stripethree

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!

I spent most of my weekend stuffed under one Volkswagen or another; I still haven’t gotten all the dirt out of my fingernails yet. First, the big things for the GTI in the coming months are a different motor and brakes off another Volkswagen, a Corrado G60. There’s a couple friends here, one of whom I’m buying the motor and brakes from, who know what they are doing when it comes to motor swaps, so everything should go smoothly when the time comes. Saturday I went up to the house where the Corrado sits to help pull some things apart and off the car, partly to lend a hand to a friend who is giving me a ridiculous deal on these parts, and partly to get more familiar with things so I’m not lost and useless when we are doing the swap. We got the transmission off the motor, since someone else is buying that, pulled the front brakes off, pulled the ECU, and starting pulling the electrical harness that would be needed also. I’ve never been this deep into any car, so it was one hell of a learning experience.

This morning I got some help replacing the drive shaft joint on the R32 as well as installed a larger, adjustable front sway bar. The joint was pretty beat up.

The car is almost back on the road again, the control arms are out and I need to get the new bushings pressed in, then bolt those up. I am still waiting on the third motor mount from VF Engineering, everytime I call they “think” it will ship on X day. False. They said this Wednesday, I’m not getting my hopes up until I have a tracking number or it’s at my door. This afternoon I went back to help with more disassembly on the Corrado. We pulled the rear brakes, emergency brake cables, and the rest of the electrical harness. Here’s the motor as it sat yesterday, and the extracted harness.

It was a lot of work but it’s was pretty cool, and there’s more to come… I’m going to have to think of a new ‘project’ name for the GTI, the current one just won’t fit as well anymore.

I do not know where April went but it’s gone, passed me right by.

The R32 still isn’t running mainly because upon going to replace the two motor mounts I have, something more fun was discovered, a drive shaft joint that was coming apart. Oh joy. Hopefully this will all be fixed tomorrow and even without the motor mount that I have been waiting on for 4 weeks now, the car can drive again. That’s a good thing, because the GTI is going to be getting some big things in the coming month(s).

I ran my friend Jana’s Mini in Tucson at the end of April again and couldn’t keep off the cones.

Comps: 53.778 (+1), 54.699 (+2), 55.032 (+1, CD), 53.802 (+1)
TOs: 54.270, 54.957, 54.405, 54.392 (+1)

At the Sierra Vista airport the weekend after (last weekend) I drove a CSP Miata on huge race tires. I finished at the bottom of the PAX class, but I beat the car owner, so we’ll see if I’m ever invited drive the car again. It was fun, completely different than the R32 or the Mini; I’d never driven a Miata and never driven on race rubber which made for a fun experience. I can see why people like Miatas (no power, but they certainly can handle!) and why race tires can be an expensive addiction.

I also went house hunting on Monday with a real estate agent, though this trip was more to figure out what I really want in a house than to find the house to buy. The whole process still seems complicated and daunting and I don’t know yet if I’m fully ready for it. It was good to look around at various houses and I figured out that there are many, many more things to think about than I had on my list. We saw about a dozen houses, most of which were vacant, some foreclosures or bank repos. Granted, there could have been things we couldn’t see, but I was surprised at the condition of these houses, I figured they’d be wreck. Probably the worst house needed carpet everywhere and drywall patched in one area of one bedroom. One other house had all the appliances missing, and by all I mean someone made off with the garage door opener and the water heater.

Softball is still going on and we are still looking for win number 1. Most of us are still having a good time even though we’ve only managed to not lose via the mercy rule twice. The season goes through the end of the month, so we don’t have many more chances to get into the win column.

Austin was rainy, so the camera wasn’t out much. Just for the rodeo and even then, the pics weren’t that great since I was without a decent zoom.

Here’s some pics from the San Diego National Tour courtesy of fellow Arizona Border Region members (Rob’s camera, and I think Rob took the pics as well).

Video from San Diego

Me:

Anand:

The two hour drive to Bisbee-Douglas International airport was well worth it Sunday, as awaiting the 20 drivers that showed up just north of the border was an estimated 1.25 mile course with wide open sections that put me well into 3rd gear in multiple places. It was probably the fastest speeds I have hit at an autox course since third gear came early, often, and with liberal amounts of throttle added. The course also rewarded looking way ahead, the pivots at each end and a few deceptive offsets were crushing if you overshot, which was easy to do given the high speeds of the course.

My times were 79.569 (+2), 78.123, 78.373 (+1), and 77.826. In TOs, I dropped another 8/10s, but not without cones. The 77.8 was the second fastest time of the day, out paced only by an A-Stock Saturn Sky Redline on huge Hoosiers which ran a 76.0. PAX times were a different story as I beat out the Sky by just over a tenth of a second for the top overall spot. Now, there’s nothing left for me between now and San Diego other than some work on the car.

Saturday, Summer and I made a drive about 2 hours in the other direction to the Arizona Renaissance Festival in Apache Junction.

The guy in the last picture, where he is juggling a running chain-saw, a torch, and an apple, later went on to set off firecrackers duct taped to his chest and got the crowd to pelt him with water balloons in order to cool the resulting heat. Oh, and I did I mention this was all while he was balanced on top of a ladder? Yes, I got pictures.

That was entertaining to say the least and although I’m betting there’s some trick or secret, I’m impressed he emerged uninjured and coherent, minus not being able to hear anything. There were also some people in the crowd with killer aim as he got nailed in the face with at least 3 or 4 large water balloons. I couldn’t remember if, or when, I’d been to a renaissance festival but it was fun, the shows were entertaining and the steak on a stake was delicious. I think I was also just as amused by the sheer number of people just there to attend who were dressed appropriately. The irony of it was seeing grown men or woman dressed head to toe in period correct garb but who totally ruined the ‘act’ by, say, talking on their so-not-renaissance-era cell phone. Ha!

Comps: 56.654 (+4), 54.887, 53.687, 54.200 (+1)
Time Only: 52.817 (+1), 53.339 (+1), 53.516 (+1), 54.934 (+1)

I don’t have much to say about this event that hasn’t been said before. This was good practice for San Diego since it necessitated more than just the initial 1-2 shift, as I was hitting third outbound into the top loop. Unfortunately I thought about it too much and missed shifts and did not look ahead at the course appropriately, both of which cost me time. While my best competition run was good for 9th out of 16th in the PAX category and 10th of 57 overall, I was still 2 full seconds behind the fastest STX car, and there were two other STX drivers ahead of me in the top 10.

One more event before San Diego and it is next weekend at the airport in Bisbee-Douglas.

Well, I hope. Evo School this past Sunday was excellent. It was well worth the price of admission and has me hoping that here in Tucson we’ll get to run a Phase 2 in November. If we do, I will be there. There were only 8 students and 2 instructors so we certainly got the most out of the day.

Rumor has it that after Evo School you get worse before you get better. Something about absorbing what you learn and trying to do too much with it too soon. I’ve got two more events before San Diego, this coming weekend in Tucson and March 1st in Bisbee/Douglas. Hopefully I can make the most of them.

In the meantime, the R will be due for an oil change before SD, the intake needs cleaning, and she will hopefully be sporting a new exhaust real soon.

The day before the event I finally swapped the front brake calipers so I could flush the brake fluid after a year and a half. The bleeder screw on the front passenger caliper snapped off before my track event at Buttonwillow in September of ’07 and thus, brakes haven’t been serviced (2 tracks days and 24+ autocrosses later) since. I also remove the 20lb. aluminum skid plate from the car for this event.

It rained during the morning heats but stopped during lunch and started to dry out b the time I ran in the first afternoon heat in STX Sportsman.

In my competition heat I ran a 41.108 which was good for a 947 PAX score and sliding into the top half (9 out of 20) in the Sportsman category and 14th PAX overall (27th fast time, all out of 124 competitors). By the last heat of the day when I ran for time only, the course had completely dried out and I got down to a 38.902.

The fun part of all this was the car trying to spit out parts (yay!) On my first comp run the car decided it didn’t need the vibration bracket on the driver front brake caliper. Luckily it isn’t at all vital to the brakes actually working and a course worker recovered it for me. During my first time only run, the plastic panel that covers the oil pan slipped loose and dragged on the pavement half the run. Whoops. You can see in the two pictures above it’s already on it’s way to falling out, and those pictures where during the competition heat.

Next weekend is Evolution School which I am anxiously anticipating. Hopefully all the parts will stay on the car, the tires will survive, and I’ll learn a lot.

The first event of 2009 in Tucson, the first event I ran registration in Tucson, and the first event I ran in the PAX category in Tucson. By the way, I also run the website now, which has a fresh look for 2009.

The night before was hectic as I was plagued by technical difficulties trying to print the 107 forms needed for the event. My new-ish laser printer’s toner failed on me and I then went through 2 and a half inkjet cartridges on my other printer, which happily dog-eared every page. Luckily a nearby Walgreen’s is open 24 hours with cheap ink refilling. On site went well, there’s a few things to tweak for next time, but it was smooth. I was anxious since that was quite a large group to handle first time out.

My participation in the event was not quite as successful. Cones on every comp run left me 11th of 15 in the PAX class. Even with more cones, I couldn’t match my best raw time in TOs either. The course was fun and fast though.

I’ve been up to many cars things of late, but what else is new. I took a Solo Safety Steward class here in Tucson last Saturday which was very informative, and I also finished a website for the newly established Arizona Chapter of the Audi Club, North America. It’s not much yet, since we don’t have a lot going on, but hopefully it will grow along with the new chapter.

Next up is probably Evo School in Tucson, maybe the Phoenix event in February if I get tires in time.

The guys in Sierra Vista bought shiny new cones to start off the year and I hit them (the cones…). Lots of them. Sixteen of them, actually. After the first two competition runs, I didn’t have a clean run the rest of the day. Part of the lack of adjustment on my part was that I didn’t know where I was hitting all of them. On my second time only run I was surprised to hear I hit 4. No idea where. Regardless of the cone carnage, I still ran a 67.040 in comps that was good for 8th overall and 3rd in PAX with a 990 score [ Results ]. I wasn’t able to match that time on another run, cones or not, but was pretty consistent, running within 3-4 tenths most of the day.

I am hoping the front tires have 2 more events left in them, but I will be replacing them before the Evo School over Valentine’s Day weekend. I really don’t have a choice. Oh, and I also got another cool glass beer mug as a 2008 STX Open champ award and it’s currently displayed in my office next to the one from ’07. Sweeet.