Just when I thought we were supposed to see "major changes in the representation of this brand" I see a vendor annoucement for "The Scoop" which has completely unsubstantiated claims regarding increases in horsepower gains but ALSO BOOST GAINS! Please, I would LOVE to see independany numbers validating this! Then I jump on their site, only to find they have a NEW wheel, or course desinged by PALO himself, that looks eerily similar to PIAA Sport Mesh wheels.

Moderators? What is happening?

TJM

 

You know... I sometimes am pretty turned-off by the sheer ammount of complaining, whining, crybabying and overall belly-aching that goes on in these boards, but this is the sort of thing that enthusiart forums are FOR IMHO.

A "vendor" like Uber being out in the world is bad enough, but that's what lawsuits are for... But that they're allowed to retain their advertiser status on these boards is really disgusting. It looks, pardon me for saying so, like all that matters is whether or not they're paid up on their advertiser's fees, and not that they offer something positive to the community. I'm sure it's more complex than that, but that's how it looks from where *I'm* sitting...

 

So someone has to pay, Would you rather have it be us or them? People just need to get over it. If you don't like them don't buy from them.

 

hahah you expected more from PU? They aren't making "major changes in the representation of this brand"....the first sentence on their website is STILL A LIE despite lots of people asking for proof of Palo, the artist's, fame.

Palo Uber: Lying about their artist, their wheels, their wide arches, their lug nuts, their anttenae, and now their scoops. Cool But hey atleast they have SAID that they were going to fix their lies and their anodized finishes.....but who knows when they will actually do it

 

At this point, my own personal advice would be that if you have questions regarding Palo Uber products to take it up with MINI Madness. Madness is the new distributor for the Palo Uber line, and George has been a vendor on NAM since 2002. That five year customer service trackrecord is unmatched in the MINI community.

 

Ok, George from Madness, can we please see some independant documentation backing up claims on both horsepower AND boost? I am no guru on the topic, but it is beyond my realm of comprehension on how a simple hood scoop can alter boost on a turbocharger, or in this case, a supercharger. Anyone care to inform me?

TJM

 

lol... do you have any comprehension of how cheap web hosting is? Trust me, this site clears a substantial profit every year. I host a personal photography site that gets thousands of hits a day and pay 12.99 a month to host it.

If NAM costs $1000-$1200 a year for the site hosting i'd be very surprised. Based on what vendors have told me they pay a MONTH for vendor status, 1-2 vendors could run the whole site and then some

 

It doesn't work, it probably does nothing, but I doubt NAM's goal with vendors is to moderate their advertising. This is something to discuss directly with Palo...

 

Here are some arguments about the PU scoop regarding power and boost. Asume a PU scoop that actually directs more air over the intercooler.

--
Colder intake temps increase power. The PU scoop forces more air over the intercooler. More airflow over the intercooler lowers the effective post-boost intake charge temp. The PU scoop in theory should increase power. (how much could be as little as 2hp I guess)
--
Boost is defined as an increase; rise. Superchargers produce boost. Producing boost heats the air. Heated air expands. Cooling down the air makes it contract. Air exiting the intercooler has been cooled slightly. Contracted air exits the intercooler and enters the intake manifold. Cold air is more dense than hot air, thus more air can be held within a set volume if that air is cold. More air is now entering the combustion chambers than previously. Boost has increased.
--

I tried to make this make sense. I think PU's claims could be true, allbeit the boost gain might be less than 1 psi.

 

So I guess everyones time is free? Myself I would rather see a pay site then there wouldn't be all these BS rules. But as for now if we have to put up with some vendors we don't like and DON'T HAVE TO BUY FROM to keep the site free. All I can say is get over yourself and deal with it.

 

I don't see how warning people that an advertiser's claims are dubious at best to possibly outright fabrications at worst is something that one "needs to get over" personally, but to each their own. I don't plan to spend any of my $$ for PU products, but every time I see his ad at the top of the web page it just horks me off. I've definietly seen INDIVIDUAL MEMBERS here slapped for much less of an infraction but hey, they didn't pay an advertising fee, did they? Not to call "shennanigans" on the MOD staff here or anything, but c'mon... this PU thing is sort of getting embarassing at this point, no? I guess at the end of the day, everyone does what they have to do to support themselves and their familes, and I can understand that. I guess.

 

I just checked out their new Palo-designed Web spoke wheels. I couldn't help noticing they look an awful lot like pretty much any BBS wheel that has been out for years and years. The design is such a blatant rip-off.

How does P.U. not get sued?

 

I agree that the stuff is a sham, but still it's our choice to see it.

If there's a thread with "P/U umptysquat: looks great, increases horsepower, and gets all the chicks horny" in the title...just ignore it and go on your merry way. If NAM makes a few bucks off of them and uses those funds to bring off something as good as MOTD, great! It's a little like Robin Hood, ya dig?

 

Besides, they are offering the Black scoop with free black just for Nam members!

 

And I swear I've seen "their" invisible valve stems somewhere else, but I can't remember where yet...

 

I just wanted to voice my 2 cents on the P/U vendor announcements.

While I have voiced my concerns with them regarding their "style" of posting I am currently not aware of any customer service issues. While they have raised many questions regarding their products, the artist, etc. there appears to be people that have purchased and have been provided excellent customer service.

As we state in the site guidelines if a vendor makes a claim he/she should expect it to be challenged. If there is data to back it up then they should provide it if asked. If there isn't than they have alienated themselves from the members of the site even further. NAM provides a means for them to promote their products as well as members to voice their opinions about vendors and products. As long as everyone stays within the site posting guidelines debate is encouraged and it often helps a vendor improve their products, marketing, and interaction with the community.

With the above in mind if you don't like what P/U has to offer, the marketing, or other issues you aren't compelled to purchase from them.

Mark

 

Ebay Flush Mount Valve Stems 18.99 with Free Shipping.

Streetrodstuff.com 19.95

sfxperformance.com Chip Foose branded ones 29.95

All are for a set of 4

 

Their "Uber Nuts" rusted in 2 weeks & they didn't return my calls : (

 

How did you estimate this charge? Lets make an assumption. Total members are 35,346

If every member visited NAM once a day and consumed 1MB of bandwidth each (1024 bytes), then each day you would be moving

35,246 x 1024 = 36,194,304 bytes or what 36GB of data a day?? Lets say that not everyone visits everyday, but just 15 days of the month--that's 540GB of bandwidth a month using very conservative numbers.

Now of course, we know that 1MB of bandwidth isn't very much for a site like NAM where a singe page of graphics might be 100kb or more (vendor banners are limited to 35kb) ..but include attached graphics hosted on NAM, so please find me a host that will provide 540GB of monthly bandwidth hosting for $1200 a year or in your assumption $100/month???

Richard

 

1and1.com offers 2000 gb of data transfer a month for $99 a month. That was after a 15 second google search....

 

www.lunarpages.com is the host I use. $6.95 a month for 3k GB of data transfer. Their rates are very reasonable for additional bandwidth as well, and the domain name is free. They also give you 350 GB of storage space. I've been running websites since I was 13, trust me, it doesn't cost $1k a year to run a site like NAM.

 

If every member on NAM consumed 3x the bandwidth in your example AND visited every single day of the month, it would still be covered by the Lunarpages basic plan for $6.95 a month.

 

I love how this started as a rant about P/U and has turned into a question about how NAM is run. Some facts:

- I've been working full-time on NAM and supporting my family with it since 2003

- We have a dedicated box (ie - its not shared with 100's or 1,000s of other web sites)

- Our box is current a dual processor Xeon with 4GB of RAM, 2 80GB drives with RAID 1, offsite nightly backups, 10 backbone bandwidth providers

- I'll be moving the site to a dual Woodcrest (Xeon) with 4GB of RAM, 2 250GB drives with RAID 1, and the same as the above.

Dedicated solutions are more expensive than shared solutions if you are working with a reputable host. The services we offer vendors support the operation of the site, allow me the opportunity to work on this full-time, organize events like MINIs on the Dragon and MINIs in the Mountains, support employees and consultants that are also MINI owners, and support my family. Isn't everyone's goal to do something they love and find a way to support themselves?

Mark

 

I'm not knocking your business, merely clearing up the misconception that the vendors are here to support the site and that's it. Several hundred dollars in vendor fee's a month per vendor with probably 75+ vendors... This site has substantial positive cash flow each month . I wish I had the time to devote to a full time website like NAM, but I just have too many things going on. You had a vision, and you made it happen. Nothing wrong with that .

You're right, stand alone hosting costs a lot, although i'm not sure I understand the benefit (Unless of course one of the other sites on the server compromises the integrity of that server).

For what it's worth, Lunarpages has never gone down for even a minute in the 4 years i've been using them, and i'm sure it would lower your overhead by quite a bit by moving to a hosting solution like them.

Cheers,
Nick

 

they have a 45$ sticker. come on.