Does anyone on this forum (ie who's still here) know Steve Cirian, the author of the awesome website, http://www.scuderiaciriani.com/ ? For one thing, I was curious if he's still on here and posting. The second, I'm curious/worried about the future of his site (as well as others such as http://robrobinette.com/ and http://www.iluvmyrx7.com/), esp. given that a lot of people are moving on to other cars & projects... It would be a huge loss to the forum if these sites disappeared, and w/ it the tons of useful info on it.

I was speaking w/ Jon (J-split) recently about the 3rd Gen Registry website he put together (www.fd3s.cc), and he seems to have a huge amount of webspace and a keen interest in adding to the How-To Section. I was thinking maybe we can try and consolidate the How-To's from the main various websites, and host it on his, esp. if the owners of the original websites may be thinking about taking down their sites anytime in the future?

I know Jon and I were a bit shocked when the www.iluvmyrx7.com site went down a few weeks ago (it's back up now). Just thought it might be prudent to plan for that time from now, before it's too late. So anyone interested in the idea of saving and and the same time consolidating the huge amount of info these valuable resources have? (Not to mention most of them haven't been updated in years...I'm sure there are excellent new write-ups that we should be archiving as well )

~Ramy

 

I'm right there with you. Steve's site guided me through the first phases of ownership (including before I purchased the car).
The bottom of his home page has a 'mail me' option'
You might have already tried but here you go anyway:

steve@ScuderiaCiriani.com

Thanks

dave

 

His screen name here is "MilesBFree"

 

I met Steve in person a few months ago.

He takes great pride in his site and has not mentioned the thought of taking it down. He asked for help on his site, here on the forum, a few months ago but didn't seem to get any takers. He has a ton of archived information that he would like to get put onto the site, but he's very busy with his current project at work (and since I was on the same project working 70+ hours a week, I know how busy he is).

 

Damian ought to take on updating Steve's site. He certainly has the skills and seems to have the free time, because he practically lives at the track as far as I can tell.

 

BTW, that site has been that way for years. It's on a crappy host and goes up & down frequently.

 

Missed that thread completely. But since I now have his handle, I found the thread: https://www.rx7club.com/3rd-generation-specific-1993-2002-16/3rd-gen-web-site-help-needed-steve-cirians-357449/

While we're at it, anyone know anything about Rob's site or the iluvmyrx7.com website?

 

There are a couple of great write-ups on the forum that should be hosted as well (pics disappear after a while...not to mention the threads themselves).

I think skunks had a great writeup w/ pics of changing the tranny fluid a while back, and ran across this by accident yesterday: James Paventi's step by step engine pull and reinstall thread, and the pics are still up!!!: https://www.rx7club.com/forum/showth...threadid=152636

Just trying to get the ball rolling...maybe at least in the meantime we can get a list going of excellent write-ups on the forum that still have pics associated w/ them? Yes? No?

 

Ramy is right so I just wanted to chime in and volunteer myself.
I have a ton of webspace, plus the time and what not to really build, manage and update a quality site. All of course with the help from everyone on here...
But I've always thought it would be nice to get the howto's consolidated and have a site that really looks and functions well for users today. There's obviously a lot of information scattered in so many places, for me and others i've talked to it just gets to be a pain to track down knowledge.

 

There was talk of moving over to a different domain and adding/updating pages and information. I offered to lend a hand, but never received a response. It really is an asset to the community and I hope it stays around and gets updated.

 

^^ Same with me.

With all the various sites being taken offline or being on sketchy hosts, I actually setup an open source based content management system on my PC so that I could archive useful info and not have to rely on re-searching through pages of articles on multiple sites.

 

He is supposed to be moving the site. How far along that is at this point is a big ?. I'll try to get in touch with him to see how things are going. I had offered my assistance as well, but I just can't with too many other things going on. Not to worry though. All that info won't dissapear. Worse comes to worse, it will just have a different URL.

 

Ok, so thankfully that site is set for now. Anyone know anything about Rob's site or the iluvmyrx7.com site?

Also, I think there are a lot of great write-ups on the forum (some still w/ pics) that we should be trying to save before they disappear (writeups w/ pics are a goldmine IMO). Ppl only host their pics for so long... which is why I was thinking of getting a list of great write-ups going. Jon said (at least for now) he can easily format and upload them onto his site, so if you guys are interested in helping w/ that effort for now (all means to a common goal), plz add any pertinant threads to this list (copy paste the threads already listed, and add to the list plz, so we won't have to go through the entire post, seraching for the links)

1) Engine pull and re-install: https://www.rx7club.com/3rd-generation-specific-1993-2002-16/pictorial-write-up-my-engine-pull-re-install-152636/
2) FD Transmission Rebuild (and a couple others too): http://www.davidgeesaman.com/

Interestingly enough, a couple of the writeups I had saved links to are down already...individuals who put them up on their own sites only keep them up for so long...so lets get this list going! (If I'm not the only one who cares about this lol)

 

Rob's site was just recently (a few months ago) moved. I doubt it's going anywhere for quite a while.

The iluvmyrx7 site. Well, about the only thing useful still on that site are the FSMs. It would probably be good to locate those on a different site. I thought the owner of iluv sold his FD last year. If so, the site might not be around forever (as if it's reliable right now).

 

Mahjik, no contributions to the How-To's/Writeups list?? If you don't have any, who will?

I think Jon grabbed the FSMs that were on there for the 3rd gen...I think there are a few How-To's too.

 

Haven't you read the FAQ's? I think Mahjik and Scotty305 have put together a lot of useful threads there, not just newbie questions. If you want useful threads to save, start there.

 

Jason, I'm starting to think you're clicking on my username, then "find all posts by FDNewbie" and just coming after me that way

FYI, if you look at the FAQ, the vast majority of the links to how-to's and writeups are actually external links, not internal links. I'm asking these guys because most of them have been around for years longer than I have, and may remember threads here or there that most of us don't know exist.

A perfect example of what I'm talking about is this thread by Skunks: https://www.rx7club.com/showthread.p...threadid=94583

Written in '02, and the last time I looked at it (about a year ago), it still had all the pics up. Now they're gone, and he obviously went through a lot of trouble to take pics step by step. This, like the engine pulling thread I mentioned earlier, is not found in the FAQ section (that's not to say that Mahjik and the others that put it together didn't do an excellent job). In fact, the only way I found out this thread existed was I saw skunks make a reference to it in another thread when someone asked for a writeup for changing the tranny fluid. But skunks wasn't sure where it was...so I searched for it, filtering posts by his username, and eventually found it.

I found the Engine Pull & Re-Install writeup by accident too, when someone brought back 93BlackFD's years old "HELP! Used t-shirt as temp air filter...it got sucked in!" thread.

You guys already mentioned that Steve has a ton of material that needs to be put on the site...so it looks like he's covered from that angle. New writeups are being handled by very capable ppl like Dave. So naturally, I'm interested in picking up the slack where it's most needed: saving these now-obscure threads that you guys may know of and have forgotten, and we simply don't know exist. In this case, skunks still posts, so it's possible he may still have the pics, so the thread may still be salvageable (hopefully). I just hope I'm not the only person that seems to care about this?

So here's my updated list:

1) Engine Pull and Re-Install: https://www.rx7club.com/showthread.php?t=152636
2) FD Transmission Rebuild (and a couple others too): http://www.davidgeesaman.com/
3) Changing the Diff and Transmission Fluids: https://www.rx7club.com/showthread.p...threadid=94583

 

Ramy has the right idea here. Lets just build a list in this thread so that they can be archived easily somewhere. The possibilities are endless here as far as what I can do. As well as importing all of these onto the fd3s.cc website that I'm working on there could be the possibility of one day assembling them all as a downloadable application that anyone could just download and run / store on their own machines.

 

I knew Rob Robinette. He sold his FD years ago, probably over 8 years ago. When he sold his FD, he had his website transferred to someone who had an interest in maintaining the website. He was/is a member of the RX7 list but I forget who it is now.

 

Ramy-
I had started something with my limited knowledge on HTML/web development doing exactly what you posted about (see sig)
The problem I had is that people I asked permission to use their info and host on my site, said no. If anyone else is already working on something like this, I'll just stop.

thanks,
Ben

 

Ramy and I are working on something similar on the site I run.
Our goal as mentioned is just to consolidate information / knowledge.
Who did you ask for permission and get rejected? I really can't see the reasoning behind denying someone to reproduce something that was written for the general public in the first place. But I guess some people are just selfish. The main thing you just need to do is give credit where credit is due to the authors of any write ups or pictures.

 

Scott Hickerson was (is?) hosting a Mirror of Rob's site for a while - But I just tried my old link to Scott's Site (rx7turboturbo.com) and was promped for a login & password, so I guess his site is not open to the public any longer.

 

It was passed down to another person not too long ago: http://robrobinette.com/

 

Ed, thanks for the info. I'm glad the site was transferred instead of dropped. His site actually as an excellent list of how-to's w/ pics. I'm guessing the contact info on his webpage leads to the new owner/webmaster?

To make a long rant short, I think it's time we step things up a notch. We have a new forum format, new servers (which are currently going to be expanded even further), new search functions, and even a new generation of owners and products. It's only fitting that a new generation of write-ups follow, and in a format that's easy and quick to search through. Hence my urge to salvage what's already done and contribute to what hasn't been written up, and consolidate things into one site (if possible).

***There's even the possibility that the Registry (w/ it's various sections) can become a part of the forum itself in the future, if the forum owners want it to be. The way the registry website is set up will really change things...and I'm serious about that. Jon's set up a search engine for IMAGES as well, and I got permission from TpCpLaYa to use the THREE CD's of images he has archived (which I now have) on the site. So all those "pic request of this and that" threads can all of a sudden be taken care of in 2 seconds via an image search! The How-To's will also be archived in a manner easy to find/search through, and in logical sections/categories***

Ben, good stuff! Thanks for sharing that. Unfortunately that first link on your site doesn't work (the one that should lead to write-ups on the fourm). Also, if you can provide Jon and/or I w/ the write-ups that you didn't get permission to use, and the owner's contact info, that would be great, because I'd like to see if ppl would be a bit more willing to share if they're given credit and they see it's being done on a forum-wide initiative.

Lastly, even the write-ups that are still on the forum but no longer have pics can be salvaged. If all goes well and we have the Registry site up and running, we can have a list of write-ups we're looking for pictures for. Kind of like a sticky on the "how-to" section. That way, anyone who's looking to undertake that specific task can take the initiative to take the pictures along the way, updating and possibly even adding to/modifying the text-only writeups we already have.

Point being, I think there's a huge amount of improvement we can make IF ppl are interested. I'm not an ***-kisser, but frankly speaking, there are a lot of ppl on this forum w/ a HUGE amount of knowledge and experience on their shoulders, yet I don't know how much longer we'll have them around on the forum. I just believe we should be thankful for the resources we have, and do what we can to preserve them

 

Wasn't coming after you at all just stating that Mahjik and Scotty305 have organized a lot of useful content in the FAQ's.

Just because the content is external doesn't negate the fact that the content contained is important and should still be saved. But I see your point that your originial question was about saving threads on the forum. And I guess you could look at the content of the FAQ's as important threads that have already been saved. However, that doesn't mean that the info there is permanent. For example the my "Question about 12v relay fix" in the FAQ's has several pictures posted by me and spooledup7 clarifying the 12v relay fix. Once we stop hosting those pictures they will be gone again and the next person confused about the relay fix will have to post again asking for clarification.

BTW if you need any more help (seems like you have enough) recovering and organizing the content, you know who to ask.