to anyone. I have had guys on waiting lists for months, waiting for me to build them an engine. I'm not the hot-shot, brainiac, mechanic but I'm confident in my abilities. BUT, as I post, there are others that are reading and listening to the answers to my posts. Those are the guys I am concerned with. They are trying to learn and they are looking at the condecesion and derision of the answers. Which makes them afarid to post, or take the answer seriously.

I feel like I have put my money where my mouth is. 15 seconds was touted as a huge milestone to hit on this site. I have taken certain positions about what was needed to get there, and some of these were positions that were contrary to "the company line". I specifically did those things for the reason of testing. I made my positions and I adhered to them. The Jeep TB (too big), the Port and Polish of NA (unnecessary and loss of power), the stock valve train on a high rev, high lift engine (can't support it, valves will float) to name a few. My money, my labor, and it worked.

But the funny thing is when I crossed the threshold I felt like I got the "cold shoulder". 420a-Tnthewerks said it himself, "WTF is wrong with 2gnt? Nobody seems to care". I posted this on May 27 and the only responses I got were from 420a and Chris (who I knew from tuners) until 3 days later on the 30th. This is community? Not if you aren't one of the chosen ones.

I know that this sounds like I'm grinding an axe or being a baby or something, but I'm really not. I don't need a ticker tape parade or anything. I really did this out of my own curiousity. I run 14.8's all day long now, I am seriously looking at breaking 14 with a 420a NA. You talk about community and all; well, when there has been talk about doing something for years and someone finally does it, it should receive a bit more attention than days old acknowledgement.

As for a prize giveaway type thing to raise funds, I think that's a great idea! I'm not really sure how that would work. Would the prize be maybe a gift cetificate from a vendor or something? It would be hard to make it a specific part of some kind. But I like the idea in principle.

EZ, I totally get your drift in coming up with a visual on the wiring. That would be very helpful. But wouldn't that require someone to take over the project as an overseer of sorts who could categorize the pics etc.? I know the mods have more than their share of work to do. Maybe a post on this to coordinate it?

Oh yeah, edxmon, the abbreviations, LOL! Those can be tough. You go on a search, you get your threads and start to read the info. You are reading and understanding everything. Boy this search works great! You are about to read into the answers to your question when BAM! You run into an afc, ecu, isc, tps, abc whatever. And now you can't really get the gist of the answer. I feel your pain. I wonder if we can set-up a BANME! section for definitions of the acronyms etc.? Just a thought.

Well, there's my 10 cents,

MB

And one more thing; I don't see backwards boon is a bad word. But my apologies if anyone was offended