OD404

Look to the top right of the first post and you will see a box with "options" written on it. Click that and choose standard display mode form the drop down box. That should sort your problem out...

The idea of moving in together is a somewhat romantic one, but in reality is very different. Cheaper accomodation will usually mean there are more things to go wrong (cheap furniture, poor upkeep etc) which while if you are renting is not your responsibility, will make the experience less enjoyable. And going for something of higher quality will obviously leave you with less money to enjoy yourself. That said the cost of living varies tremendously based on where you are actually going to live. For instance, I live with my girlfriend (of over 3 years now) in Coventry and we budget £400 a month each on living (rent, council tax, tv, bills, food etc) and this is more than enough to sustain a standard of living which is comfortable to say the least. This if you ask me, is bloody good value and I count myself lucky for it as there aren't many places this cheap. We pay £475pcm on our 3 bed house (off road parking and garage etc) which in many other places would barely get you a 1 bed flat. I would definately investigate prices in your area. I think my overall advice will echo what everyone else has said in that you will find it hard finacially to live together. A combined wage of £960 would barely cover cost of living in cheaper areas and would be far better spent getting the most out of your youth. It's a massive decision, I hope you will give it the proper amount of consideration before making it.

Personally I woud stick with the Monty for now and just get some cheap bits to finish off (for sale section here is a good start as people have already said). That way you can have a play without the fear that you have spent money on something you might not want to continue with. And you can always upgrade bits at a later date if you feel the need. I stared for similar reasons, thought a few trials skills might help my general off-roading, so started having a go at learning the techniques on my current off road bike. My bike at the time was a fully rigid £200 Claud Bulter, which probably wasn't ideal for any of the riding I did on it, but it was all I had at the time and it certainly didn't hold me back (even the 22" frame ). I think what I'm getting at is that you don't need to worry about getting the "right" parts straight away, just get enough to get the bike functioning then have a play and see how you get on.

I passed when I was 18, but didn't get a car till I was 20. I got a 1.5yr old 1.2 Corsa (was on a 51 plate). The insurance was about £800 fully comp. Granted in my case it appeared that I had got 2yrs experience, but because I didn't have any insurance history for those two years I'm sure it didn't make that much difference. Being 22 will put in a far better position as you will be classed as more of an adult as the rest of 17yr old first timers and your quotes should reflect that provided you get a sensible first car.

True but they have altered the power delivery so help it overcome the extra weight. There are also reports that the chassis is a vast improvement from the outgoing (EP) Type-R.

Actually they make similar torque to any other engine with the same displacement, they just make more power. So compare a 1.6 vtec with another 1.6 and torque values will be in the same ball park (obviously there will be differences and the Honda "may" even have slightly less), but compare the same engine with another making the same power (158bhp for the uk engine) and it will loose on torque quite convincingly.

I'll be working during the day, Amy will be working in the evening. Therefore planning anything is waste of time. Our anniversary is soon after anyway and I prefer to do something special then as it has more meaning. Valentines is just another day to me and always will be.

b16b makes more, circa 180bhp from 1598cc. To be fair, there are numerous Honda engines that fit the bill (F20c, K20a, b16a2, b18c, the list goes on). The downside to this is that they are already highly tuned in n/a form, so you can't get as much out of them for "reasonable" money as you can some other popular n/a engines.

Theme tunes to classic childrens tv programs would certainly achieve some strange looks. Things like Thundercats, He-Man etc.

Setup when I was at my parents over Xmas: Tempory setup at my house until I've decorated the office:

Is that not turbo'd though? See the last sentence EDIT: Yup it's a turbo

Civics are built in Swindon, which makes them European in my eyes (or dual nationality?). On that note, any Honda using the K20a has 100bhp per litre from a 2 litre engine. So Civic type r's, Accord Euro r's etc all fit the bill, apart from maybe the European bit. But I think it depends on your point of view as to whether they are eligable.

Congratulations Steve! Glad to hear everything is going well with the (ever expanding) family

Though a mortgage can be the same. The assumption is that when you buy a house, it will increase in value, which will cover the costs when it was bought, however in some cases house prices don't rise nearly enough (if at all) to do this. Also consider that the trend nowadays is to stay in the same house for on average 5 years before moving, so the money you have tied up in one house will go towards your new house, but you will have more fees to pay, which you may or may not get back through the value of the new house. While I agree that in the long term mortgages are the better option, a sweeping statement like that is a little narrow-minded as there are more factors to consider than simply "paying someone elses mortgage". Which is why I am renting right now, as I cannot financially justify buying a house. If anything, tieing myself into a mortgage right now could possibly cripple me later in life.

I'm in a similar situation right now. Girlfriend and I are currently renting a place and have done since the summer, but I have considered the possibility of buying a house. Now I know a lot of people will come on here and spote the old "renting is pants because its wasted money etc" and yes to an extent it is true. However, when you buy a house you really need a decent amount of capital behind you as fees quickly stack up. Add to that a deposit, which in my mind is a good idea as it can make the mortgage more managable, and you have a very large outlay. For many people that is just too much, certainly for myself coming out of uni with nothing but debt there was no way I could have afforded that. Best places for advice would be your bank and a local estate agent, while they may not have the best deals on mortgages for you or the house you want, they will be able to explain exactly how the process goes and then you will be in a better position to make a decision. Other than that there is very little advice I feel I can give. House prices/rent varies considerably accross the country as do people's living habits which will affect bills etc Though I don't want to post a complete breakdown of my living costs, I can tell you that between us my girlfriend and I are spending just under £400 a month to live where we are (good sized 3bed terrace with private parking and garage in Coventry) and that includes rent, council tax, gas, electric, water, tv license and food. That might give you an idea of the costs involved but as I said, it could be so different for where you are. Hope that has given you a bit of info to start with, but I would certainly recommend popping into your bank and a local estate agents EDIT: That's just under £400 each

Fusion has been done (in France strangely enough). However to actually fuse atoms together in a similar way to the sun (which is where the idea came from), vast amounts of energy are reguired to get the particles moving fast enough so when they do collide they fuse. When they got it to work it was found that they had used more energy than they got out in creating this environment.

I use the windows remote desktop a lot to access my home pc when I'm away via other pc's. I find it does the job, though how good it is depends a lot on the internet speeds between the two computers.

New monitor so I thought I would resurect this thread

Yup both equally as important... I have refrained from posting in this thread, mainly becuase of the arguing, but I do feel I need to congratulate Bucky on his van. Engine swaps are not the easiest of things (some harder than others granted), and respect is due to anyone that pulls it off. On the subject of swaps, I'm planning this for my Civic: K20a EG6

Hmm, that seems a bit strange to me as from what I remember the .stl file format was developed after .igs (around the advent of rapid prototyping). What version of Solidedge are you using? I will say now that most engineering places will not accept the formats you've stated as industry standard is to use either .igs or .stp. I have an up-to-date version of Solidedge knocking around somewhere which I could use to create the right files for you (or better still, let you have a copy). PM me if you are interested

If you are going to be transfering 3D models around, please don't use the .stl format. It seriously compromises the accuracy of the model compared with using .stp or .igs (both of which are supported by Solidedge). As far as the design goes, I would look at adding a few more radii to the model to get rid of your sharp corners. This really only applies to the internal corners as cnc machines will not be able to create them (circular cutting tools etc...) so if you present your drawings to a firm you will be told they can't make it (if the company is friendly they might talk you through the modifications required, other might just tell you no). The drawings themselves do need a lot of tidying up and I'll second the recommendation to look as the relevant British Standards. Cost wise, one-off machining is always expensive as it generates a lot of waste material and there is no chance for the manufacturers to gain any repeat business. I realise that you cannot get away from a one-off situation, but I recommend listening to the suggestions in this thread as to how to make the design cheaper (unless money is of no consequence). The more work you put in now getting the design up to a professional standard, the more likely a firm will actually consider doing the work for you, as it stands, I wouldn't be suprised if many even bother to give you a quote.

If its the interior fans that aren't working I would definately check out the resistor. My old Corsa (2001) had problems with overheating resistors, I was forever replacing it. You could probably track one down at a scrappy for very little money, that way you can see if it makes a difference without paying garage prices.

That'll be FDM (fused deposition modelling), personally not my favoured rapid prototyping process as it has quite a few limits on the geometry it can create (as opposed to laser sintering which is almost limitless), but it is cheaper to buy as it costs about $300,000 as opposed to laser sintering which is more like $1.5m (excused the american money, I don't know the uk prices so well) and there for is better for colleges and the like.

STL's are a different kettle of fish, they are made up of triangles (much like an FEA or CFD mesh) and so their accuracy is not as tightly controled as an iges or step file. Out of interest what RP machine are you using at college? I did quite a bit of work with them at uni including writing my dissertation on it.

if you are transfering from one program to another (assuming the second program doesn't read the saved pro/desktop files), you will need to export to another format using pro/desktop. Usually this is an iges or step file which in then imported into the second program. My preference is to use the step format, but that through personal experience, I don't think one is actually any better that the other in reality. A low end CAD program like pro/desktop generally won't have the capacity to make prototypes (I assume you are talking about CNC'ing a prototype of your design) so you will have to use the other software. EDIT: And Mike, stop showing off, otherwise I will get a screen grab of one of our engine models from work