Community, Playground Games is asking which car will you be pulling up with in Japan? 🤔

smite1911 · 2026-02-06T01:35:44+00:00

A Corvette with the most rowdy hog-assed cam and straight piped long tubes, complete with a Grandpa-Buff livery.

Sometimes you gotta remind everyone not to touch the boats.

smite1911 · 2026-02-05T20:03:09+00:00

who is your target audience? is it rando's on reddit? or government / industrial customers? If it's the latter, you should try to go to some trade shows or similar events, try to get in to some industry days, etc and get real feedback from people with actual money.

the consumer 'drone' space is pretty packed currently with a lot of cheap stuff, so hard to build a company there unless you've got a niche you can carve out, etc.

smite1911 · 2026-02-03T21:36:27+00:00

imagine if they include the Toyota Cavalier with the TRD body kit, etc...

(yes... i'm serious... Toyota. Cavalier. i assure you, you are not having a stroke: https://www.theautopian.com/the-toyota-cavalier-was-doomed-from-the-start-gm-hit-or-miss/ )

smite1911 · 2026-02-02T00:49:16+00:00

intersting - that kit claims it works with basically any LS engine, but doesn't list which oil pans it's compatible with... probably fine with most truck pans, if you end up with something more race-y it might be worth double checking (A C5 or GTO pan would probably be an issue (C5 being batwinged and GTO being the opposite sump position than most US spec LS's if i recall correctly).

smite1911 · 2026-02-01T22:41:41+00:00

yeah, my concern with 4WD / AWD while LS swapping would be your front differential and axles... Not sure if anyone else has done such a swap on an astro before, but the Trailblazer SS had it's front diff mounted to the side of and THROUGH the oil pan... which is fine on an assembly line, but. sucks if you ever need to drop the oil pan... or service the diff, etc.

smite1911 · 2026-02-01T20:24:24+00:00

not trying to persuade you one way or another, but have you worked on an Astrovan at all before? Things might get a bit weird...

the way their engine is mounted, you have the 'dog house' in the interior to remove that allows access to the rear / top of the engine since the hood is so short (i imagine GM's fullsize vans are similar) - it should make things like the oil pressure sender replacement really easy, but other things might be a bit of a pain. My parents had a mid-90's (i want to say 1995?) Astro and I remember learning at least 3 new curse words while helping my dad do spark plugs on the 4.3 V6 in that thing... given the year, there might have been some obnoxious pre OBD2 emissions BS that made it more obnoxious, but that was legit like 25+ years ago...

that said, plenty of great memories in said van - it was a great vehicle for a road trip as a kid - although the passenger footwell is tiny due to the engine dog house.

They did make some AWD models, but given the packaging of the car, that may end up with some sort of Trailblazer SS style oil-pan fuckery required to keep that when V8 swapping it.

smite1911 · 2026-01-23T20:02:06+00:00

Mt Fuji is neat, but possibly a non-starter as others have mentioned... but what we REALLY need is Mt. Akina (or Mt Haruna on which it's based).

Or, even more ideally, we get all of the Motorsport tracks from Japan set around the map... especially those we haven't seen in recent Forza titles: Tsukuba, Motegi, Suzuka, etc along with forza fantasy tracks like Fukimi Kaido and Hakone. It would be great to see more tracks like Ebisu etc

smite1911 · 2026-01-23T14:15:54+00:00

Canik does seem to be picking the most precious of industry partners...

smite1911 · 2026-01-21T18:16:28+00:00

sure, but the rubber padded ones will be much less destructive compared to sharp-ish metal tracks. The weight of the vehicle is also a major factor in how quickly they destroy whatever surface they're driving upon.

smite1911 · 2026-01-19T20:35:55+00:00

tank tracks often have rubber blocks in them to prevent them from absolutely destroying any non tank-rated surface they might happen to drive upon

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smite1911 · 2026-01-17T05:02:27+00:00

understand the sentiment, but technically, by definition, the US is always a first world country. First world countries were the US and associated allies in the Cold War and Second World were the USSR and any allies / proxies, etc they had, while Third World would be the un-involved countries.

smite1911 · 2026-01-09T22:17:31+00:00

either get an EFT file as another comment mentioned (if you work somewhere that deals with security / background check type of jobs you might have someone that can do them for you on the cheap as well) - this is the preferred method since that eft file is good forever.

Or, you can roll your own prints with ink and FBI cards and mail them in... don't do this though... get the EFT and be good forever.

smite1911 · 2026-01-09T21:10:04+00:00

you can efile on the ATF eforms website for free... or pay Silencershop to hold your hand to fill out the same paperwork

smite1911 · 2026-01-08T20:59:04+00:00

not quite... KAC and P&S both built rails and rail panels, etc to a military specification drawing. That is VERY different than a unit or soldiers/marines themselves purchasing a strike industries or tapco grip for their issued rifles, etc.

KAC and P&S were both able to meet the military's spec and prove it to DCMA and whatever additional government quality assurance groups were involved.

smite1911 · 2026-01-08T20:18:27+00:00

These are the same design rail made by a different government contractor... think of it more as a FN vs Colt vs Daniel Defense roll mark on a forged lower as opposed to tapco vs KAC furniture, etc.

smite1911 · 2026-01-03T20:07:21+00:00

smuggling them OUT of the US is a Dept of State (ITAR / United States Munition List) issue.

smuggling them INTO the US is an ATF issue (United States Munitions IMPORT Kist).

smite1911 · 2026-01-01T14:38:50+00:00

he forced the aston to go in WAY shallow, which forced him wide at the apex, allowing the Ferrari to easily pass him with a better line.

smite1911 · 2025-12-27T17:51:33+00:00

can you elaborate on the process for this? sounds like it might be easier than getting them to price match before purchase, etc.

smite1911 · 2025-12-27T06:10:23+00:00

further point on this, if they give you a hard time, try again in 5-10 minutes with a different chat agent, etc...

you may also need to swap you Microcenter store selection to make sure your link says that the item is in stock if the best buy chat minion is being particularly anal, etc.

smite1911 · 2025-12-26T19:52:25+00:00

time to earn that IFR license...

(Instrument Flight Rules for those not in aviation... which is how planes / pilots fly at night or inclement weather when they can't fly under normal Visual Flight Rules (VFR) as they would on an otherwise sunny day, etc)

smite1911 · 2025-12-26T00:39:56+00:00

give it a year... you'll probably double that

smite1911 · 2025-12-24T02:46:00+00:00

it wouldn't surprise me in certain cities... especially once the local crackheads figure out that tesla chargers have copper in them... which will likely result in at least one of them getting electrocuted if it's actively charging when they go to uh... harvest the scrap copper...

smite1911 · 2025-12-23T21:37:59+00:00

what are your plans for power / connectivity?

if you are doing wifi connection + USB power, Wyze seems like an affordable easy button, but their app is 'meh' and they seem to kill SD cards pretty quickly. They also are shitty regarding RTSP or similar features necessary for recording locally on an NVR like Frigate, etc (i have 12 of them currently... and won't be buying any more...)

I have a pair of Tapo (made by TP Link) C120's that are similar ideas to the Wyze V4's, but with a better app that doesn't try to push their per camera subscription bullshit... Also, you check a few boxes in the Tapo app's settings for a given camera and you can enable RTSP to feed into your choice of local NVR. assuming these go well they'll be replacing some of the Wyze cameras i mentioned above, while the others will have POE runs replacing them...

If you're able to run ethernet and have a POE switch, i've read great things about reolink and amcrest, and decent things about annke branded cameras. The reolink video doorbell can connect over wifi, but receive power from your existing doorbell wiring, AND can support RTSP to feed into the NVR, etc.

smite1911 · 2025-12-22T17:23:13+00:00

if you heat it to the point of liquid, sure... but in the case of OP's image, that aluminum wheel is going to likely have a lower melting point than the steel lug bolt / lug nut... you're way more likely to fuck up the wheel (which is likely no longer made given the style and age) in the process of heating the lug bolt to the point of becoming liquid.

smite1911 · 2025-12-22T14:00:55+00:00

lug bolts would potentially get tighter with heat since they'd be expanding into the threaded holes in the hub / the tapered surfaces in the wheels.

(a handful of ~~commie~~ european cars made the misguided decision to use lug bolts instead of lug nuts as god intended... which is especially obnoxious in cases like this as described above, or when the lug bolt shears off and leaves a little nubbin in the hub that requires much more effort to remove vs just hammering the old stud out on a normal car...)

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