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CrackedDSM said:
Good to know nothing has changed.

Ben apologists aside, I really don't like the dude. If he really just looooooves the platform so much, he has a funny way of showing it by doing literally EVERYTHING he can in the video to disparage, discourage, and degrade the platform. He's got a funny way of showing his apparent love for DSMs.


Won't be watching it. He's painfully unfunny, and his accent is downright annoying. If he treated the DSM well and didn't do EVERYTHING he could to make fun of them for youtube views and internet e-peen points I might be able to overlook it, but eh. Here we are. I'd rather watch MightyCarMods or literally anything else.


Hell, I find myself liking HumbleMechanic and Deutsche Auto Parts way more, and I have a passionate hatred for german vehicles.

If Ben actually does just love DSMs soooooo much, he needs to start changing his attitude and trying harder on camera to SHOW he enjoys them. Maybe start by actually trying to make a few positive comments and stop bashing the platform at EVERY SINGLE TURN?
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Having just spent time with him working on the car last weekend, it’s a shame you feel that way. He’s a super solid dude. I’m a die hard DSM guy and will always argue the positives of the chassis to anyone that says negative stuff about them. You have to remember that it still is a show that has to keep people interested. And he had positive things to say about it. And let’s be honest, the car he got wasn’t a stellar example. I know, cause I spent two months helping him try to find one in his budget. Just give it a chance.
 
I'll give the next episode a whirl but, yeah, the message that seems to be the focal point here (that dsms are unreliable and ready to fall apart at any moment; it's not the owner, it's the nature of the platform) wore on me pretty quick during the second episode.

Maybe when one spies a problem with a timing component, they shouldn't stick their head in the sand and then grow a shocked face for the camera when it bites them in the ass later. That's common knowledge for any interference motor. But something tells me the conversation went:
"hey, this looks like a problem. Should we fix it?"
"No, it's better for the video if it breaks. Drama, dsm life, etc etc. clicks."

That being said, bring the car up to the more northern states and I'll happily take the drivetrain. I need a spare, even if it's just one.
 
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Ya I watched the first two videos.

Ben def comes off like a douche.

Dude goes and buys the cheapest clapped out dsm from PA and then wants bash people from PA because he didn’t do is due diligence when looking at the car. (I’m from PA)

Take away from video.

-Ben’s kinda a douche
- let’s run a compression test and claim the motor is built and healthy
-notice timing belt is walking
-continue to drive and then blame that pos dsm platform when it completely fails.

Throw that shell in the garbage and stop wasting the limited parts we have left on it and give Curt the drivetrain so he stops worrying about spares

Ya if Ben loves the platform so much it’s hard to tell.

Honey you’re so ugly and your cooking isn’t that good. Wow he loves me can’t you guys tell?


-Daniel
 
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99dsmer4g63 said:
Ya I watched the first two videos.

Ben def comes off like a douche.

Dude goes and buys the cheapest clapped out dsm from PA and then wants bash people from PA because he didn’t do is due diligence when looking at the car. (I’m from PA)

Take away from video.

-Ben’s kinda a douche
- let’s run a compression test and claim the motor is built and healthy
-notice timing belt is walking
-continue to drive and then blame that pos dsm platform when it completely fails.

Throw that shell in the garbage and stop wasting the limited parts we have left on it and give Curt the drivetrain so he stops worrying about spares

Ya if Ben loves the platform so much it’s hard to tell.

Honey you’re so ugly and your cooking isn’t that good. Wow he loves me can’t you guys tell?


-Daniel
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He literally says in the second video that the timing belt thing was his fault, and that while his car had been unreliable, it shouldn’t be a black mark on the cars as a whole. I feel like people won’t be happy unless he praises the car endlessly, gets down on his knees and shouts how amazing the car is. He bought a car that was in his budget that was built by someone who clearly didn’t know what they were doing. And trust me, that car was not the cheapest we had found. The fact that he paid 6500 bucks for it is wild. This is a potentially very important moment for these cars and the community. I’ve been saying for a while that there’s going to be a renaissance for these cars, and this could very well be the start of it.


I’m one of the biggest advocates for these cars. I’ve been in the scene and community for a very long time. Having met Ben previously at a couple races where we talked about my car for a bit, when he approached me about doing this, if I had felt it would’ve been detrimental to the car or the DSM community as a whole, I wouldn’t have gotten involved. Ben’s a solid dude, a car guy with an affinity for Mitsubishi stuff (he has a very fast time attack Evo if you are unfamiliar with the channel). Just give it a chance.
 
danl said:
How do people over tension these? I always set them to .150-.180 tensioner piston extension. Do people tighten them so much that the tensioner is bottomed out?
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No idea. I've always gone by the "if I can set the grenade pin back in easily and all the way through an hour later and after at least a half dozen rotations, it's correct."

What's with the spray painting of the side of the car because he f***ed up? That's not respectful to the platform at all.
 
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curt-s said:
No idea. I've always gone by the "if I can set the grenade pin back in easily and all the way through an hour later and after at least a half dozen rotations, it's correct."

What's with the spray painting of the side of the car because he f***ed up? That's not respectful to the platform at all.
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Other Ben did that. Not a fan. It had to do with the bet they made at the beginning of the trip. And that Ben was broke.
 
@gsxitement I’m just throwing out my .02 cents is all. Please don’t take it the wrong way I know text is hard to interpret someone’s tone.

I’m not looking for the praise and shouting from mountains. He just seems to poke fun at all the things that the dsm name has been plagued by. Seems anytime he gets the chance he throws a shot at the platform.

I have literally pulled parts from better cars from the junkyard over the years too. 😂

FWIW too looking at the fabrication of the driveshaft supports and rear subframe mounts should have been checked while buying it. Not hard to peek under the trunk or under the rear. Seems it wouldn’t have taken a long look to see botched welding and fab work.

Let alone knowing it’s an awd swap so pulling the two tabs on the back seat most certainly would have been looked at by me to see the 2nd sending unit. Just to see how they did it and if it was as haggard as everything else. Once again that’s just due diligence IMO and I feel like it wasn’t done.

Maybe it’s what exactly what the platform needs. Maybe it’s the start of the end. TBD I suppose 👍.

Any who’s I’ll probably watch the third one still so I can’t be that butt hurt 😂.

-Daniel
 
99dsmer4g63 said:
@gsxitement I’m just throwing out my .02 cents is all. Please don’t take it the wrong way I know text is hard to interpret someone’s tone.

I’m not looking for the praise and shouting from mountains. He just seems to poke fun at all the things that the dsm name has been plagued by. Seems anytime he gets the chance he throws a shot at the platform.

I have literally pulled parts from better cars from the junkyard over the years too. 😂

FWIW too looking at the fabrication of the driveshaft supports and rear subframe mounts should have been checked while buying it. Not hard to peek under the trunk or under the rear. Seems it wouldn’t have taken a long look to see botched welding and fab work.

Let alone knowing it’s an awd swap so pulling the two tabs on the back seat most certainly would have been looked at by me to see the 2nd sending unit. Just to see how they did it and if it was as haggard as everything else. Once again that’s just due diligence IMO and I feel like it wasn’t done.

Maybe it’s what it’s exactly what the platform needs. Maybe it’s the start of the end. TBD I suppose 👍.

Any who’s I’ll probably watch the third one still so I can’t be that butt hurt 😂.

-Daniel
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To be honest, this car was a last minute find. He had driven to PA from Virginia to see a car that was very promising, but the dude bailed on all his texts. He found this one while he was in PA waiting for the other guy. We had literally been searching all over for a car that fit his budget for quite literally 2 months. By the time he got to this one, it was like 9:30 at night in December. The builder gave him a bunch of pics and TONS of receipts of what went into the car. It all seemed fairly legit. When they do these road trips, they’re literally planned out months in advance. He reached out to me at the end of October saying he wanted to get a DSM. He found this at the end of December.

I can’t say anything about the future of the car, but I promise you, the platform, the community and the general outlook on these cars will be better than what we’ve had in the past when it’s wrapped up. I’m proud to have been a part of this story, and I get how we all hold these cars in regard. I’ve owned mine almost 24 years. I’m one of the biggest advocates for them. If I thought he was going to be like “all DSMs are trash that don’t deserve respect.” I wouldn’t have gotten onboard with it.

I like to look at it from the point of view of Look, this thing was put together pretty pathetically, not the best work out there, and the timing belt fiasco happened and he owned up to that. But look at how well it’s doing given all its disadvantages.

After meeting Ben and hanging out with him for three days, I truly believe he understands the beauty of these cars and the community. Instead of the community crapping all over it, maybe we should be happy that there’s at least someone doing something with the car.

Like honestly….do you think the community will be better, worse or the same after this? I say better…..but I’m behind the scenes a bit more than might be known.

I have hope.
 
neither of them talk crap about the platform or reliability as much as they could, these are 30 year old platforms that were pretty homogulated to begin with

in fact if anything they havent had a clarkson moment on the trip where they actually review or talk about the car. its more just about them filling up with gas and spending money.

maybe they will have a clarkson moment in the next episode, crashing a car, going off road, damaging a vehicle etc.
 
chrysler kid said:
neither of them talk crap about the platform or reliability as much as they could, these are 30 year old platforms that were pretty homogulated to begin with

in fact if anything they havent had a clarkson moment on the trip where they actually review or talk about the car. its more just about them filling up with gas and spending money.

maybe they will have a clarkson moment in the next episode, crashing a car, going off road, damaging a vehicle etc.
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Right. He could be going “the build quality is crap. The shifter feels terrible. There’s rattles everywhere.” It’s more about the road trip than the cars. The cars are a part of the road trip. Not the road trip is a part of a car review. I think that’s something people are missing. The adventure of the road trip is the focus. It could’ve been in any car.
 
TBH, your involvement on the project does imbue a level of bias. Nobody is questioning your affection for the platform or bountiful amount of respect here, but you're acting as project liaison.

The road trip, cinematography, banter, etc. was what I was originally praising. It's only when you really listen to what's being said that you start to see the shots, subtle or not. It comes across tone deaf if he really loves the platform.

A little Super 77 could have done wonders for interior shots to stop the headliner from dangling. Little bits here and there to show some of that love.

He couldn't even utter the words Mitsubishi Eclipse without laughing when talking about it being a cheaper alternative to the Evo -- something pretty well known and not a slight against it.
"It's not easy to find a rare car like a R3 RX8 and it's definitely not easy to find a running DSM", the italics are his verbal emphasis, not my own. If "for sale" was added to the end of that sentence, the whole tone changes. Yeah, we're not selling a boat load because we're hanging onto them. I just looked on Kijiji and found an 06 RX8 for $2500 CAD in within a half hour drive (https://www.kijiji.ca/v-cars-trucks/winnipeg/2006-mazda-rx-8/1685843416). Apparently, it's easy to find a non-running RX8.

That's as far as I'm going to pick into it as I don't watch to re-watch to find other quotes. I'll check out the third but it hasn't gained any sub from me. I've subscribed to maybe 2 channels and I don't remember either of them so no cause for offense there :p

I guess the overall summation I'd give is "Enjoyable, but irritating."

I've been described the same way.
 
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And as far as reliable, they had to put a motor in the Mazda to start out with. They didn't do that with the DSM (god what a hunk o'junk he got stuck with though).
 
curt-s said:
TBH, your involvement on the project does imbue a level of bias. Nobody is questioning your affection for the platform or bountiful amount of respect here, but you're acting as project liaison.

The road trip, cinematography, banter, etc. was what I was originally praising. It's only when you really listen to what's being said that you start to see the shots, subtle or not. It comes across tone deaf if he really loves the platform.

A little Super 77 could have done wonders for interior shots to stop the headliner from dangling. Little bits here and there to show some of that love.

He couldn't even utter the words Mitsubishi Eclipse without laughing when talking about it being a cheaper alternative to the Evo -- something pretty well known and not a slight against it.
"It's not easy to find a rare car like a R3 RX8 and it's definitely not easy to find a running DSM", the italics are his verbal emphasis, not my own. If "for sale" was added to the end of that sentence, the whole tone changes. Yeah, we're not selling a boat load because we're hanging onto them. I just looked on Kijiji and found an 06 RX8 for $2500 CAD in within a half hour drive (https://www.kijiji.ca/v-cars-trucks/winnipeg/2006-mazda-rx-8/1685843416). Apparently, it's easy to find a non-running RX8.

That's as far as I'm going to pick into it as I don't watch to re-watch to find other quotes. I'll check out the third but it hasn't gained any sub from me. I've subscribed to maybe 2 channels and I don't remember either of them so no cause for offense there :p

I guess the overall summation I'd give is "Enjoyable, but irritating."

I've been described the same way.
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I get it. I don’t consider myself liaison by any means, but because I’ve been a small part of it, I do know the behind the scenes stuff. I give them credit for trying to be as real as possible. Trust me, I get your points about what was said as far as not being more positive about the car. Ben spray painting the body definitely rubbed me the wrong way. I guess my point of view is, the platform already has the reputation of being unreliable. Is this going to make that stereotype worse? I don’t think so. As was stated earlier, they changed the motor in the RX8, which didn’t need to be done to the DSM. I’ve been at the race track, having a hard time with the car (the Glen this last April stands out) and could definitely feel the “see? A DSM on jackstands.” Vibe from people, and it f***ing sucks. But….the car has gotten much more positivity from spectators and competitors than negative. I just want everyone to see how amazing these cars are. Are they Hondas? No. But maybe that’s what makes them so endearing. You have to be more involved with them.
 
gsxitement said:
I get it. I don’t consider myself liaison by any means, but because I’ve been a small part of it, I do know the behind the scenes stuff. I give them credit for trying to be as real as possible. Trust me, I get your points about what was said as far as not being more positive about the car. Ben spray painting the body definitely rubbed me the wrong way. I guess my point of view is, the platform already has the reputation of being unreliable. Is this going to make that stereotype worse? I don’t think so. As was stated earlier, they changed the motor in the RX8, which didn’t need to be done to the DSM. I’ve been at the race track, having a hard time with the car (the Glen this last April stands out) and could definitely feel the “see? A DSM on jackstands.” Vibe from people, and it f***ing sucks. But….the car has gotten much more positivity from spectators and competitors than negative. I just want everyone to see how amazing these cars are. Are they Hondas? No. But maybe that’s what makes them so endearing. You have to be more involved with them.
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Which is why I'm trying my best to get mine out there to shows and such this year, as I've only seen one other 2g (and it was clean) here. We're frickin unicorns that need positive representation, not "oh look, it's ugly as crap and it actually made it here."
 
I agree, I've never had an issue if it slides in and out after sitting and spinning 6, 12, 24 times.

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Well, I like it....it also liked my wallet. :oops: Thank you, it's almost complete.
 
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