My latest toy

Just needs a proper wash and wax.















Regards,

Ian

I've bought 2 iRush Pros from Novatech (for my lad and fiancée). Had one glitch with my lad's one where the gfx card went Pete Tong after a couple of weeks, but an RMA was all set up before I even asked almost. I took it down to their Reading branch as it's not too far from here, and I got asked if I had 10 mins to wait. They tried a new card in it and it was shown to be the problem.. I walked out with it still installed and has been working just fine ever since.

Although Clare only really uses hers for email and some browsing currently, Ash happily runs Test Drive Unlimited, GTA 4 etc on max settings without a problem



Regards,

Ian

Quote from Töki (HUN) :

Meh, the typical BMW talk... Does this makes you a douche too? Because that's what my first ever car will be. (not this one, but a black touring, yes) I have to find a proper one for a good price, which is not easy.

Heh.. I might be selling mine soon (albeit Lachs Silver)

Looking to pick up an E60 550 M (2007 / 2008 model) and don't know if I can justify 3 cars



Regards,

Ian

Quote from Migz :

4000 i think.

80mph, 3rd gear, 1.1 motor and only 4,000rpm!? I find that _very_ hard to believe... considering 80mph in 5th in my 2.5l straight-6 beemer is 4,000rpm.

_IF_ you were doing near 80mph in 3rd, it must have all but been bouncing off the rev limiter!



Regards,

Ian

Hi Nathan..

I hadn't thought about trying to sell the spoiler on Passionford etc. Will dig it out again (is lying somewhere in the garden now) and see what condition it's in regarding sagging etc.

In regards to the Onion itself.. it was a 1.6 Ghia.. but with a set of Series-2 alloys and genuine Series-2 bodykit. I never did get around to finishing it and fitting the small section I cut out of the rear arches to make it fit the 4-door. Shortly after the picture was taken.. it blew 2 core plugs out on the tarmac and I lost my license a couple of weeks after that.. and it got scrapped.

I still have the PCS exhaust too.. and a 4-branch manifold for it, hah. Had been a looong time since I cleared the garage out last

Quote from Nathan_French_14 :

BTW Ian, are you on PistonHeads? I was reading a thread, and came across that exact image of your Orion so I'm guessing it's you?

Not that I'm aware of.. don't remember signing up there. Intrigued about the photo / thread through, have you got a link to it?

The picture was taken almost opposite my house maybe 10 or so years ago.



Regards,

Ian

Quote from Martinss :

Only mods done is - all disc brakes from cosworth with electric brake servo, cosworth LSD and cosworth leather recaro seats (fitted last week, not in the pic) and saab 16" cross spoke rims.

I also spot an E30 touring in that pic

I've got a genuine sapphire cossie spoiler here (was mounted to my old Ford Orion) I'm about to bin, shame you're so far away.. I hate throwing away usable stuff, but needed to clear the garage out







Regards,

Ian

Quote from logitekg25 :

thats just terrible

but i gotta comment on the bmw in the background...very nice

Thanks. The beemer's my daily drive.. although needs a damn good wash, wax and polish now after being neglected a bit in favour of the Mini



Regards,

Ian

17th in the queue to leave for Brighton after camping at Crystal Palace Park for the night..



Everything went well without a hitch.. until.........

Half way taking my lad home Sunday evening.. some dirty somalian fsckwit decided to turn right across my path.. regardless of the fact I was all but in front of him...



:weeping: :weeping: :weeping:

Will now have to wait yet again for the insurance to decide what they're going to do (I suspect a write-off this time ) and then start with the repairs or looking for a new shell for the running gear.



Regards,

Ian

Hi all

New release: 1.0.1.141. This fixes a couple of show-stopping bugs and a few less critical ones.

Changelog & download link.

Thanks to adamshl for bug reports and bug testing, and for a few good feature suggestions (some added, some to come later)



Regards,

Ian

Hi all..

1.0.0.133 released.

A long time dead, this project has now been revived with a few updates, in particular for large SPR file collections.

Changelog and download link available at dSRC.



Regards,

Ian

Hi Adam..

Quote from adamshl :

Program displays error when loading replays. Outdated version, I think is no longer developed.

What error message do you get?

I've just downloaded 2 Z28 replays from the forum and both load in my version fine. I do have a slightly later version than the last released one, but don't remember changing much / anything within the replay handling code itself.

If you think you know a replay which is causing it to display the error, if you could upload that, I'll try loading it into the version I have.

I can't debug too much right now as I don't have my C++ environment installed since installing windoze7, but will see if I can at least spot anything obvious from your error message / any file you might think causes a problem.



Regards,

Ian

Can't say I'm a fan of much of this style.. but...

One of the originals? Mr Oizo - Flat Beat [feat. Flat Eric]. Was massive back in the day.

Much prefer this remix over the original too (if it classifies): La Roux - In for the Kill (Skream's Let's Get Ravey Mix). The bird's got a great voice IMO.



Regards,

Ian

Quote from dawesdust_12 :

Ahh, the effortless way of baiting Ian out of his hole... mention RegEx's

Heh.. have been sorting out trying buy a house and spend more time round my fiancé's place than I do in front of the screen after work these days... not a bad thing though



Regards,

Ian

Contacted the insurance again today to ask WTF is happening. Now they want to know... how much it cost to get the K&N air filter fitted, and what the BHP was before and after fitment! I didn't fit it (and they know this as I've told them 3 times I bought it as-is and they apparently have "a lot of notes".. do duh.. why not read them!?), so have no idea of the cost.. at a guess, probably ~£20 for the filter itself and self fitment seeing as the fella I bought the car off had completely rebuilt the car himself. As for power, again a guess would be a matter of 1-3bhp.. they really are just trying to be annoying now.

That said, they did say they're leaning towards getting it fixed (apparently they don't normally insure modified cars, period) so looks like I'll have to ride this one out. Thankfully I managed to replace the fuel tank and both sets of engine and gearbox mountings on the E30 (not a fun or cheap job at all!) so it's back on the road again and my other half has her own motor, so it's not essential that I get it back immediately... just annoying that they don't seem to work very fast... yet if I wasn't insured and had an accident with one of their clients... my guess is they'd be all over me like a rash.

After it's done, I'll be moving to a different insurance company and will notify them of the modifications so I don't have to go through this crap again if I ever have to.



Regards,

Ian

I must be strange.. I actually like RegEx! I find them an interesting challenge (for want of a better phrase). Granted, they can cause hair loss, but still provide more fun to me than trying to do a Rubik Cube for example

It bugs me when coding in C++ as it's not a language I'll claim to be fluent in at all that I haven't yet grasped the use of RegEx construction and normally have to resort to using various split() type calls and arrays to finally drill down to the data I need to access.

One task I've been asked to resolve at work is to fix some things in a CSV file. The 2 fields clearly labelled 'first_name' and 'last_name' seem to occasionally get filled with 'Miss Blogs' and 'Miss Joe' or the 'first_name' field with 'Jack or Jill' and the 'last_name' field left blank (don't ask.. we're talking about the acting industry.. not renowned for their intelligence). If I had to do this with C++, due to my lack of knowledge, I'd have to split each line at the ',' char, then process the fields working on splitting at spaces and the likes. Using RegEx will make the task very simple as I only need to split the row at the ',' char, then work on the relative field with some simple RegEx. I expect nothing more than 20 lines of code to read in a file, process and write an updated version.

Maybe sadistic, but I find them fun to work with (although my usage is pretty much limited to Perl and PHP)



Regards,

Ian

Friggin retarded foreign builders... not a clue!

He was stationary at a roundabout, before moving off. His "excuse"... "your car's small, I didn't see you"... needless to say, I was far from happy with that response.

Waiting for the insurance people now who are being equally idiotic. Apparently as I failed to notify them of the "modifications" that I didn't do (note: this means wider alloys and different seats!).. it's so far taken them 3 weeks to determine whether the wheels are wider than what comes on a Mini... argh!

Thus far, they even reckon that it's more than likely a "write off". The only damage is a door and window. Thankfully the impact was more of a push than a shunt and was only at a few MPH. The motor's insured for what I paid for it... £3,500. I'm guessing for that, they plan to get a custom door fabricated and sprayed at Rolls Royce! Fsckin' insurance companies!











Regards,

Ian

For using multiple sources in databases, I normally specify the data source within the FROM and WHERE clauses, for a simplified example:


Seems to work the same as the various JOIN statements without the confusion between inner, outer, "overthere", "round_the_corner" variations.



Regards,

Ian

Last edited by Ian.H, Mon 2 Nov 2009, 20:28.

Thanks for the comments lads

Bastian.. the 1293cc in this pulls quite well and so far pushed up to 110mph (registered on a satnav) although I _really_ wouldn't want to crash it at that speed!

I may have it bored out to a 1380cc next year and drop a pair of weber 40s on it. It's interesting to see the look on people's faces driving much more modern cars when you go bouncing past them in the outside lane



Regards,

Ian

4 hours of washing and waxing yesterday afternoon, followed by rain overnight New headlight bulbs mean I can see where I'm going at night though

A few pics of the Mini taken in daylight earlier today:













Regards,

Ian

Quote from BastianB :

Ian.H now that you got a second car, sell me your bimmer please

heh.. the Mini's going to be a "weekend toy™" Keeping the E30 as my daily



Regards,

Ian

Quote from Gekkibi :

Bought an engagement ring.

Congrats fella! Did that myself a couple of weeks ago



Regards,

Ian

Hi all..

A new addition to accompany my touring. Went to Castle Combe race track last weekend for the 50th Anniversary of the Mini with the possibility of buying one. This one was a bit over what we (me and my better half) had been looking to spend, but it was well worth it. Absolutely no rust whatsoever.. previous owner's brother-in-law is a welder / fabricator so no expense was spared in that department, and a complete respray followed from a bare shell, so even the engine bay and underneath is nice and clean This was all done last year.

The engine bay sports a 1293cc lump with a Swifttune cam and K&N air filter enclosed underneath a fiber glass bonnet, breathing out of an RC40 exhaust system. Suspension is adjustable hi-los but might be replaced with full coilovers. Alloys are _mint_ without a single mark on the nicely polished lips. Goes like stink and handles accordingly. Engine has only done 10k since the build.

Few things to do (mainly change for personal preference).. but it's a great motor!










Regards,

Ian

Quote from theirishnoob :

would you sell it ??

love the e30 touring, High mile engines + endless power = one of the best cars ive ever had the pleasure to not only to work on but drive and be a passenger in.

what a pitty they are so over priced here

Not got any plans to sell it.. love it too much.

It's an older engine too, so higher compression. Not too much of a difference over the facelift lower compression lumps, but a few bhp more. Seems pretty bullet proof if looked after / serviced regularly, which it'll be getting sometime soon.

Are the export costs high? Might be worth looking over here and driving it back? That said, finding mint / very good ones at good prices here aren't that easy either as it seems like the tourings are in pretty high demand.



Regards,

Ian

Quote from Tomson(FIN) :

I was thinking the same But planned to do that in next summer.. just gonna do some little fix before the winter.. Gonna upload more pictures when i have done something.

Shame you're not closer. I have a spare set my lockup.

Interested in seeing more pics



Regards,

Ian

Quote from BastianB :

Wow 230k km are a bit too much imo but depends on what you paid for it. Defenetly a fun car you got there

I have 189,xxx miles on my 325i E30 touring.. and it still pulls hard. Had 176,xxx miles on it when I paid £1,000 for it ~12 months ago. I expect to take this engine well into the 200,xxx range

Nice motor Tomson. Just needs some 15" BBS to replace the bottletops



Regards,

Ian