The Project Pad

Good advice, thanks! I will be spraying a single stage white in the engine compartment so the 1.2 should be okay. But as you indicate, light is limited in my garage as well.

Worked on some small but important things like fender liners this weekend.

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Fender liners = unnecessary weight, especially in SoCal!!

:stupid:

I need to turn Jim loose in my garage on all the cars.

i dunno... my engine bay gets pretty dirty daily driving.. dirt and grit everyhwere it seems. Nice mod!!

Fender liners are completely necessary IMHO. This car does see rain and mud more often than you would think, plus who knows where it will end up in the future. The word "queen" will never be used in the same sentence when describing this car. The one rule I have is I must to be able to jump in the car with minimal prep and go to any event. Yes, sometimes it comes home on a trailer, but at least it doesn't arrive on one

Had a very successful day at Laguna Seca and somehow it managed to stay dry despite the forecast for torrential downpours. My first on track experience was in a track prepped 996tt which intimidated the hell out of me!

The new brakes did well with the Hawk HT-10 pads and that says a lot since this track is a brake eating monster. I actually had to use my fire extinguisher today for people who blew through brand new sets of pads and came in with molten metal brakes.. The car didn't skip a beat, the most drama I had was when I realized I was out of gas after lunch. I used twice as much gas here as normal! I plan on "swinging by" the 034 open house tomorrow while I am up here so it will be nice to see everyone.

Yes, I did video it this time.. This is the best lap, with zero traffic. I have a lot of laps/vids with a new M3 and an R8 in front of me that are not as crisp, but were fun to compare cars. It forced me to drive a lot better to try and catch them in curves where I had no low end to pull me out of the corner. That ultimately lead up to this lap where I wasn't held up by them. I feel like it was pretty good for my first time here, but then I watched a video of Randy Probst in and R8 GT around the track and it made me look like a complete noob, lol. Now I wish we had a second day! Regardless, it was a fantastic event. This is one of my bucket list tracks, I didn't have to fix my car, gladly refreshed some pulverized Stasis brakes for a fellow driver (the flaming Stoptech"s could not be saved), and all in all I could not be happier right now!




Link to video

Nice Jim! So when are you getting the rest of the 996tt?

Tell Javad and friends hello tomorrow from me!~

dang that is a load of laps

Aghhhhhh so awesome. I am so jealous.

Very cool!

Awesome! Looks great, sounds healthy, gotta be fun!

Very nice!! :cheers: Was that a little giggle as you came out of The Corkscrew? :-)

Car looks and sounds awesome! I'm jealous Jim! Any rubbing issues?

Dang Jim! That sure looks like a blast! I right with Darin, I'm totally jealous too!

wow... soo jealous ! Nice driving Jim

Good stuff!! Is your approach to the corkscrew correct? Are you supposed brake then let off then brake again? I wish I could make this...I will eventually, ideally get my car out there. One day...

So brakes were much better? Good, nothing like fading brakes on the track to kill your confidence.

Very nice Jim. I'm no racecar driver but it looked to me like you nailed the corkscrew. Was this a driver certification day? Have fun at 034.

Jim, saw your car this morning...

Fantastic!

I liked it more than any other customers Audi.

The F430 was, well an F430.

Wanted to meet you, maybe next time.

Props on the build...

tits

Yes, yes it was a giggle. It's funny because the turns that I thought were going to difficult were actually easy, like the corkscrew. Buttonwillow and Thunderhill have similar blind turns that you have to do from muscle memory, so it actually came pretty easy once you have your references, and oh so much fun when you nail it:)

My instructor showed be the dual braking zone at the top of the corkscrew, it works well because the car is so light it's hard to effectively slow the car down in anything other than a strait line so it works well to let off the brakes at the crest, line the car up and then finish braking.

The even was actually and instructor clinic for future candidates and also invite only for advanced students who solo at ACNA events. There wasn't really instructors like a regular HPDE, but I asked for one in the first session since it was my first time there. I am glad I did:)

Ringbearer, sorry we didn't get a chance to meet, and thanks, i am glad you like the car! I would have really liked to hang out all day and put the car on the dyno, but had to get home for family matters.

Car sounds gnarly, and looks like a blast to run! Laguna Seca is one of my all time favourites and to see you really wring it out is a good motivator to make progress.

Cheers!

PS

Looks like you could hang with some good company at that video's time (1.49-ish)

43. Porsche Cayman S 1:47.58
44. Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X MR 1:47.71
45. Chevrolet Cobalt SS/TC 1:47.75
46. Mitsubishi Lancer EVO IX 1:47.93
47. BMW 335i Coupe 1:49.04
48. Porsche 911 Carrera S 1:50.00
49. Mazda 3 MPS 1:50.38
50. Mazda RX-8 1:50.42
51. Honda S2000 1:50.74

(source: http://www.fastestlaps.com/tracks/laguna_seca.html)

Cool, thanks for posting those lap times, I am pretty happy with the times. That lap was a 1:49.3, I am sure after watching some other lines my next time out I can hit 1:47 ish. I was leaving a lot on the table through turns 5 and 10. Each time I went through there I thought, wow, I could really go a lot faster! They kind of psyc you out.

I went out to play with the car and was greeted to a nice puddle of gear oil under the car. It looks like my brand new input shaft seal on my 01E took a dump. So I pulled the transmission yesterday, again, to fix a $3 part.. My rack is also leaking enough to annoy me so I ordered a rebuilt rack from AutohausAZ.

Damn, nice piece of driving. Must have been a pretty awesome experience to drive that track like that!

Sucks having to pull the trans for that seal!