Disturbing Trend in GRM and CM

Tom Suddard wrote:

dj06482 wrote: - GRM could do a better job with their Project Cars area of the website, as the updates are usually pretty brief.

We do that intentionally. If we put everything on the website, why would you subscribe to the magazine. The WRX articles, for example, include how much we spent, where we spent it, and why we chose the parts we chose.

Trust me, I'm not going to give up my subscription! I subscribe to the magazine for two reasons: 1) I enjoy it more than any other automotive magazine I've ever subscribed to, and 2) because I know without the magazine this website won't exist. But, this would be an example where subscribers could get premium content on the website.

dj06482 said: 2) because I know without the magazine this website won't exist. But, this would be an example where subscribers could get premium content on the website.

That's not a bad idea. I subscribed to Kitplane magazine for that exact reason. They have some very good information on their website that is reserved to their subscribers. If it wasn't for that, I would not have subscribed.

Wow, I go away for a few hours.

With the Porsche, you can't hone/bore the cylinders. You can replace the jugs, though. Since ours looked good--factory honing still present, everything look good, etc.--we took the low-buck step of retaining them. Not sure if you guys noticed, but we actually did all of that work inside my friend's home office--no professional shop, etc. Like, on the other side of that door is his family room.

Question: If we had spent a few grand on new pistons and cylinders that weren't totally necessary, would people have complained about that?

PS: Speaking of what is "grassroots" and what is not, Alan and I are running our $500 Miata at Sebring this weekend--stock shocks, stock springs, stock muffler, stock airbox. The tires came out of JG's garage.

Marjorie Suddard wrote: You guys seem to have a rather unrealistic idea of how "grown-up" Tim behaves vs. Young Tim. If anything, he spends MORE time on projects than he did in years past; since Halloween he's worked on Mercedes, Mini, Shelby, Miata, Fiesta and Subaru projects (all of which live at our home under his active care) doing everything from rust repair and welding on new body panels to seat bracket modifications to pulling engines. His average workday ends about 6; then he comes home, eats, takes a short nap, then heads out to the garage, where he stays most nights until 11 or 12, and into the wee hours several times a month. Margie

So snap some pics, and write an article about it Margie. I've long enjoyed your wit on this forum, and thought you should write some articles for the magazine (and forgive me if you have and I've managed to never notice). Show us how down to earth this strange "grown-up" you married is.

Tim snaps the pix, and does write the articles. I write very occasionally, partially because my main gig at the magazines is doing the (very substantial) business end of the magazines, partially because I'm lousy about deadlines, and mostly because a "distaff" article has an awful, trained-seal aspect to it.

Margie

Wow, this thread is so VERY "get out of my head." I was busy at work today, so I'm joining the conversation very late. There are so many good, thought provoking comments that I would like to reply to. Like DuctTape&Bondo and porschenut, I subscribe to support the forum. dj06482 is correct; without the magazine we would not have the GRM forum/community.

Like others have said here, I don't read the magazine as quickly or as thoroughly anymore, but I'm probably even more extreme.....I am skipping 75% or more every issue. I'm definitely at the low end of the income range for readers. An HPDE is my aspirational, I-want-to-do-that-someday dream. I have very little interest in farmed out projects, and absolutely none in mods that cost $5K, new car reviews, or any of the coverage of pro/semi-pro racing.

Like DuctTape&Bondo, my level of aptitude in engines, transmissions and such is small enough that some might consider me a poser (...as I mentioned in the am I really a car guy thread), but the DIY stuff is definitely what I want to read about. I am now where Raze was a few years back; I can barely spin wrenches, but grease-under-the-fingernails articles are what inspire me so that I want to keep learning. I share Fanfoy's interest in fabrication, and LOVED the bracket fabrication article in the last UTCC issue. That piece brought a nice low buck balance to what could have been a spare-no-expenses issue. (...and like fanfoy, I love all the DIY articles.) I'm really looking forward to Tommy's low buck radio article.

dean1484 is correct; you cannot keep doing the same article over and over each year.....a comprehensive archive on the website for technical articles would be great.

I agree with Tuna55: the boards are more techy and less flush with cash than the general readership. I don't share the techy aptitude, but I have an extra dose of cheap/poor. If my car is busted, it sits....haven't autocrossed in over a year because the geo isn't running and I have spent what little time I have working on the datsun replica instead of fixing the geo.

bravenrace wrote: Offer me hands on articles that cover things that apply to us readers and we can't get elsewhere

+100

ZOO wrote: I'd rather compete -- in autox, time attack, Chump Car, ice racing, or participate in an HPDE than build something from scratch

...and I know I'd rather build from scratch than compete. I haven't autocrossed in quite a while, but I'm still plugging away at the datsun replica. I think I recall JThw8 saying something similar. (i.e. that he builds cars, and doesn't autocross/race them anymore.)

kreb wrote: in the culture at large paying for something is often depicted as the act of making: "I'm building a house" When it's the contracftor and his crews doing the work. "I rebuilt the engine" when you had a shop do it. It's a cheap way for people to embelish their accomplishments. It's kind of like the adult version of giving trophys to every member of a sports team that finished in last place.

I've changed my vocabulary slightly because of this problem. I used to say that I was "building" a car, but the term is so misused that I got lots of "My grandpa is building a car, too" when the person was purchasing all the parts from speedway and assembling a car. Now I say that I am "fabricating" a car so people understand that I am creating it, not assembling it. I used to avoid the F-word, because I didn't want people to think that I thought I was Chip Foose. I know that I'm not making a high end piece of artwork[ * ], but I'm still creating something instead of throwing together bits that someone else made.

[ * ] - Earlier I said: There are cars with carefully crafted coachwork bodies. This one was roughly beaten into shape with a big hammer and held together with pop rivets. Never the less, this one WILL get finished and driven.

When I did the M42 for the e30, I took the head off, checked the crank/bearings, did some general cleaning/de-gunking, new HG, valve adjustment, all new timing stuff, rebuilt the oil pump, new gaskets everyplace a gasket or seal could go, and a number of other things like that. Frankly, my crank bearings and pistons, etc looked good and compression is great, so I didn't feel the need to deal with the block/crank to any real extent.

In my build thread I've been using the terms "refresh" or "partial rebuild" here and there. I didn't rebuild the block, but head off and full timing on an engine is, in my book, a partial rebuild in. I wouldn't call it a "full rebuild" by any means. I think there just needs to be more attached descriptive terms with the word "rebuild" to describe what was done.

If some idiot car buyer doesn't ask "what was rebuilt" that's on THEM for not asking, or not doing research in my opinion.

But terms like this you could use all day. How about the phrase "car was restored." Does that mean frame-off? Does that mean mechanically, cosmetically? Same kind of term. I did a "restore" on the GT6, body-off-frame, most of the interior, the whole suspension, and a light engine refresh. but that's not the same as someone who spends $40k tearing down every part and replacing it or refubishing it to "like new" for a show car.

the GRM boards (here) seem to be by and by large a MUCH better place to see well, grassroots stuff.
IMO, as someone who can't afford to pay for any wrenching (hell, can barely afford parts), seeing someone hand their keys to a shop to make his car rad, not grassroots
(That's the kind of article I'll read, but only if the car is interesting)

More features on some of the ridiculous stuff from here or around the internets, yes please.

one other thing: for the "GRM" aspect of things, I'd like to see, perhaps in every issue, a several-page story about a reader's project (either from the project section of this forum, or elsewhere) - but a project that is truly 'grassroots' - e.g. done on a reasonable budget, mostly by the car owner (not a shop) etc. I know a lot of those threads are long and convoluted (I dont' think mine would fit in a year's full of issues), but maybe even just some pages of "highlights of readers' builds" that didn't show the cool end-result or their awesome car, but just showed "here's the top 5 cool Grassroots workarounds, improvised tools, or nifty ideas" type of thing.

While I think some of the featured cars are cool, I actually don't get all that excited by (and this is just a random example) a JDM right-hand drive R32 Skyline that someone spent $20k or $30k making perfect and awesome, even if the owner did all the work himself in his awesome home shop. I can find those all over the internet. Yeah, it's awesome. Most of us aspire to something more realistic.

I want a feature story about the guy who took a Volvo 240 that was bought for $1k, and spent maybe $5k over a year or two and a lot of time, ingenuity, blood, and sweat to make it a cool - if not "AWESOME" - car. It's far from perfect, it never goes to shows. But it's still cool.

Seems this topic comes around once a year and I think the staff does listen so I'll put my 2 cents in.

I get that those of us wishing for the "old days" of all DIY wrenching projects are in more of the minority than we think. That is the prevailing mentality on the forum so we start to think that we represent the readership when really we are the outliers.

Count me with those who dont read cover to cover these days, on rare occasions I don't find a single thing of interest in an issue. But I get that you gotta do what you do to keep the larger readership happy. Many people want to race, not wrench. Many people have outgrown the DIY and have the budgets to buy their toys without the need for wrenching. Heck, I'm one of those guys except I figured out I like the wrenching so I still do it. Many people can't wait to get away from it.

I say do what you gotta do to keep the lights on and the advertisers happy, just throw a bone to us wrenchin' geeks every once in awhile. Even if I never read an issue I will subscribe, I figure its a fair price for the resource that is this message board and to ensure the Challenge continues. If/when the challenge goes away I may feel differently, it's what drew me to GRM in the first place and what keeps me coming back.

You'll never please everyone, but I think you are doing your best to keep it rounded. Lately it skews a bit more towards the deep pockets crowd, so we'll sit here and wait for our bone :)

To lighten things up a bit....

One snippet from the most recent issue. There was a little tiny paragraph about Speedycop (our local LeMons guru who is now well known). There was a multi-page spread about SEMA and all the blingy new stuff they have there.

I spent more time on the 2 sentences about speedycop than I did looking at the SEMA page. The two topics' relative space in the mag should have been reversed.

And you should post this photo from 2004 or so of Speedycop pulling our Maxima club over at a meet in Rock Creek Park in DC, a couple years before he ever made a LeMons car and was still doing crash-up derbies. He gave us (very small) tickets and then proceeded to spend 4 hours at the site talking cars with us that day :)

Then the next week he came onto Maxima.org forums to chit-chat with us more about our cars. It was pretty cool. I know there have been little writeups about him before in GRM, but guys like this should get cover billing over a 'Viper vs. Z06 Shootout' or UTCC spread.....

Sadly, I stopped reading the magazine quite a while ago.

The Berzerkely project was the last thing I found really interesting.

The focus seemed to shift away from buying old, cheap cars and making them go faster for as little cash outlay as possible to buying a new mini and bolting off-the-shelf stuff to it.

I liked GRM because every other car magazine except one seemed to praise the free products from their advertisers rather than do any real-world testing.

I can see the staff at Chevy Craft bolt air suspension to a camaro and claim it handles better because the advertisers paid them to say that or I can watch GRM do a real-world, unbiased comparison.

Unfortunately, GRM seems to have left the 60's ,70's and 80's cars to the biased magazines (unless it's a british car, then CM can play with it) and focused on the newer stuff.

Anything with a computer in it is of no interest to me and I'm not the only one.

How about an article on how to rebuild a junkyard carb, how to upgrade the handling on your second-gen F-body with cheap / free junkyard parts.

The "Cars and Crafts", "Chevy craft" and "slow Fords" magazines cant do articles like that because it's easier and makes more money for them to simply show how to order the stuff from Summit and Jegs.

I've dropped my subscription to Rod & Custom and Hemmings Muscle Machines because all they are is advertising. Hot Rod won't be getting renewed, at $20.00 for three years, I'm being overcharged. Motor Trend Classic this month had awesome articles and I don't mind paying the nearly $20.00 price for it UNTIL I found the the bloody Harbor Freight ad!!!.

The Rodders Journal and Motor Trend Classic are about the only thing I bother with anymore.

You guys at GRM have the HUGE advantage of being about the only unbiased car magazine out there, keep it up and expand the focus a bit, you might win some more customers and subscribers.

I loved the magazine 5 years ago but there is more in the grassroots racing world than 10 year old Honda Civics, BMW's, Miatas and MINIS.

Shawn

irish44j wrote: To lighten things up a bit.... One snippet from the most recent issue. There was a little tiny paragraph about Speedycop (our local LeMons guru who is now well known). There was a multi-page spread about SEMA and all the blingy new stuff they have there. I spent more time on the 2 sentences about speedycop than I did looking at the SEMA page. The two topics' relative space in the mag should have been reversed. And you should post this photo from 2004 or so of Speedycop pulling our Maxima club over at a meet in Rock Creek Park in DC, a couple years before he ever made a LeMons car and was still doing crash-up derbies. He gave us (very small) tickets and then proceeded to spend 4 hours at the site talking cars with us that day :) Then the next week he came onto Maxima.org forums to chit-chat with us more about our cars. It was pretty cool. I know there have been little writeups about him before in GRM, but guys like this should get cover billing over a 'Viper vs. Z06 Shootout' or UTCC spread.....

Jeff Bloch (SpeedyCop) is a great guy. I love everything he's done. When I first saw this video, I laughed just about forever. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAgZktgNANk

Some people are unimpressed, and deride this as an act borne of too much beer or somesuch nonsense. I think all of his creations come from a bit of genius and a lot of a sense of humor, and I love seeing stuff like that.

Then there's the team that made the Harley-powered Prius, which made me mad because they beat me to the punch in combining Hell's Angels with hippies in automotive form. I had long ago discussed with my good friend Eric the possibility of making an Altamont-themed VW Beetle powered by a Harley engine, with a crew consisting of bludgeoned hippies and weapon-wielding bikers. I'm sad I didn't get to it first, but in reality, I never would've had the time.

????

Good job or not?

Trans_Maro wrote: Sadly, I stopped reading the magazine quite a while ago.

Trans_Maro wrote: the only unbiased car magazine out there, keep it up and expand the focus a bit, you might win some more customers and subscribers.

Too old school or not enough?

Trans_Maro wrote: Unfortunately, GRM seems to have left the 60's ,70's and 80's cars to the biased magazines (unless it's a british car, then CM can play with it) and focused on the newer stuff.

Trans_Maro wrote: I loved the magazine 5 years ago but there is more in the grassroots racing world than 10 year old Honda Civics, BMW's, Miatas and MINIS.

Alan Cesar wrote: Jeff Bloch (SpeedyCop) is a great guy. I love everything he's done. When I first saw this video, I laughed just about forever. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAgZktgNANk

Thanks. That was wonderful

Good job on the format, but I prefer older cars.

I stopped reading because it seemed like GRM had turned into a BMW/MINI/Miata love fest.

I tried CM but there is only love for British cars there and I understand why.

GRMs format is a breath of fresh air in the marketing/advertising machine that is automotive journalism but the content is geared towards more modern cars.

Most folks here seem to like the cars that are featured in the magazine so they must be doing a good job.

I find Miatas, Minis, Focus, Vipers, new Corvettes etc very uninteresting but I'm probably not the target of the magazine anyway.

Thing is, (used) BMWs, Minis and Miatas are where you can find grassroots racing. Remember that the mag used to be called "Autox", which is one of the more accessible forms of motorsports - and one that is dominated by that sort of car. 5-20 years old is where you find the bulk of HPDE/time trial/autox cars. There are still 60's cars in the magazine (seems there are always Corvairs) but they are in the minority because, well, they're the minority where you find grassroots racing.

I do find the subscription to Rodder's Journal and the emphasis on "cheap/free handling parts" an amusing contradiction

So - what DO people like? Give positive feedback, you'll be likely to see more of it. The mention of the bracket article, for example. That's good feedback for David and staff.

Here's an idea. What's going on at those little dirt tracks all over the country? Sure, it seems simple, but I know there's a whole lot more going on both in the cars and the driving. Send a staff member out and stick them in the middle of the mayhem, that would be one interesting thing to read about.

I have to admit that I promised a few tech articles to David some time ago and I've not delivered. I'll do my best to get him some good stuff, I think it will be interesting to those are griping in this thread.

Keith Tanner wrote: I have to admit that I promised a few tech articles to David some time ago and I've not delivered. I'll do my best to get him some good stuff, I think it will be interesting to those are griping in this thread.

Looking forward to them!

Interesting thread. Trans Maro and Foxtrapper echo my sentiments pretty well. I hope the staff reads the posts contained herein several times and sees the same repeating theme that I do: that the magazine has changed or evolved in such a way that a lot of the core group finds little to read in it. We can only assume this trend has netted more mainstream readers, but at the sacrifice of a lot of the rest of us.

I'll put my opinion simply: I used to wait anxiously for every issue, read it cover to cover, and keep it for reference. I now no longer subscribe, haven't read an issue for probably 2 years, and don't feel like I've missed anything.

OTOH, I don't miss a day of trolling this message board, as there's always something interesting being worked on or discussed. I love the GRM family of Suddards, et al and still put GRM stickers on my race car as a sign of respect. Unfortunately, sometimes I feel like I'm endorsing a product I no longer use.

I can accept that I'm some narrow minded weirdo that the magazine isn't intended for, but reading the last 4 pages it looks like I'm certainly not alone. I think we all love the people but wish they would steer the product back towards home.

We have this discussion every year. I remember bitching about the lack of tech, and prevalence of late model bolt-on type project cars back in in 06. I still subscribe, but I probably haven't read it in 3 or 4 years. I give it to my son. He likes it.

I bet the majority of subscribers like the mag just the way it is.

I usually read Per's column, so for this issue, J.G.'s was the first thing I read. (I wanted to see what everybody was talking about) I also read Say What, Dave's column, and the back page. After that, I return to the table of contents to see if any articles seem to merit my attention. Then I check "Cars covered in this issue."

I'm liking the Epic Tracks article in the current issue.....that Sebring page (pg 48??) will be something I keep..someday I will HPDE there (aspirational goal) in a car I've built myself.

David S. Wallens wrote: Wow, I go away for a few hours. With the Porsche, you can't hone/bore the cylinders. You can replace the jugs, though. Since ours looked good--factory honing still present, everything look good, etc.--we took the low-buck step of retaining them. Not sure if you guys noticed, but we actually did all of that work inside my friend's home office--no professional shop, etc. Like, on the other side of that door is his family room. Question: If we had spent a few grand on new pistons and cylinders that weren't totally necessary, would people have complained about that?

My complaint wasn't what you did or didn't do to the engine. I in fact stated that I enjoyed the article. But a valve job is NOT an engine rebuild, and you shouldn't have called it one.

Marjorie Suddard wrote: You guys seem to have a rather unrealistic idea of how "grown-up" Tim behaves vs. Young Tim. If anything, he spends MORE time on projects than he did in years past; since Halloween he's worked on Mercedes, Mini, Shelby, Miata, Fiesta and Subaru projects (all of which live at our home under his active care) doing everything from rust repair and welding on new body panels to seat bracket modifications to pulling engines. His average workday ends about 6; then he comes home, eats, takes a short nap, then heads out to the garage, where he stays most nights until 11 or 12, and into the wee hours several times a month. Margie

Our idea of what Tim does or doesn't do comes from reading the magazine, and you should be able to tell by the responses in this thread that while it may be unrealistic as far as what Tim does, it is in no way unrealistic as far as how it reads in the magazine. Instead of accusing your readers of a distorted view of reality, maybe you should be appreciative of the feedback.