matty

Somethings never change.

jondrake

Wow! Lots of old listers out there! Well I am still around from the 1996 days on the the "OLD" list before this html stuff even existed! Nice to see posts from Witzer and the like. Man, do I remember LaBreck! How many from the list made it out to Summit Point in 1999 when Brad Barber and I came up from Texas?

dthree

I was a Big lister back in '96 or so with my 2nd gen. Bought my shop manual from Brad Barber. You guys are cracking me up with the memories of Justin, LaBreck, et. al. I bought my CYM in 1998 from a guy in VA, drove it back to TX. Met Trixie at TWS in College Station once at a track day. 6 months later I moved to MD with it. The S/N ratio made me quit the big list and now I mostly lurk on the forum for good stuff. I will say the forum makes it easier to filter the loads of BS. Crispyrx7 and I ran One Lap last year and had a blast!

Gawd I feel old. We could do a 6-degrees thing and probably find Kevin Bacon once owned a 3rd gen or something.

Later,

Dave Henning

CrispyRX7

iTrader: (139)

I was there! Twas when I met Brad and JVOB for the first time....and Sandy and Bill G. and John E. and....
Was that the trip with the now famous "ticket picture?"

Crispy

Fd3BOOST

iTrader: (7)

Maybe you guys should take this whole discussion back to the big list.. :p j/k
Boooo... Maybe in another ten years the rest of us will be on I pods talking about the good ole days of the forum on our desktops.

Kevin T. Wyum

I feel cheated that nobody has fond memories of my conversations with John Duff (did he ever go to jail?) and little tick.

jwitzer

OK, the RX-7 crowd is doing the Dragon in April... too soon.

Brad is doing the Dragon in June... but we don't want to run over the two-wheelers (damn, now I'm missing my 86 VFR700II and 91 CBR1000F).

The RX-8 club is doing the Dragon early September. Do we try to get the old gang together or are we all experiencing a temporary bout of nostalgia?

Mr. Gallagher, welcome back.

Mr. Gammon, my dear friend. I think of you everytime I raise a pint of Guinness (or Fosters) to my lips (which I do often, now). I hope things are going well for you.

Ah, David Lane... the conscience and only emotional adult on the Big List. :-) I still have his Zaino post and I still preach it. That turbo 1st gen of his was class all the way, as was David.

Speaking of class, has anyone heard from John Levy?

What about Wael el-Dasher? Dave Girvan? Dale Mulert? Steve O'Sheal? John Duff? Sandy Linthicum?

Mr. Iglesias. I asked Mr Clark to relay the message that what you told me about your son as we were strolling along the paddock at Sebring was absolutely true. Her name is Shelby Morgan.

Mr. Drake. Was 1999 the year that Bill Gammon was blinded by my HIDs for a few days, Holly Woodward and her daughter were everyone's "pit crew", and Cam Worth and Peter Farrell went at each other on track?

Trixie, glad to see that there is still beauty among these beasts.

It's been a crazy ride, all.

jwitzer

John Duff...jail???

Wha?

Oh, and to dig out this old chestnut...

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jeff Witzer jwitzer@hotmail.com http://www.GeoCities.com/jwitzer
A meteorite landing on your car is an accident.
...Everything else is driver error!

CrispyRX7

iTrader: (139)

I hope I'm not speaking out of place or treading on anyones toes but:
Mr. Levy is racing in Formula Continental and doing VERY well.

sold his car for a huge sum, left the RX7 list, the buyer Fritz Flynn tracked it a few times...blew it up and promptly parted it out. 'Tis no more. But I have his Kinesis wheels

Still around, dunno, and dunno. But I remember the names.

Spoke to him a month ago. He was working for OG racing up till a few weeks ago. He helped me organize a HANS GB. I'll most likely see him next week at our local monthly club meeting. Oh...AND he did NOT go to jail.

Still around and doing well. He attends VIR track events regularly.

Bill are we ever going to see you come to any track events again?

Loved every minute of it too

It's amazing how many of these names I actually recognize now that folks are mentioning them again and how many I haven't seen in years.
Crispy

WVRx7

Yes, I will be on track several times this year. In fact, I am scheduled to instruct at VIR twice this summer and am working with Mr. Nugent to see if he can use me.

2005 saw me on track far less times than I would want and 2004 and 2003 weren't much better, but sometimes life gets in the way of the fun.

And yes, it was one of those fabled 1999 events when I spent far too long staring at Witzer's cosmic HID setup. Sadly, we were at PFS at the time and the 70 mile drive back to the hotel near Summit Point nearly saw me lose my life several times. I was blinded for several days.

The trip with Brad and Jon making it up from Texas was intense. I was awaiting their arrival while napping on a picnic table on I-81 south of Summit Point. When they finally rolled in they were each holding a fist full of yellow carbon paper and were laughing like they had just gotten an award (instead of hundreds of dollars of tickets). In fact, I took that now famous picture of them holding the tickets. The pic must be floating around somewhere.

Holly and her daughter Kristy are still around. Their presence sure made our sausage fest gatherings more palatable.

And Nathan. Damn what an image. I shall never forget sleeping in his horrendous apartment floor after a 2 day binge of track driving at Summit Point. He did take me to some wonderful bar in Annapolis where about 10 of us Rx7 people took over the joint and they sold Guinness at the perfect "cellar" temperature. I spent a couple extra hours in there.

I kept in touch with Tuck for a while. We both share an interest in esoteric home audio equipment. I haven't heard from him for a while.

Tuck while a wild man on-line, was in actuality a great person. I really enjoyed all of my early "DC-Rx7" visits. I may have been one of the first honorary members of the DC-Rx7 list that didn't live in the area.

Steve O'Sheal, I heard from him after the similar "reunion" that happened on the Big List. Steve is alive and well in Birmingham and still owns his FD. His M3 is the primary toy now, but he is hanging onto his well sorted FD for special occasions. I am going to Barber Motorsport Park for an SVRA event in April and hope to hook up with Steve for some fun.

As for me, my first three internet/Rx7 friends came from the Big List and this car and the friends I made profoundly changed my life. JVOB started it all by being the first to respond to a question I sent. Steve O'sheal followed up and we began an internet friendship followed up with a track friendship. Brad Barber came along third and became someone I have always been proud to consider a friend.

With the adventures those three made sure I was a part of, I was fortunate enough to meet most of you guys. I wouldn't change a thing. Well, it would be nice if one of us could be here to participate.

Thanks for the fun guys. Prior to yesterday it was September when I last logged into the forum. I felt it had all sort of passed me by, but it's nice to know that yo guys are still out there.

Anyone remember the "Blizzard Trip to PFS" pictures? I still see those pictures around on various websites. That was 9 years ago.

Great memories.

Bill Gammon
Charleston, WV

DaleClark

iTrader: (55)

Man, this thread is just good stuff . Wonder how many "newbies" are reading it wondering what us "old farts" are going on about .

I had almost forgotten the "Blizzard trip to PFS"! Never knew an R1 spoiler could make such a dandy snowplow. Distinctly remember that!

Anyone seen/heard from Brooks Weisblat? I know he sold his FD many moons back and got a Viper, but AFAIK his webpage has been stagnant for some time.

I may have to try and get in touch with Dave Girvan. He was a good buddy of mine back in the day, and one of the founding members of the old RX-7 Club of Florida.

One thing I was thinking about the other day - does anyone still have one of the old ASP all-in-one midpipe/catbacks? Seems like quite a few people were running those insanely loud creations way back when. You just gotta wonder where they drifted off to.

Dale

phinsn98

iTrader: (2)

I located Wael on the S2KI forum. I shot him an email.

greenmonster

Wow. This is one hell of a crowd. Someone mentioned it on a local list, so I thought I'd come take a peek. Much more than I expected.

I remember joining the list back in 97 when I bought my first FD. Sifting throught the 100+ emails per day looking for educational or entertaining nuggets. Learned everything there was to know about the nightmare of vacuum hoses, "buy a boost gauge immediately," "2 upgrades are ok, but you need a fuel computer for the 3rd," and the many other nuances at the time. Wow, that PFS purple box was hot-f***ing stuff!!! I, like Crispy, was initially terrified of the Mighty LaBreck with the fastest car this side of the Saturn V. :-)

It's good to see so many old names.

Bill -- you should definately some to the Mazda Drivers events at VIR and SPR this year. Many of us DC folk will be at all 3.

Rich

Kevin T. Wyum

John Levy and Sandy were always a pleasure to talk shop with as performance is virtually all that really mattered to them. It was hard to find other kindred spirits at the time. People were pretty hesitant to cut their cars up when they were only a couple years old.

GoodfellaFD3S

iTrader: (213)

This is a great thread. What ever happened to Terry Ferragame? I remember he used to give me some great advice back when I was at ground zero with my stock FD......

bradrx7

Hey, Kevin.
I still see John Levy and John Eppley as often as possible. (We only live 1400 miles apart) I went to Naples, FL to play golf with John last month and my girlfriend and I are going back down in March to visit them again.

As for cutting up new cars, I remember running your IC very early on my old silver car. You made me a custom one row shorter version so I wouldn't have any hood interference and think you ended up incorporating that into all the units, if my memory is correct.

Funny "old folks" thread. The internet really opened up all of our worlds enabling us to meet people we would have never met otherwise. I learned SO much from this strange trip and made many lasting friendships.

Oh, I still have that shot from the Summit Point trip where Jon Drake and I are holding 6 tickets (3 each, I like the Va ticket format, about 8x10 and suitable for framing!) from one traffic stop near Bristol, Va. I also remember talking my way out of the problem I had with running a Valentine in Va... "Sign? I didn't see a sign." Then, meeting up with a ton of list characters at SP... Levy, Eppley, JVOB, Dana, Ieroncig, Gammon, Linthicum, Duff, Nugent, Regan, Cam, Peter and many more I cannot remember. Most of these people I'd gotten to know off-list by then and they are relationships I still enjoy.

jondrake

Yes, I believe that was the year. In those days I had the confidence that I could drive my RX-7 1,600 miles to an event, run 3 days on the track, and then make the return trip ... without breaking down!

I remember Cam's 3 rotor. You could hear it almost the entire time as it lapped at Summit Point. Cam came over to our pit area and was poking through all our setups, crawling underneath cars and helping get them ready. He spent a bit of time looking around my '95 and how it differed from earlier years.

That was also the first time that I met JVOB, John E., John Levy, Bill G., Sandy L., Wael, Dana, etc. etc. etc. I still have a picture of my car going into Turn 1 at Summit Point with Sandy's car right behind mine. It hangs proudly in my office at work.

That WAS the year of Brad and my famous (or infamous?) picture of our speeding tickets. I STILL have "reckless driving " on my driving record here in Texas! My wife never believes we were innocent!

Kevin, I still fondly remember the John Duff episode. We all got involved at some level back then.

M104-AMG

iTrader: (8)

Jeff,

who and where did you get the close-ratio 5th gear from ? Was it hard to install ?

Would you do this again, or just 4.3 gears in the diff ?

:-) neil

jwitzer

Close-ratio 5th was purchased from and installed by Pettit Racing. Don't know who manufactured it.

Excellent mod. Made 5th gear a usable passing gear.

Combine this with the RB 8.5 pound flywheel and short shifter for an amazing transformation of the car. Best mods I made.

Fritz Flynn

iTrader: (263)

This trans is currently in my car that I bought from Brad. Probably has 175k miles of use and the 2nd gear is tiny bit irritable but 5th feels great. How the world turns.

Jeff,
Your old cym now has the general bolt ons but no BBK, single turbo, roll bar, coilovers, race seats or race wheels.

GREAT THREAD!

jwitzer

Sounds like there were some mods ADDED as well as removed.

When I sold the car the twin sequentials were still on it, there was no roll cage, I did have one Sparco Evo on the driver's side, and it had 18" Sparco NSII Viper street wheels and stock race wheels.

BBK? Remind me.

I did have height adjustable 2.5 inch springs over 8-way GABs...

jwitzer

Oh, and if anyone is in the Tampa area next weekend, 130 cars already:

Location:
Russell Mazda
21154 US Hwy 19
Clearwater, FL 33765

Date:
March 4th, 2006

Time:
11am - 2pm

Complimentary:
Food & Beverages, Giveaways, Car Clinics

Invited:
RX8, RX7 & all rotaries

RCCAZ 1

iTrader: (10)

How about Ashraf Farrag (a.k.a. the Boost Doctor) who helped me countless times with diagnosing boost problems with the stock sequential turbos. He always helped me narrow down the list of culprits until I could finally identify the problem.

I'm sure that many of you are not aware of this, but a few years back we started the "Big List" Happy Hour that now takes place each year between the main Sevenstock event and Sevenstock Dinner. When you check in at the Happy Hour you're given a nametag and invited to share your real name and "Forum" or "Big List" name so everyone can meet face to face. We've done it now for the last 4 years now and it's a great way for old timers and new guys to connect. I've met John Duff, Peter Farrell and tons of other list members at this event, and no fist fights have broken out yet. Hope that many of you Listers on the East Coast can make it out to the event some time. It's truly a ton of fun!!

badddrx7

iTrader: (7)

I joined the old digest in 97 also - Badddrx7 - Tom Fuller. Gave many parts away, learned tons of stuff from the like of Labreck, Gordon, Sandy, etc.

I had a red 93 then, now I have two - the red and a MBM

Tom

GoodfellaFD3S

iTrader: (213)

Big Brake Kit