sasha@lazytrips

out of interest, what is the most HP & torque that a forum car has produced without an engine swap? Anybody know?

I know that you've got 2 weeks to wait, but

It's Bernie Ecclestone's policy that no testing is to be televised. Not sky's fault. As for the cars... it's pretty hard to tell right now. All we know is that the Mercedes engine seems to be pretty epic this year as all cars running it are doing reasonably well irrespective of the aero packages or anything else. Red Bull seem to still be doing reasonably well in the aero department and Ferrari thus far does not look all that promising although with Alonso at the wheel you just never know. Bring on the first race!

One other thing is this: I am probably quite different to most people, but for most people's usage, one decent top-end card will cover all their needs for quite some time. I bought what was a pretty decent (almost top of the range) card at the time with the intention on buying an identical (but much much cheaper) card in 2-3 years time to get a huge boost in performance for virtually no outlay.

I've got the i5 2500k processor and generally very similar on everything else (built my computer almost exactly 1 year ago. On the parts, My only suggestion is to have a read of the graphics cards - I am running 470GTX (bought for SLI) and I have a premium motherboard (had a number of features I wanted at the time including some funky BIOS options). On the whole, building your own computer wins hands down. You get infinitely more for your money, you know exactly what goes into the box & you can plan for future upgrades and reuse high quality components. In addition, my 1 year old computer still feels, runs and functions as though it was brand new (touch wood) - this will not be the case with mass manufactured units which in my personal experience deteriorate significantly faster.

Good luck with it. Not all flashes mean you got done. I got flashed in Belgium at significantly more than you and nothing happened

770 is pretty good. I've got a clean license, no accidents, am 26, have a load of no claims and all that jazz and still pay £650 or thereabouts. That's the way the industry is...

I bought an 04 GT car with 48k miles about 2 years ago. I'm now hitting 100k and loving it.

I didn't know you were a truck driver.

plastidip ??? As soon as I can spend a little cash, I'm gonna get me some red tommy k zeds.

sounds like I'm in the luck mod-wise as the worst thing I've had are those burger z badges which last about 1 week before beginning to look distinctly crap.

That is Gold

exactly what I was about to post (Although Chesterfield did mention it, BUT did not provide a drool pic)

I'd love to see somebody purchase a Zonda and going "Hmmm... It's really missing something.... I know! Let's replace the amazingly super light beautiful magnesium alloy wheels with a number of inbuilt adjustible settings for these chavtastic Mcwheels!"

Oh my...

Maybe it is a hilarious Japanese Performance Garage who have rich & dumb clients turning up going "make my car superfast". So they stick a red glowing switch into it and charge them a few grand.

Scientific research over the last couple of years has proven that those drivers in Formula 1 who have a seemingly endless supply of Red Bull tend to win pretty much every single time (unless they are Italians in which case nothing can help them). Hence it must be true!

horses for courses, but I would highly recommend 255/35/19 and 285/35/19 if you're going for 19'' wheels. For some reason the 245/275 combo is taken as gospel round these parts though.

A well-designed spoiler will make quite a bit of difference to handling at speed. I've got a floor spoiler as part of my bumper and I was very surprised by how different the car feels at speed in terms of handling and the amount the rear gets pressed down. Having said that, the majority of spoilers have no aerodynamic benefits whatsoever and are only made to look good and in all likelihood will worsen the car's characteristics.

Will tell you in a sec. Need to wash the coffee of my keyboard.

With the price of insurance these days, here's something I am seriously considering doing: 1. Buy insurance on your car as you would normally, get cheapest quote & whatnot. 2. Go find the absolute cheapest piece of rubbish car (I would pick a 1987 Citroen 2CV), find a numberplate of one online and buy yourself insurance for it for doing no miles + put your mum, your wife and everybody else onto the policy. This will typically come out at the price of a pack of crisps (perhaps a slight exaggeration, but you get the drift). NOTE: this is perfectly legal. There is nothing stopping you from buying insurance on any car of your choice as you might be considering buying it/might want to drive it/whatever. 3. Keep refreshing your 2CV insurance. You might even get a decent discount on your main policy with a multicar offer! Buy yourself a second one just in case too. 4. If you happen to lose your no claims on your main policy or ever decide to buy a second car or anything of the sort, you have a back up set of no claims discount that you can easily use as and when. *** I think I'm gonna go down this route as I am pretty sure this will save me a load of money overall.

I thought it worked the other way round. Instead of trying to win the game, Suarez was out to try and prove something. At the point when Rio slid in, Suarez could easily have picked himself up and gone clear on goal and probably score. Instead he was out there pretending to be in some sort of extreme pain all for show. I think his attitude cost Liverpool a point minimum.

Was about to post this. I love Andy Mckee. Been to one of his concerts and it was awesome

I thought they looked a bit different