Yeah, this 100%… I don’t know who’s making the decisions at the major manufacturers these days, but nearly every car on the road is an SUV derivitive of some sort in either silver, grey or charcoal.
Oh, and that oh so awesome colour solid grey. Looks like someone painted it with primer then gave it a buff. 
Throwaway garbage. Even Toyota figured out they only have to make it through warranty period and dropped the long term reliability. Last work had a newer Hilux that had endless issues, but the old 3litre diesel hilux kept going to this day with just a service and a clutch every few years from hauling full loads and getting smashed by employees.
what TF is with that “I polished my primer” colour getting around. Soulless nonsense!
I am all for reliability and creature comforts, but when a headlight blows, and blows and I have engine error codes in limp mode I draw the line!! (Yes, the missus Hyundai has done that- and it is common!)
As much as I loved my XR6 Turbo, I am glad I sold it when I did, nothing wrong with the engine it hauled arse, was on it’s second diff and the gearbox was done by the fella who bought it from me not long after, but it was all the little shit that was adding up to an annoying vehicle, windows not winding up, central locking motors, bonnet cables, interior parts. Would have loved to put the motor in my old XF!
I hear ya. Oh man.
I cracked the shits with my Ford Ranger last year. The 4wd actuator motor on the transfer case is electric with a ferkin switch in the cab. It’s made by Bosch so should be good right… right.
Righto cop this farm style ya C**T fk you and fk this as I needed it to do work. Tried dieleccy grease the connectors still fkd, righto need a new actuator motor friggin $900 from up bannanland I was wtf no. Weld a bit of rod on to the bastard if I have to.
Found a knock of thailand built new actuator for $240, ah that’s more my budget.
Fkn things when they f up. Local mechanic was starting 2 grand.
Just weld a fkn lever on it they don’t break
Yes I can hear @DocBob laughing in the background. Told you so. Ner Ner I fixed it quicker than anyone else could
I built and ran very successful burnout cars for many years, travelling thousands of kilometres all over Western Australia to compete in many different competitions.
Because I was sponsored by companies such as Auto One, Coventry’s, Tyre Dealerships and many others… what people don’t understand is that if you are sponsored, you HAVE to attend EVERY single event on the yearly calendar to promote their products 
Many late nights in the shed rebuilding stuff to be able to meet my responsibility to attend events only days after getting home wrecked from previous events.
Had exactly the same with my Drag Cars, having to travel to QLD every year to satisfy their sponsorship agreements to participate in certain events or lose sponsorship 
I got banned/kicked out of the Kulin Creek Bed Races because I drove my wife to the Toilets in my Tunnel Rammed 308 V8 Gemini burnout car!
The burnout car had fully operational brakes, lights, seatbelts etc etc, but the “authorities” told me that it was unsafe to drive through the crowd as it was a Competition Vehicle 
Later that night at the event, there was pissed idiots in their Commonwhores and Fowlcoons tearing across the main oval, where families were camped in their tents next to their vehicles, where a couple of tents got runover and parked vehicles were hit from these idiots tearing up on the oval, it was only luck that nobody got killed and damage to vehicles was minimal.
Guess what, no security in sight, nobody pulled up and stopped, no repercussions… just left to their own stupid actions to endanger lives and property, but I was too busy loading my burnout car onto my trailer as I was reprimanded for driving my wife to the toilets on the designated road at walking pace. 
It cost $600 to attend this event, let alone the $1500 worth of tyres, petrol, diesel, food, drinks, supplies and hundreds of kilometres of driving to get there, a week off of work to prepare the vehicle, do the event, get home, unload etc etc.
I got kicked out the Friday evening, and the event that I had prepared and paid for ran until the Sunday night finals.
I put in ALL of this time and money, along with my missus and two young kids to PROVIDE entertainment for THEIR event, and I get kicked out over nothing, whereas ACTUAL really dangerous behaviour was ignored because “security” was too afraid to approach actually dangerous people, unlike bringing the hammer down on someone like myself being polite and responsible in my actions 
Needless to say, after 6 years of attendance at that event, I told my sponsors that I would NEVER return, replacing it with another event on the yearly calendar.
I took a tour several times with training and meetings got shown through GMHA and MMA .
Did you know they cast all the engine blocks right here in Lonsdale Adelaide for forklifts and magnas to go worldwide. Sole place of manufacture for Mitsubingi. Big foundry. Moosive. Last I checked they are growing mushrooms
That sucks. There’s only so much you can do but if the event organisers don’t get there shit together. Bye bye.
Bit like me with my business and co workers. Well if you don’t round your sheep up in to a shearing shed. How the fk are we meant to shear them. You idiot. Driven hundreds of kilometers and theres nothing. You just got to get organised and switched on. Some people seem to live in cloud 9
I dunno, I liked the nitrate silver my vf calais was…
for me it was symbolic
my night rate $ paid for my nitrate
my new ute I chose Gray for other personal reasons
was more the meaning behind the colours for me on both accounts
Been playing around with volumetrics using the CYMA JUND100 as base. Has M100 spring, full cylinder and metal internals in nylon box.
All tests with 7.5mm id alloy barrel, 11.1v battery and groups of 10 rounds to eliminate any flyers
Current barrel length is 250mm
380mm 160fps
360mm 273fps
335mm 277fps
250mm 280fps
Think there was something wrong with air seal on 380mm run.
Interesting that there is nothing between 250, 335 and 360mm
Calculated v/e ratio
360mm 1.77
335mm 1.90
250mm 2.55
Didn’t test accuracy or range because I’m happy with the range of 250mm with hopup. 250mm with UBend hopup was 275fps
Thanks for the testing and results, very interesting indeed!
My Go -To was 100% cylinder, AUSGEL 1.16 and quality Alloy/Stainless 350x7.5mm barrel as a solid 280-300+FPS with the correct tested/particular gels to suit 
Always said that the problem with AEG’s is that they are limited to cylinder volume as to how much air you can produce.
Once you have a 100% cylinder, the only air tuning available came from barrel I.D. and length changes.
The above builds had some fitted with quality 7.3mm barrels if they were being stretched to 400mm+ long bois, or to simply increase FPS up around the 330 territory using smaller Ultra Hard gels in the 350mm barrels 
Certainly proves that Airsoft VE charts/ratios don’t necessarily translate well into the Gelbaster world
Airsoft is just a guide to translate and adjust to blastas. Had a well built calculator from old forum for blasters but that got blown away.
Usually find around that 1.8 area is a sweet spot for accuracy. Polished inner barrel helps as well and stainless if you can get them. Alloy is ok though.
The M series springs are just harsher on gearboxes.
Likely bit of air leak around cylinder head or nozzle. Still pretty good though.
Possible some leakage on cylinder head, although the bog standard J100 with M100 spring also pushes 280fps
What are your thoughts on the M series springs?
I always used AUSGEL 1.6/1.7/1.8 uneven springs and found them incredible for power and smooth operation, whereas M rated equal springs seemed harder and noisier with not the same relative power output in comparison
I had M rated stuff from 100 all the way through to 150’s… which were a bit insane
M rates springs are harsher but don’t degrade like Ausgel. The M rated springs from x-Force have a progressive winding like the Ausgel springs.
I use loads of SHS springs, mostly m100s. Anything bigger is usually combined with short stroking to bring power down to respectable levels.
Used a fair few X-Force springs, pretty sure they are the same manufacturer. As @Wombat says they dont fade like the ausgel do. Ausgels 1.18 was a great spring for nylon gears. The 1.28 and 1.38 always warped and bent so didn’t use too many of them.
Had an m170 in my DSG for a while, that was a bastard to put in, especially since I had a broken wrist at the time!
I had a few of the uneven springs warp and cause issues getting bound up on the spring retainer horn on compression, so can agree that even though they had their good points, they also had their fail points.
Another difference is that the design of the two prong spring retainers were also a large factor in causing the springs to deform, as the retainers would tilt under operation amplifying the problem… unless the Blaster was running a screw on buffer tube setup to keep the retainers locked solid.
The CYMA 4 Lug retainers were the first design where I was impressed with a manufacturer to finally design a more solid retainer 
I never had any X-FORCE M springs, only the SHS branded stuff, but is good to hear that they are a decent performance spring
Apologies for getting the AUSGEL spring specs wrong… it’s been a while 
All good there’s so much to remember I can’t keep track of everything either!
The 4 lug retainer is great for keeping the retainer straight. Shame more manufacturers don’t do it.
I always try to make sure the buffer tube bolt screws in and keeps things straight.
Yea I never gone above 1.18 Ausgel spring with bearing on at least one end and never had a problem, get 330fps and they last, lost count 500k balls last I clocked it and still going.
That’s more than enough for this lil black duck so didn’t push for more.
I had the same results when the AUSGEL’S were used with a good solid retainer, but if not, they did warp easily 
Obviously most of my experience was in the early days, where bolted buffer tubes were not very common, and the majority of spring retainers were terrible two lug designs.
The vertical locking position lugs were not as bad as the horizontal lug retainers, as the gearbox didn’t allow for bugger all side to side spring flex… but the horizontal locking retainers allowed them to flex upwards, which again had very little space for the spring to move, but if they tilted downwards… there’s a massive gap sitting between the spring and the gearset
The spring would bend down onto the top of the gears and the windings would get jammed up on the retainer horn locking the whole lot up in a terrible sound of metal crashing into metal.
Thankfully the old trick of fitting a screw retainer through a drilled out 10c piece at the back of the gearbox would do the trick😂
That’s the way. A lot of people had trouble with them binding up because no thrust bearing and sloppy jaloppy retainers. Bearing in the piston at least, loctited down lets the spring rotate without getting bound up during it’s travels.
Had to get a bit creative to overcome the design flaws. I run two bearings on some blasters so the spring can spin and do what it wants on some. Got spares and never replaced one yet because of failure or binding.
