[madmax]

G'day, mates... glad to be here and love your forum! Did'nt join right away because of problems loading pics on a different site.( unrelated to astros) I wish to share ideas as well as pics....hope its easy to upload. Currently my 91 astro has 227,000 miles on her, but starts and runs like a champ! Mostly stock 4.3 v6 ("z" engine). Added home made twin ram air, K&N with x-treme lid, raised T.B.I. injectors 1", adjustable fuel pressure regulator, 1" intake spacer, M.S.D. box, hypertech 53,000 volt coil, blk magic twin elec.fans, royal purple syn. oil (already tried mobil one, and amsoil.....royal purple WORKED right away), redline water wetter, added heated o2 sensor, B&M transpak (street strip mode), 3.72 posi, and a thrush glasspack ...(cheap,cheap,cheap!!!) Amazingly, not very load with twice pipes after it. :mrgreen: Gutted interior(within reason) and the chassis for any dead weight (looks like a work van inside now). Van feels very, very agile. Still plan to add some more bits and pieces for power and longivity in the future ( nothing crazy or expensive). A v8 would be easier...but I like the v6 underdog. Sorry for the long post...just really passionate about astros and making them better. :driving: Madmax

 

[Gary]

Welcome to the forum.Sounds like you have done a ton of work on your van.Looking forward to some pics of it.

 

[CAZTRO]

awesome , welcome from grand rapids... might need u to comever and get my 4.3 running right..

 

[madmax]

Thanks, Gary and Caztro. I agree... pictures would really enhance a thread. Technology wise, I'm a little old fashioned (or maybe cheap... ), I still need a decent digital camera. For $20.00, a returnable camera from CVS (a local drug store chain here in michigan) would give you photos plus a matching CD. I would take the CD then upload the pix. It worked for a while... then CVS later upgraded it so my 98' presario cant run it any more. What kind of camera do you recommend that works well on this site thats reasonably priced? canon coolpix maybe? Any help is appreciated, thank you.

 

[Matrixx]

Hi madmax

Welcome to the forum.

Sounds like you have been a busy bee with your van. Pictures would be great for sure. With pictures from the drug store, could you not ask them to convert the images to a bmp or jpg format? jpg is the format you need to upload images to this site and is much less complicated to deal with across the boards. Photo Shop or ACDsee are good programs to convert the images over to a jpg format. Just a thought.

 

[Gary]

Thanks, Gary and Caztro. I agree... pictures would really enhance a thread. Technology wise, I'm a little old fashioned (or maybe cheap... ), I still need a decent digital camera. For $20.00, a returnable camera from CVS (a local drug store chain here in michigan) would give you photos plus a matching CD. I would take the CD then upload the pix. It worked for a while... then CVS later upgraded it so my 98' presario cant run it any more. What kind of camera do you recommend that works well on this site thats reasonably priced? canon coolpix maybe? Any help is appreciated, thank you.

Boy oh boy does that sound familiar.I had members of another site bashing me about a camera for a long long time.Sooooo,I when and bought a cannon Power Shot A590IS.It cost me a little over $200 bucks with a bigger memory card etc.I had a H/P windows 98 puter at the time which is no longer supported by them any longer.The puter wouldn't down load the program from the camera. :banghead: I like you would have to load the pic's to a cd and then could post them.A real PITA and over the long haul cost more to do then getting a upgraded puter. :screaming: So here I was with a $200 buck camera and really couldn't do what I wanted.Owning the camera force me to buy a XP puter and another three and change down the drain.Now I have a camera and this computer and for sure I am a hero in my own mind having to spend a little over $500 to post pics. :doh: After wards I found out the support for the XP is yr to yr too. At first the novelty of the camera had me taking pics of everything I had,but that wore off and honestly I haven't touch it in months.Still stinging from the over $500 investment. :banghead: So I totally understand where you are coming from.But the fact is it is really hard to negotiate on these sites without the ability to post pic's and that is especially true if your doing any work to your van and want help with it or if your offering any help to anyone else about a repair/mod they are doing.I have a Photobucket free account that I download the pics to and when I want to post pics,I go there and just click at the bottom of the subject pic the img button and copy it and them paste it to where I want it to appear.I had dial-up because at first it was the only service offered,I refuse to buy into another service now that ends up adding costs to me functioning on these sites.The downside is I have to down size the pic's size before I upload to Photobucket or else it take forever to get it up uploaded.Just figure it this way,the ability to post pics is like "that" tool in your toolbox that you hate to buy because after awhile you will rarely use it,but one that you know you will need.

By The Way:I use Firefox which is much better than I.E.

I hope this helps you some,

Have fun on the forum,ttyl,Gary.

 

[madmax]

Gary , Matrix much props!Thank you for your candor. There are several other hotrod "upgrades" (that didnt show ANY results), and credit card melt downs thanks to midas ( DONT EVER GO THERE!!!), that I felt REALLY stupid about spending money on. Will have to ask the CVS dudes if I can do the jpeg bmp.option. Thanks to better hours at work recently, I can hopefully cast off the mantle of techno dinosaur and get some useful modern tech very soon: digi-camera, camcorder, dvd player (other than PS2), mpeg player, printer combo, laptop ( might try pawnshop first ) etc. Most of this stuff wasnt of precedence...so i procrastinated on them. Everythings super cheap right now, and with a camcorder I could post a youtube of my van with running commentary. (Always,always want to do a youtube post......a GOOD one that is.)

 

[Mr_Bowtie]

Welcome! Sounds like a nice rig! PICS!!! :mrgreen:

 

[madmax]

Took a risk and bought a cheapie Vivitar mini digi camera for $10. (Didnt want to go to CVS and get the same uploading headaches again, went to wallgreens and found this cam instead) Posted pics in the madmax album gallery ....sort of decent. The first 20 minutes of posting, I could'nt get the damn images to upload. but, were golden now. I'm not too tech oriented but I do alright. (sometimes) :dunce:

 

[AstroSafarifam]

Great to see another Michigander, I'm in Highland over in Oakland county I have 2 Safari's a 86 shorty and a 97 extended AWD 86 will soon be going to a V8 when I have the V* rebuilt 97 will stay stock (it's the wife's) but needs some work on the engine