stripethree

As far as the Golf goes, the VR6 is dead. A moment of silence.

What ever will we have to fill such a void? Well, it probably won’t emit as fantastic an exhaust note as the narrow angle six pot motor, but there is this:

This, is the new Golf R, which was unveiled this week at the Frankfurt International Auto Show. It certainly looks promising and the details thus far are quite good. It brings more power to the street than the old 3.2 VR6 prior Golf R32s (270 vs. 250) and does so with a lighter motor, which will certainly help the ghastly 60/40 weight distribution. Hopefully the overall curb weight can be held at no more than the weight of the ’04, even better would be if the Golf R can go on a mild diet. You should see people reactions when I tell them my R32 weighs upwards of 3400 with a driver and fuel, inevitably they reply with, ‘In that little car?” “Yes, that little car.”

The all wheel drive system is also improved, it is quicker to engage and more active rather than reactive, per say. With the Haldex system in the ’04 model, the front wheels have to be slipping before power is sent to the rear. Sure it works quick, but there’s always room to improve. The new version has supposedly done exactly that. Hopefully when – well, let’s not jump the gun since I don’t think it’s been formally announced – if it comes to America, we also won’t get the short end of the stick with the sports seats and other options. While there are certainly many folks very happy with their ’08 R32s, there’s something to be said about the original with its manual gearbox and wonderful seats. In fact, the same disbelief about the car’s weight is brought forth, though in a more positive manner, when I tell those that don’t know that the seats in my car are indeed, factory. As far as the transmission, frankly, I know DSG is wonderful and I’ve driven cars with it, but I want a third pedal and to change gears my damn self thank you very much.

Sadly, I fear that when, I mean if of course ‘if’, Volkswagen brings this car to the US, they will do exactly what they did with the Mk5. You see, with the ’08 R32, the driveline had already gone though all the necessary federal emissions and nonsense to be roadworthy in America via the underpinnings of its step sister, the 2nd generation Audi TT. Therefore all Volkswagen had to do was slap the Golf body in it, rip out the gorgeous seats that wouldn’t have survived US crash regulations (or something like that) and call it a day. No four door option, no manual transmission, in fact the only option, if I recall correctly, was a $2000 navigation system. Portable Garmin systems, one of which I happen to have, can move from car to car, work just as well, and are a fraction of the cost.

What’s my the point in relation to this new Golf R and America? Well, the TT, this time the TT-S to be precise, may be the foreshadowing of more bad news for the purists who want to rev match downshifts on their own. The TT-S uses the same driveline as this new Golf R, and is already available in the US. So once again, we may get a TT in drag – though I will say it’s awfully nice drag, that front end is fantastic – and the desires and complaints of many who loved the ’04 will fall on the deaf ears of VW accountants who don’t seem to give a damn about the enthusiast.

I could go on and on about exactly what it would take for me to even consider one – $30k price tag, no sunroof, 6 speed manual for starters – but the reality is that as good as it looks and as good as it will perform I just know that Volkswagen of America will chicken out, again, as they have done on many things of late, and not provide the complete ‘enthusiast’ package.

I dare the them to prove me wrong. Until then, I’ll keep beating the snot out of my overweight, transmission destroying, five and a half year old money pit. At least it makes a fantastic noise.

Starting the trip to Chandler for the first autocross in the R32 since June, my iPod decides the first song on shuffle will be Aerosmith’s Back in the Saddle (Again). I grinned and shook my head, thinking that this was either a great indicator of an excellent event to come or that I wouldn’t make it to the end of the block without something on the car catastrophically failing.

Fortunately, the latter of those things did not happen. The car survived the 100 mile drive up, four ~70 second runs on the west track at FIR, and the trip home mostly unscathed. There’s one stubborn suspension bolt that refuses to stay where it’s supposed to, but that can and will be dealt with.

Rolling the car up to the start line for my first shot at this course was a bit rougher than usual on the nerves, again wondering and worrying about what may go wrong. Nothing did. First run was slow, and dirty, but it got better from there. Ok, it got faster from there.

74.537 (+1), 71.359, 71.611 (+4), 71.536 (+1)

So between the car changes and some category changes, who I’m competing against and how I can compare to other drivers is a little different. I’m now in a Street Prepared class (DSP), which has a PAX factor that assumes race tires, unlike my old class (STX) which was all street tires. Locally however, there are categories that lump together people with cars that fall into a ‘race tire’ class but who are running on street tires. So, I’m running against other Street Prepared and Modified cars, and also, Phoenix is calculating PAX points relative to category rather than he entire field. It breaks down like this:

Street Tire 2 category – 1st (of 15) raw times, 1st PAX, 1000 points
Overall – 23rd (of 97) raw times, 23rd PAX

The next closest ST2 car was 1.6 seconds behind, but there was at least one competitor absent that will certainly eliminate that gap next month. The new limited slip diff worked wonders, as did the all the other new bits that have been added to the car. Some suspensions adjustments need to be made, including making that bolt stay where it should, and things should hopefully get even better.

I also took photos of the two heats I was not running or working, and they are posted here and here. The new battery grip was perfect.

…already in progress.

It’s been quite some time since the GTI has gotten any attention, nearly three months to be precise, especially since there are many parts stashed away waiting to be bolted on. It was much too busy serving as the reliable daily driver while the R32 threw temper tantrums.

Today, finally, the rear disc brakes from a Corrado G60 were installed to match the fronts, which went into service about two weeks before the R spit out its transmission in June. The rears were pretty straightforward, unbolt drums and remove emergency brake cables, then run new brake cables and bolt on discs, carriers, and calipers. The only remotely hair raising part was bending the hard line of the brake fluid to mate up to the flexible line, which then goes into the carrier. For that, I had some help and even though its easy, it pays to have knowledgeable friends who have done things before and who have the right $7 tool. Once everything was bolted up, we bled the brakes and that was that. Everything appears to be working well, the only remaining thing to sort out is that the e-brake lines are a bit longer than they need to be, so I have to find something at Home Depot Racing to make up the slack and I am betting some 3/8″ copper tube will do the trick.

Now, the rotors and pads on this setup are well used and could use replacement, but will suffice for right now (meaning they work just fine and the car stops very, very well). Once I’ve put some miles on the setup and there aren’t any issues, I’ll look at upgrading the rotors and pads.

Next, however, comes the planning for when the motor swap will take place, which I am hoping can be sometime next month. We shall see.

At what point do you cut your losses and move on?

The R is back in the shop again. The larger of the two radiator fans decided there was a particular chunk it didn’t like, so it kicked it off the car. This caused the fan to rotate out of balance and vibrate the entire car while I was sitting at a light, which nearly gave me heart attack as I thought I was witnessing the motor wither and die. It really felt that bad. I managed to get it to the shop after figuring out the problem and giving them a call. Driven without the A/C that fan stays off mostly, and it didn’t hurt that I have an extra fan on the smaller radiator also, thanks to Induktion.

So this is going to be another $500. On top of the thousands the transmission failure cost. On top of the drive shaft coupling and motor mounts. I want to say ‘ok, now she’ll be solid’, but who knows. I said that after the transmission. How am I going to trust this car to not leave me stranded on the side of the road sucking more money out from under me. As Ted said, with the money that’s been dumped into this car this year, I could have enough Mk2s like the GTI for parts that they’d run forever.

Stupid car.

It’s back. Again.

I picked it up from Stuttgart Friday morning and waited very little time to add the parts that have been waiting patiently. The front sway bar end links that Ground Control built are on, as are new front fender liners, and the set of headlights I reconditioned while the car was off in vegetative state. A few hours work last month turned a set of old, clouded headlights (left) to near new (right).

I found some clear turn signal bulbs that illuminate amber, and had extra LEDs from 42 Draft Designs for the city lights, which really made for a clean look once the lights were installed.

It will still be a bit before this car sees autocross again. I will be in Mexico with Summer, Phil, and Katie during the August event next week. I also need to put about 500 miles on the car to break in the new clutch. I am not sure where the next Sierra Vista event is, and I’d be wary of driving it 100 miles away for its first event back to go there or to Phoenix. I may wait until the September event in Tucson to be safe. I also need to get this car a good detail. It needed one before, and after sitting in a dusty shop lot for two months (almost to the day), it really needs one now.

I did not want to sit out the third event of the Summer Series after doing so in June, so it was a game of ‘find a ride’ for this Tucson event. My first option ran into a power steering problem, and my second ran into a not-having-enough-tire issue, so knowing I’d be there anyway, I simply registered and figured I would find a ride on site. I got to drive an STU-prepped ’04 Subaru STI owned by one of our other board members and had a blast. The car has a good deal more power than the R32 but can certainly be a bit more of a handful. The biggest difference I noticed was that even with the feedback from the tires on the STI, which are the same Dunlops on the R32, I found it more difficult to figure out exactly how much grip the car had. The all wheel drive system is different and for autox, arguably better than the Haldex system on the R32 but it will bite you. Coming out of the U-turn on my second run I hit the thottle a big too hard a bit too early and after some theatrics from the rear end of the car, I ended up running right over the next two cones in the process. Needless to say that wasn’t my fastest run.

I ran quite well though; 47.925, 47.644 (+2), 47.028, 46.677; which was good enough for 10th raw, 7th in category, and 9th overall PAX with a 959. Seventh through ninth overall PAX were separated by less than four hundredths of a second! The owner of the STI finished a few spots ahead of me with a time of 45.917 and a PAX score of 974. In TOs I took a couple shots with the Subaru WRX that ended up with the top PAX time of the day. It was very different than the STI and required much more adjustment. The car is setup to be loose and I was not quite ready for it – I narrowly avoided taking out the timing lights while going through the finish nearly sideways on one run.

Hopefully I will be able to finish out the Summer Series next month in my own car.

Anand from Induktion sent me some pictures of the transmission damage last week. Parts should be arriving to them tomorrow for them to rebuild the unit. Then back to Arizona it will go.

Both halves of the transmission case are trashed, as is every bearing that they contain. The differential, the cause of this whole mess, is also destroyed, and will be replaced with an upgraded unit, a Peloquin limited slip differential.

Hopefully I will have it back on the road in a few weeks, and with the new diff, I’ve been told it will be even more of a blast to drive.

So passes yet another month; ever feel like you’re just along for the ride?

My foot/ankle/useless stupid appendage is still not completely better after another doctor visit and it better hurry up, because softball starts again at the end of August. My visit to DC went about as well as it could, except for the lack of sleep. It flew by in the sense that I didn’t really get to see anyone outside of family, but sometimes that’s just the way it is. Work has been somewhat better, the big rush to complete one project is obviously now over, but now there’s the new rush to get things rolling on the next project. Oh, and that next project, I have been graced with the status of technical lead or lead engineer, whatever you want to call it. Our program management lead/my old supervisor (re-org time!) informed me of this decision right before the DC trip and I was a both surprised and anxious. Surprised because I had yet to be the lead of a major task, much less a large project, and anxious because, well, you want to talk about learning shit on the fly and on the job training, this will be it. I’m optimistic though and have lots of help, but it’s going to be a big challenge and unfortunately, some long days are ahead.

This past week Tracy was in town, making a stop on her cross country, school visiting, site seeing tour, which was awesome because I hadn’t seen her in, well, years, sadly enough. It was a good combination of catching up and exploring Tucson, which kind of reminded of two contrasting things. First, how much this place has grown on me whereas I used to just think it’d be super short term and second, how much I miss some of my old, long time friends that, even though we may not be in touch that much, can never, ever be replaced. We went to some of my favorite places to eat in Tucson, toured Mount Lemmon, and Tracy even came out to an autocross. I did not run, even with a couple co-drive offers I just honestly wasn’t feeling like it given the car situation, and I got to relax after running registration and took some photos. Hopefully Tracy can stop in again on her way back around this area – drive safe!

As for the car, the trans is in Maryland and the parts bill is already rising. Ugh. I don’t even want to discuss it honestly. There’s no complete cost estimate yet and no estimate for when it’ll be back on the road. Neither of much are encouraging to me.

It has not been a kind month. My ankle is still sketchy at best, and I swear it bothers me more when I walk around with this brace that the doctor gave me. I go back in another two weeks, and I don’t know what to expect since even though there’s less pain, the range of motion isn’t there and it flat out doesn’t feel right. Also, another lesson learned, even with really good insurance and health benefits, emergency room visits are not cheap.

Work has been no picnic either. Next week I fly back to DC Monday through Friday for another software delivery and the work leading up to this delivery, and the official testing that is taking place this week, has been hellish. There have been a lot of 16 hour days, a lot of frustration, and a lot of, well, bullshit to deal with. I guess I feel like a lot of this hellish rush to the finish could have been avoided, but that’s for another time and place. I am hoping this will come to a graceful and positive end with the delivery next week, after which things will return to some kind of normalcy.

Last night was the culmination of the proverbial shit storm, as I left work at 5:30 to have dinner with Summer and friends only to get a phone call asking to come back and fix some absolutely necessary things. I got back there at 8 and was there until 12. Finally sniffing freedom and anxious to get home and try to get some sleep, the R32 crapped out on me about a mile away from work. It crapped out in a big way; something internal to the transmission, possibly the differential, failed and locked up the transmission. A few AAA calls, another to Summer to pick me up, and a trip across town to drop off the car at Stuttgart Autohaus later and we didn’t get home until 2am. Sleep, ha! I was simply way too stressed now having to deal with facing a car repair bill that will, without a doubt, be well into four figure territory. Turns out the R32′s return to the road was short lived and it’s next return, well, who knows. Luckily the GTI is in good shape only needing tie rod ends and an alignment to be tip top. Hopefully I can hopefully get to that stuff this week, provided I get home from work in time. All I want is for the GTI to keep on keepin’ on. The first parts off the donor Corrado, the front brakes, were installed last weekend and are working great so far. Looks like the rest is going to have to continue to wait.

I realize things could be much, much worse and all this crap will pass with no real lasting damage (other than to my bank account, so much for looking at houses… ) but man is it frustrating.mu

Iiiiiiiiit’s baaaaaack.

Finally, the R32 was back in one piece, including the third motor mount, and ready to be thrown around the SIR gravel pit again. I drove the car to work all week and took time on Saturday to make sure everything that was unbolted and replaced or reattached was still securely fastened to the car. It all was. The third motor mount finally arrived on Thursday (after two months! never ordering from that company again…), and I installed it on Saturday as well.

The car felt fantastic. Maybe it was because I’d be driving the much older, slower, and more worn GTI exclusively for two months, or maybe it was just that the whole front end of the car was very fresh and well buttoned together, but it was pretty sweet. There’s no slop in the motor and transmission anymore thanks to the new motor mounts, the steering feel is improved thanks to the new control arm bushings, and transitions were much, much better handled thanks to the new, larger front sway bar. The best part was almost the drive to the event, which was the first highway experience since the repairs. Given that highway speeds and loads were where all the ill effects were previously experience, I was slightly nervous, but no bad vibes were to be found. So it appears that the drive shaft coupling that was replaced was the big problem, and that has now been solved, thankfully. All the other things that got done as a result were just added bonuses. Hey, if I’m was going to go through the hassle and expense ($40 for one time use bolts. Bolts!) to drop the subframe, might as well fix or replace other things. Break one thing, upgrade 3, right?

The autocross results were good; 67.830 (+1), 67.858, 70.896 (+4); minus the cones I wiped out from a nasty miscue at the end of my last run. The clean run was good for 5th of of 44th overall in both raw and PAX times, and 5th out of 11 in the PAX class with a score of 982/1000. Not bad for the first event back in the car after two months. Time only runs were excellent; they can’t be compared directly to the competition runs since the course was altered, making it faster, but my times got better with each run – 66.759, 65.276, 64.676 – were all clean, and my best of those 3 was the 3rd fastest PAX times of 39 time only entrants.

The car felt great from the first launch of the first run. No excess engine movement on takeoff, the 1-2 shift, or when getting off the gas. The car felt especially planted which made me more confident in the results of my driving inputs. Turn in is sharper and the car has a good deal less body roll in transitional elements. I didn’t notice much, if any, additional understeer, which can sometimes occur with a larger from sway bar, but the course layout might not have exposed those effects, and the bar was set at the softer of two settings. The only down side of the day was finding out what the next weak link is, as the front sway bar end links are making plenty of noise to indicate they have had enough. At least the nasty clunking they are making was easy to identify and was not any part of the car trying to dislodge itself from the mother ship to completely ruin my day.

Now that the R32 is running again and all appears well (knock every piece of wood in sight), I have found out that I am not allowed to have 2 simultaneously running Volkswagens. The GTI would not crank when I went to drive it to work Monday morning and since it will start with a jump from it’s younger sibling, it is hopefully the battery and not the alternator. I’ve yet to investigate it further. I got it back on concrete and will just keep driving the R32; perhaps having the GTI sitting will add even more fuel to the motivational fire of getting parts that are awaiting install actually bolted to the car. The brakes are ready to go, I have new stainless lines, new wheel bearings are pressed into the front spindles, the rear calipers have been rebuilt with new boots, and all I need to do is put the brakes together and bolt them on the car. Soon, very soon…

The motor is still at my friends house, and I have not yet gotten injectors and a fueling setup yet. Part of that is researching what will pass emissions and get me the performance I’d like and the other part is tuners not being all that great at responding to messages. Hey, guys, ah, I’m trying to buy stuff from you, answer your messages!