Sport Compact no more

Dr. Hess wrote: I read an SCC once. In the isle at Hastings. Yo, then we put this advertiser's $1000 fart can on our Civic, yo, and got 400 extra HP. 1slowcrx, you wouldn't happen to have some type of fiduciary interest in this new site, would you? Just asking for Full Disclosure's sake.

I have not stake in this new site other then being a fan of good tech info and the GRM style form fallows function state of mind.

I'm sorry you were too short sighted to look past the corporation bull e36m3 and see the good writing over the years.

Mike Kojima who is the driving force behind this new site and a former SCC editor has actually written free lance for GRM in past. You guys take for granted the fact that Tim was able to start and maintain GRM on his own dime and never had to compromise with a corporation in order to keep the magazine in print.

SCC is how I found out about GRM and autocrossing. All three of which saved me from the ricetastic giant pep-boys wing ways of my friends during highschool.

This site has a lot of good tech info on it and some pretty interesting articles.

Before passing judgment and sounding like a grandpa bitching about that new fangled rock music, go read some articles over there. Who knows, you might be surprised.

Just asking, doode. No offense meant. The SCC mag just didn't do it for me when I picked it up. Apparently it didn't do it for a lot of other people as well, or it would still be available at Hastings. It just looked to me to be "here's how to make your car sound like Dr.Hess' Rolla" while I do everything I can to not make it sound like that. And when old threads suddenly pop up with brand new forum members posting on them about some business enterprise, everyone's suspicions should be on alert. Fanbois are another possibility.

As far as GRM goes, I'll let Tim and Marge answer it if they want, but in any and all businesses you can certainly count on having to make compromises in order to stay in business. If SCC sold out to some big publishing corporation which then started dictating editorial content and how to run said mag and said mag FAILed at that point, then the fault really is in the poor business practice/model that led to selling said mag to said publishing corporation in the first place. I mean, what did they think was going to happen? The big corp would just give them money to keep the doors open and not want anything back? Big corps run our government, and how's that working out for us?

consider it a natural evolution;

1)magazine starts out.

2)magazine gets good.

3)magazine gets bought out and manipulated.

4)magazine dies of being irrelevant.

hopefully this reincarnation gets to, and stays at, step 2 as long as possible.

Step 3 is a choice.

noted

I've been reading this site for a bit and it's great to see Mike Kojima and Dave Coleman writting again. My favorite is Dave's article on how he kept water in his rad with a leaky headgasket in a rally car all for about $30 bucks at a hardware store.

1slowcrx wrote: SCC is how I found out about GRM and autocrossing. All three of which saved me from the ricetastic giant pep-boys wing ways of my friends during highschool. This site has a lot of good tech info on it and some pretty interesting articles. Before passing judgment and sounding like a grandpa bitching about that new fangled rock music, go read some articles over there. Who knows, you might be surprised.

glad you were saved from the ricer world.... and yes the mag had some very good tech articles (at one time) they were becoming fewer and fewer towards the end...

maybe wait 'til you have a bit more than a massive 23 yrs of background before you start putting us down as "grandpas bitching ....."

I realize that youth is sure they have all the answers, and to quote a line from the 60's .... don't trust anyone over 30.... but give yourself a little more time and some more things might start making sense...

just saying....

Mike K. and Dave C. are great sources of info, especially on Nissans. Having had the privilege of driving SCC's Project SE-R (B13 Nissan SE-R) cross-country and at a track day at Roebling Road, I'd say they know their stuff. My friend who currently owns the old SCC car also picked up another B13 that was outfitted with Mike K's recommendations, and that was another amazing car to drive.

I've personally met Dave Coleman and Josh Jacquot, and trust me, those two guys are very grassroots guys who would fit right in writing for GRM.

haha speaking of "reeeeiiiiimmmmzzzzzzzzzzzz"... few weeks back there was a girl where I work with her car up on blocks... she'd had her REEEIIIIIIIMMMMMMZZZZ repoed...

dj06482 wrote: Mike K. and Dave C. are great sources of info

i totally agree. started to lose my love of SCC when dave coleman moved on. the 'stump the geek' was great and all, but it just wasn't the same. either way, i'm excited for motoiq

Dr. Hess wrote: I read an SCC once. In the isle at Hastings. Yo, then we put this advertiser's $1000 fart can on our Civic, yo, and got 400 extra HP.

I read SCC for 11 or 12 years and I thought there was very little of that--especially with exhausts. I recall them documenting many 2-3hp gains on pricey exhausts.

gamby wrote:

Dr. Hess wrote: I read an SCC once. In the isle at Hastings. Yo, then we put this advertiser's $1000 fart can on our Civic, yo, and got 400 extra HP.

I read SCC for 11 or 12 years and I thought there was very little of that--especially with exhausts. I recall them documenting many 2-3hp gains on pricey exhausts.

Gamby,

You are right. I have the up most respect for Dr Hess, but on this one he was not paying attention at the right times. Back in 1998-1999 when I started reading SCC. They did more dyno tests than any other mag had ever thought of. Over the years they wrote countless articles explaining dynos and how they can be manipulated by an operator. If you look at the time they put into dynoing the 4X4 gmc truck on multiple brands and types of dynos you see that they worked very hard on education and transparency (They used the old school truck for it simplicity, consistence, and ability to switch from AWD to 2WD) . Another example is the thought they but into scaling the the dyno charts. They where kept in the same scale for years to allow you to compare cars over time. And they were clear and open about the limitations this system had with the higher HP car in the later years. It also made low HP graphs look a little long and flat. To speak a little bit to Dr hess' comments, I will concede that the mag did have a bunch of leadership changes and they were owned by a mega media outlet (I like free track time and lap dances as mush as the next guy). However under the the correct leadership they had some amazing content.

Okay I wrote the above and thought I should test my self before I hit ADD POST. I pulled an early mag off the shelf 100% at random. It has a header test for Nissan SR 20de motor. They test 5 headers biggest gain 3.8 HP smallest 2.3HP. I would call that reasonable and a hell of a lot of work to install/test 5 headers.

Oh and they must have had 30+ pages of Miata content.

Doodes, the issue I browsed in the isle of a Hastings several years ago didn't actually claim 400 HP from a fart can muffler from one of their advertisers. It was really 385 HP. See, that was "poetic license." Humor. A slight exageration to illustrate a point. The point being: There was a whole lot of fluff in what I saw and not much actual substance that us GRM'ers can relate to. As it's only been like 5 years since I looked at that issue, maybe it went more like "then we took our Civic down to this auto shop and had them put on a new fart can. Then we took our Civic to this auto shop and had them put on NOS. Then we took our Civic down to this auto shop and had them put on this really cool shift knob ..." That one might have been SCC or some other tooner type mag that I didn't buy. Now, if there's a readership willing to buy mags that say that, great. But even that is not a profitable business model at five bucks an issue. That readership of 17 year old high school students also has to purchase stuff from the advertisers in the magazine so that the advertisers will stay in business and contintue to buy ad space to advertise their warez, and the magazine continues to get ad revenue, otherwise, said mag goes under. Remember that typically the publisher loses money on every issue you buy. That is, it costs more than what you pay to print the thing. If you don't support the advertisers, you're not helping the mag. That's why I always look to GRM advertisers FIRST when I am going to buy something, and I always tell them I saw their ad in GRM. Frankly, any specialty product I need for the car I'm building, for example, is probably available from a GRM advertiser at a competitive price. I've bought a bunch of stuff from RPW, who'se ad was just on the sidebar, and I mention GRM when I do it. The silicone hose and T clamps between my turbo and the intake on the Esprit came from a GRM advertiser. My spark plug wires are Magnecor, GRM advertiser. So, that's how I do my part to help out on Tommy's college fund. SCC couldn't do it with their content and management, thus they FAILed and did so before The O could hand them a billion of our dollars to help them out with those lap dances and track time.

Anyone remember Dave Collman's "Medulla Bad-idea" article? One of the best, most entertaining things I've every read in a periodical.

Basically detailing how we car guys fantasize about ridiculous swaps and automotive pipe dreams. Fantastic.

http://www.modified.com/editors/0406_sccp_car_enthusiasts_bad_ideas/index.html

I think many are saying the same thing, just in a different way.

SCC was awesome

SCC lost it's best editors/writers

SCC than became part of the Source family (publishers of fine mags such as Super Street, Modified, and Import Tuner), this must be when Hess picked up the copy he saw.......

SCC than became E36M3'er and went kaput. End of story.

New site is up and reminds us of SCC's glory days, makes all who liked the "true" SCC happy.

BTW, I also questioned the OP's (or raiser of dead thread's) motives when this thread was re-hashed, not just Hess.

BTW2, I just started picking up 0-60 mag and find that quite entertaining. Reminds me of SCC/Top Gear/GRM all in one. I mean they had a Veyron and a GNX in the same issue.

zoomx2 I think you get it 100%.

hess I do see the humor in your posts (i hope you see mine) and I think it is great when any of us turn to GRM advertisers or our local mom and pop shops to buy or parts. That is a big part of what makes this a great community. On the serous side, your post got me thinking. As a MD you have a code of ethics that you required to follow. I know in SC a MD can't even play golf with a medical sales person. It's seen as a conflict of interest even if the doc pays his own way. In my own experience, my lowly real-estate license binds me with fiduciary responsibilities to my clients. So my question is whether or not a magazine editorial staff has a written code of ethics or responsibilities that they are obligated to follow. Does GRM have a written policy on how to handle gifts from advertisers? Is there a clear line for establishing when something is a gift? What if you only get to keep it for a month, six months, or a year. When is it a car to "test drive" and a "free car to drive"? Where is the line between a prerelease weekend and an all expense paid, R-compound, and race gas fueled free vacation?

wanna know infinitely more about suspension tech than you did 20 minutes ago? Google "The Dave spot"

coleman is the man

sccm was awesome. I love reading grm, but for me it still doesnt have the same feel, humour, or stories that sccm had.

TAftonomos wrote: I always laughed at SCC after they would do car tuner comparisons. Shiv Pathak, the owner of Vishnu tuning, would write the biased articles in favor of his cars, without actually disclosing the fact it was his company he was pumping up. The blatant conflict of interest offended me....because SCC expected it's readers to be unaware of what was going on.

+1

You may find that Shiv's peers do not necessarily hold him in the highest regard, even post-SCC. Of course, he may not consider that he has a lot of peers Let's just say that the disparate group of performance tuners found at the C&D Superfour Challenge found they had at least one thing in common.

I must admit I never read SCC much. I've got a couple of old issues kicking around, I'll pull them out again and see what I was missing. I used to just glaze over reading the feature car stories and never persisted with the magazine long enough to get to the good tech.

I can tell you that if GRM thinks a free product sucks, they will say so in print. They did that to FM years ago and I've always respected them for it. We've since redesigned said product and I think they'd be very happy if they tested it again

...and for what its worth I've heard almost nothing but good about FM products from people in the Miata community.

But yes, GRM is about the only auto rag I read anymore.

Chris

Appleseed wrote: Anyone remember Dave Coleman's "Medulla Bad-idea" article? One of the best, most entertaining things I've every read in a periodical. Basically detailing how we car guys fantasize about ridiculous swaps and automotive pipe dreams. Fantastic. http://www.modified.com/editors/0406_sccp_car_enthusiasts_bad_ideas/index.html

i can't even begin to count how many times that happens every time i check out craigslist. i should keep a journal of this stuff for future reading entertainment... that way i could look back and think "what was i on?" when the scary part is i would write the whole thing sober, so my insanity would have no excuse...

xci_ed6 wrote: I had a subscription to Super Street the for about the 1st 2 years it was out. I canceled my subscription when they ran a 7 page tech article on installing a steering wheel, shift knob, and pedal covers. Early SCC was much better than later, it really did start heading in the direction of Import Tuner & Super Street in the end. Anyone remember Turbo? Is it still around? My uncle had a subscription when I was ~12 and I always read them, but I couldn't tell you if the tech info was any good.

Turbo was an EXCELLENT mag. While it was kind of repetitive, I loved the hardcore tech it always had, and all of the racing coverage. Sadly it too perished along with SCC.... 'twas a sad day.

OMG!

I just realised I do exactly this but with other brands:

Subject D is incapable of concentrating on anything else for several days and proceeds to fact-dump on anyone who strays within shouting distance.

"Prince was part of Fuji Heavy Industries and was made up of old aircraft engineers from Nakajima Aircraft. Their experience with high-output engines and lightweight monocoque structures helped them build some of the most advanced cars of their day. They were absorbed by Nissan in 1966 and that's why Datsuns immediately stopped sucking in 1967." Which, obviously, sounds exactly like "Blah, blah, blah, I'm a freak, blah," to anyone born without a medulla badidea.

The first step is admitting that you have a problem, right?

Shawn

or embracing what others might call a 'problem'

The bad thing is we all have Medulla-bad-idea, and the GRM board is FULL of enablers.