storm punk

[stawrm puhngk]

-noun; Vulgar Slang

A member of a subgroup of Rice Boys or Ricers who own and drive Isuzu cars.

A punk kid who owns or drives a Isuzu car, and equips it for looks instead of speed.

[Origin: bef. 1995; (n.) ME; An insult applied specifically to members of the Isuzone.Org (AKA: IdiotZone.Org) website, Isusoul.Ca (AKA: The French-Canadian Isuzu Idiot Page), and StormOwners.Com (AKA: the StormWhiners.Com) website. These websites cater to poorly mannered and uneducated individuals who do not know how to performance tune a car and provide a venue for those with absolutely no technical knowledge to advise those that have no clue, in the ongoing race to make their cars slower and slower. The websites read like a transcript from a special education classroom and essentially exist solely to complain about those outside their little groups who do actually build Isuzu race cars. The IdiotZone website also provides a venue for members to steal from each other by either selling broken used parts or accepting payment for parts and then disappearing before ever delivering those parts.

Even those outside owners of Isuzu cars recognize the high rice boy content of the Idiotzone.Org website, as can be seen in this thread from a Honda/Acura forum.

The term makes direct reference to the Geo Storm automobile, a car made by Isuzu. Among the general population, the Geo Storm is seen as a low quality, cheap, disposable car, often incorrectly attributed to having a three cylinder engine with a body built so poorly that it falls apart under normal operation. Among Isuzu purists, it is seen as the lowest and least desirable of Isuzu made cars, often described as "stripped down". Jennifer Williams stated that the owners of these cars were not worthy of inclusion in an Isuzu car club. For these reasons, the phrase is particularly derisive when used toward the owner of an Isuzu Impulse or Stylus automobile.]

ARE YOU A STORM PUNK?

In the styling of Jeff Foxworthy's comedic skit "You Might Be A Redneck", we now provide examples of Storm Punk behavior. However, there is no "might" in this matter, the defining behavior is obvious and clear.

THE BIG ONES

• If mommy and daddy bought you your Storm, but you wanted mommy and daddy to buy you a Civic, and you are taking your displeasure with this situation out on the rest of the world, you are a Storm Punk.


• If you claim to have a 500 HP car that does the quarter mile in 15 seconds or more, you are a Storm Punk.


• If you put a turbocharger on your car and it goes slower than it did without a turbocharger, you are a Storm Punk.



PARTS AND MARKET (OR NON-MARKET)

• If you are living under the delusion that the same part for your car should cost correspondingly less than the same part for a new car, because your car has a Blue Book Value of under $1,000, so your turbo kit or whatever should cost 1/300th of the cost of the same item for a new car, you are a Storm Punk.


• If you claim that an part would be worth its cost if it were made for a $50,000, $100,000, or $150,000 car, but the same item built of the same pieces and costing the same to make, made for your car that has a blue book value of $1,000, is therefore not worth the same cost, then you are a Storm Punk. And, you are not defining the value of the part at all, you are stating that your car is not worth the money that it takes to make the part.


• If you have ever commented about the price of an auto part, that you refuse to buy, stating "That's more than I paid for my car." as your reason for not buying it, you are a Storm Punk.


• If the ratio between the cost of a racing part and the resale value of your car is ever considered when deciding a purchase, you are a Storm Punk.


• If you think that the cost of building a racing part for a car has anything to do with or is in any way influenced by the blue book value of the vehicle, or that part manufacturers, material suppliers, or machinists would seriously consider responding positively to the question "I know that part or service costs hundreds of dollars but my customer is going to install it on a worthless total piece of crap, can you reduce the price so my customer can afford that expensive part?", you are a Storm Punk.


• If you refuse to buy a part for your car because it costs more than the blue book value of your car, and then you turn around and complain that the insurance company is not treating you fairly when they want to total your car out for the blue book value, you are a Storm Punk, you got what you deserve, and your insurance company agrees with you, they don't think your car is worth the money either.


• If you think that high quality, US made, hand made, limited production parts, for a rare car like an Isuzu, should be the same price or less expensive than low quality, Chinese made, mass market parts, for a Honda, and refuse to accept the fact that high quality, domestically produced, hand made, small production run parts do not cost many times more to produce, then you are a Storm Punk.


• If you have ever made the statement "But I could get the same part for a Civic for half that price", you are a Storm Punk.


• If you have ever asked the question "What can I do for free to make my car go faster?", you are a Storm Punk.


• If you have ever emailed or telephoned a product manufacturer and asked to buy the one part from a large assembly, stating that you can get all the other parts cheap somewhere else, but only need that one part in the middle, that is unavailable anywhere else, you are a Storm Punk.


• If you have ever asked a product manufacturer for a discount, because the currency exchange rate between your country and the country the manufacturer is in is not advantageous to you, you are a Storm Punk.


• If you ever emailed or telephoned a product manufacturer ans asked them to give you the blueprints for a part they sell, so that you can make the part yourself without paying the people who designed it, you are a Storm Punk.


• If you think "Customer Service" means that a seller should tell you how to make the part that they are selling, so that you can make it yourself instead of buying it, you are a Storm Punk.


• If you think "Customer Service" is a seller providing you with part numbers so you can buy products from someone other than them, you are a Storm Punk.


• If you think "Customer Service" is commiserating with you because you need a part to put your car back on the road, and the seller should just give you the part because you're hard luck is so much more important than everyone else's hard luck, you are a Storm Punk.


• If you think "Customer Service" is allowing people to steal from you and never doing anything to prevent those thefts, you are a Storm Punk.


• If you think someone is an "asshole" for preventing you from stealing from them, you are a Storm Punk, and a thief.


• If you complain about someone's "Customer Service", but never actually bought anything from them, and never had any money to pay for anything they sell, you are a Storm Punk.


• If it is more important to you to build a long list of cheap and poorly made parts that are attached to your car, instead of a short list of quality, high performance parts and the performance numbers showing how much faster those parts actually made your car, then you are a Storm Punk.


• If you caviar tastes and a cheese wiz budget, and feel entitled to have the world provide you with expensive, gold plated parts for your car, and the parts retailers and manufacturers should pay you for the privilege of taking those parts away from them, then you are a Storm Punk.


• If, upon learning that you do not have enough money to buy decent quality parts for your car, you then turn and blame the person who made the parts, instead of recognizing that you are responsible for your own poverty, you are a Storm Punk.


• If you have ever suggested that someone selling a product at or below cost would sell a lot more of the item if they lowered the price (and therefore loose more money even faster), you are a Storm Punk.


• If your definition of a "fair price" is that the seller must sell the item for a lower amount than what it cost to make the item, you are a Storm Punk, and you are probably on public assistance.


• If you wouldn't spend money on the engine and suspension of your car because those items cost more than the price of your car, and you drive to and from high school or work on Z rated performance tires, you are a Storm Punk, and you have your priorities screwed up.


• If you would drop $600-800 on tires and $600-1000+ on wheels for your car, but you claim that $1400 for performance brakes is too much money and more than your car is worth, you are a Storm Punk, you can't see the contradictions in your own actions, and you are far more concerned with looks than performance.


• If you spend more time rationalizing why not to spend money on your car (too expensive, doesn't work, etc.), instead of working your job and saving money to spend on your car, you are a Storm Punk.


• If you spend more time complaining about not having any money to spend on the things you want for your car, than working at a job to earn money to buy the things you want to buy for your car, you are a Storm Punk.


• If you have ever said "That price of that item would be worth it, if it were for a different make and model of car than my car", you are a Storm Punk, and you should get rid of your car, buy whatever in your opinion would be worth owning and spending money on, and make that group of owners miserable instead of the Isuzu car owners.


• If you own and Isuzu or Geo Storm vehicle, participate in the community of owners, and have ever said "If I had $20,000 burning a hole in my pocket, I wouldn't spend it on a slow assed Isuzu, I would go out and buy some other decent car worth owning or working on", you are a Storm Punk, and you should get rid of your car, buy something else, and become a barnacle on the ass of that owners' community instead of being a barnacle on the ass of the Isuzu owners' community.



BUYING AND MODIFYING

• If you have threaded spring perches slapped onto a set of KYB struts, you are a Storm Punk. If you have threaded spring perches slapped onto a set of Monroe or even lower quality struts, you are a Storm Punk, and should additionally have your head examined and be arrested for endangering public safety.


• If you incorrectly call threaded spring perches slapped onto stock struts "coilovers", you are a Storm Punk.


• If you think that attaching the sway bar end links to the opposite side of the same hole (or adding shim washers), which is the same distance from the body pivot point, changes the action of the sway bar, you are a Storm Punk.


• If you have a strut brace on your car that is made of steel tubing with the ends hammered flat, you are a Storm Punk.


• If you have a strut brace on your car that is made of thin wall steel tubing with a single hole "L" bracket welded onto the end, so that it attaches to only one of three or four strut top mount holes, you are a Storm Punk.


• If you refuse to buy a dyno proven cold air intake system because the turbo hose connections do not match your teal green J.C. Whitney wire loom, you are a Storm Punk.


• If you bought a "Cold Air Intake" that positions the air filter behind the radiator or within the engine compartment, you are a Storm Punk, and you additionally got ripped off.


• If you have a Pacesetter header installed on your car, you are a Storm Punk. If you claim that the Pacesetter header made any performance improvement to your car, you are a Storm Punk and a liar.


• If you bought counterfeit underdrive pulleys from Canada, you are a Storm Punk.


• If you bought Chinese made cross drilled rotors off Ebay, you are a Storm Punk, and you will be shopping for new rotors in the near future.


• If you put a set of $100+ racing pads on a set of $10, Chinese made, Ebay bought, junk rotors, you are a Storm Punk.


• If you need a big catalog of parts to dream about and read while sitting on the toilet, in case you ever win the lottery so you could afford any of those things, you are a Storm Punk.


• If you believe that rerouting the engine coolant so that it does not go through the throttle body, or capping off the EGR bypass pipe, increases the power output of the engine, you are a Storm Punk.


• If you believe that replacing the synthetic fiber gaskets for the throttle body and/or intake manifold, with spacers made of "phenolic" or plastic material, in a vain attempt to reduce intake air temperature and increase power, you are a Storm Punk, and an idiot, because you are ignoring the fact that the steel studs, nuts, and bolts, that hold these pieces together, conduct heat past the plastic spacer just as well as they conduct heat past the insulative gaskets.


• If you believe that a DOHC head can be made to fit or function properly attached to a SOHC block, then you are a Storm Punk.


• If you built a racing engine with hydraulic lifters, you are a Storm Punk.


• If you ground on the crankshaft without having it re-nitride treated, you are a Storm Punk.


• If you think a remanufactured or reconditioned crankshaft costing less than a thousand dollars, has been re-nitride treated, and will not immediately wear beneath the bearings as they ride against untreated metal and finally fail throwing pieces around your engine block like the ball in a pinball machine, you are a Storm Punk.


• If you "upgraded" to a smaller radiator (AKA half width radiator, AKA honda radiator), you are a Storm Punk.


• If you rebuild an engine with used rods, used valves, used pistons, used rings, a cheap aftermarket water pump with a heavy cast impeller, etc., but you can't live without ARP head studs, you are a Storm Punk, and you are wasting money.


• If you have ever asked the question "How much can I shave the head and/or block to increase the compression?", you are a Storm Punk.


• If you cut holes in the hood of your car and/or installed a hood scoop, in order to draw or push air into the engine compartment, and you are asking why your engine now overheats after you have diverted all that air around your radiator instead of through your radiator, you are a Storm Punk.


• If you are devastated by the realization that there is no big mouth aero kit (with a huge hole for an intercooler) available for your non-turbo car, or are overly concerned with spoilers, you are a Storm Punk.


• If you have ever built a piece that is part of a rotating assembly of the engine or drivetrain for your car, and upon bragging about your success, you added the punch line "and it only wobbles a little", you are a Storm Punk, and you will probably soon be a pedestrian after your car makes a loud banging sound and pieces of it come flying off.



MAINTENANCE AND REPAIR

• If you find you need to replace a wheel bearing and you paid $75 for a used spindle, instead of $60 for a new wheel bearing, you are a Storm Punk, and a fool.


• If you buy and break used axle after used axle off of 200,000 mile junked cars, instead of spending a fraction of that cost to have a set of axles professionally rebuilt, you are a Storm Punk.


• If you removed the axles from your vehicle, attempted to move the vehicle, and you were surprised when the hubs fell out of the spindles as the vehicle dropped to the ground, you are a Storm Punk, and an idiot.


• If "maintenance" means reattaching the things that fell off your car, instead of keeping your car in top working order, then you are a Storm Punk.


• If your car has 150,000 miles on the odometer, and is still on the original timing belt, water pump, wheel bearings, ball joints, tie rod ends, and axles, then you are a Storm Punk.


• If you suggest, believe, or think that changing a fuel pump involves cutting a hole in the floor pan of the vehicle, instead of removing the four bolts that hold the fuel tank to the car to remove it from the car so it can be serviced as intended, then you are a Storm Punk.


• If you are complaining about how difficult it is to change the alternator because you buy only "reconditioned" alternators, which do not include replacement of the voltage regulator with a new voltage regulator, and you have to replace the alternator in your car every six months or more frequently, then you are a Storm Punk.


• If you buy stacks of used axles with 100,000 miles on them, at $50 each, so that you can get the last thousand miles out of them before they also break, instead of paying $200 to have a set of axles professionally rebuilt, you are a Storm Punk.


• If you are complaining about the brakes on your car, claiming they are inadequate for even driving on the street, and you have 200,000 miles on the original un rebuilt calipers, rotors, and pads, and have never even bled the brakes, you are a Storm Punk, you have no idea how the brakes on a decently maintained car perform, and you will invariably waste time and money modifying junk yard parts from another make of vehicle onto your car, with the finest in duct tape and bailing wire technology, and it won't work any better than the broken and un maintained brakes that came on your car.


• If, before jacking up the car and crawling under it to change your oil, you posted the question on the internet: "What size is the hex head on the oil drain plug?", you are a Storm Punk. If you were under your car, tried one or two small wrenches on the oil plug, then crawled out from under your car, walked back into your house, and got on your computer to ask "What size in the hex head on the oil drain plug?", instead of reaching for a larger wrench in your tool box, you are a Storm Punk, and you are unqualified to hold a wrench.



ACTIONS, BEHAVIOR, AND PRIORITIES

• If you would rather stand around a parking lot with a bunch of fellow idiots, making fart jokes and exchanging lies about how fast your car is, instead of going to the track and racing your car (putting actions behind your claims), then you are a Storm Punk.


• If you think that driving around like an idiot, in traffic, on public streets, is racing, or that this makes you a racer, you are a Storm Punk.


• If you claim to have a 500 HP or ten second car, but refuse to dyno test it, refuse to provide dyno documentation, refuse to take it to the track, and refuse to provide video and time slip documentation to back up your claims, you are a Storm Punk.


• If your racing engine, with a list of modifications as long as your arm, dynos the same or less power output as a stock rebuilt engine, and you aren't trying to figure out what you did wrong, then you are a Storm Punk.


• If you have a long list of cars that you have wrecked and/or blown up and thrown away, and you have not rebuilt these cars and put them back into use, and you are proud of this list of cars you destroyed, you are a Storm Punk.


• If you spend more time on internet forums bragging about what you are going to do (and never accomplish), instead of actually doing the things you claim you are going to do, you are a Storm Punk.


• If you are anxious to tell people that you know exactly how someone else built something, how much it cost them to do it to the closest penny, how easy it was, and you haven't built one yourself so that you can take your car off jack stands and actually drive it, then you are a Storm Punk and a liar.



HISTORICAL KNOWLEDGE

• If you think there is a such thing as a "AWD Turbo Piazza", you are a Storm Punk.


• If you bought a "JDM 1.6 liter 4XE1 SOHC engine", you are a Storm Punk, because this does not exist and that engine was never sold in Japan.


• If you claim your Geo Storm or Spectrum, Isuzu Stylus or I-Mark is a Gemini Irmscher, is the same thing as a Gemini Irmscher, or is called a Gemini Irmscher outside North America, you are a Storm Punk.


• If you claim your Isuzu Impulse RS AWD is a Gemini Irmscher, is the same thing as a Gemini Irmscher, or is called a Gemini Irmscher outside North America, you are a Storm Punk, and you are seriously visually impaired to not see the fact that these vehicles do not even look the same.



CONSPIRACY THEORIES

• If you have ever stated or believe that there were dozens, scores, or hundreds of companies lining up to make performance parts for Isuzu cars, but one person somehow threatened or coerced these companies not to make these products and sell them to you, you are a Storm Punk, and you are ignoring the fact that you and all your little buddies can't scrape two dimes up to rub together and no one makes parts to sell you because you don't have money to spend on parts.


• If you have ever stated or believe that all the parts available for Isuzu cars are made in Japan, and that one person is preventing you from access to buying parts from Japan, you are a Storm Punk, and you are ignoring the fact that the Japanese are importing their performance parts from the US, because there are fewer remaining parts in Japan than in the US.


• If you have ever stated or believe that the reason you and your little buddies can't put together a big car show, like the ones in Japan with 200-300 Isuzu cars, is because one person is preventing you from accomplishing this goal, you are a Storm Punk, and you are ignoring the fact that you and your little buddies can't scrape together a dozen Isuzu cars in decent condition to put into a show, and even fewer among you and your little buddies would spend the time or money to travel to and participate in a show.