Spring Break: more car, less tits same amount of beer edition

     I finally consumed enough beer to be able to sit down and write tonight.  Unfortunately, I have to start off with a rant, I apologize in advance.

     For those who don't follow closely, on basically a yearly basis I take a vacation from work in March, call it cliche or whatever but it's sort of my spring break, and allows me to do a bunch of work on my cars and as of the past two years has been my sort of season prep time.  This year I added moving into my vacation.  I've lived in a small expensive apartment in the city for a little over 2 years now, and while certainly nice, it was pricey for what it was and the parking situation sucked.  I always search listings/craigslist as does my mom, and back in December we ran across a condo listed.  Fast forward to February and I sign the lease to rent a 2 bed/1.5 bath condo with a garage and ample parking in the burbs from a young professional couple who bought a house.    

     Now is the part where I lost it.  I used the first two days of my vacation (this past weekend) to move, which promised about as much fun as getting kicked in the balls.  Long story short, things go semi smoothly, but when I get to the condo it is straight up GRIMEY, like they never mopped, just moved the dirt around or some shit.  every cabinet and shelf is gross, all walls/molding need repaintig in my opinion.  So whatever, I rushed them to let me move in.  Next day, go out for breakfast, come back, and I'm locked out...come to find out pretty much every lock in the house has a different key including the damn front door knob and deadbolt, and the garage door opener took a shit on me...WTF.

     How, as a young professional couple with money do you live like this?  I mean I get that they probably said fuck it were moving...but c'mon man.  So now I'm gonna have to replace multiple door knobs to get them properly functioning and on the same key, and hang a new garage door opened...the landlord has proven that his DIY skills are terrible...but I won't get into that.

     Let's get to the car.  This week my main goal was to get my gauges installed as well as my Ohlins coilovers.  Took me a rediculous 2 hours to do my gauge install even not having to do any wiring, this is gonna go well...

     So, I decide to at least do the rear coilovers the same day in case I run into any bad bolts etc.  All bolts come out easily, but this is what I find:

     I know what you're thinking, "Nate you suck, how did you kill that bolt???".  The asnwer is I didn't, that is either a factory defect ORRRRR (revert to rant mode).  The shocks and springs on the car were installed by the previous owner.  Either he put this bolt back in with a 1000ft/lb air gun OR he saw this and decided to re use it.  I HATE IMCOMPETENCE.  It's just a major kill you if it breaks suspension bolt...no biggie.  Apparently the dumbass has never heard of anti seize either...

     Onto the front, drivers side goes ok, passenger front not so much.  2 days, multiple heat sessions and lots of hammering later, the seized camber bolt was out. So there you have it, it took me 3 days to install coilovers (insert facepalm here).

     I had hoped to put some shifter bushings and diff bushings on the suby, but didn't get to that.  Same with my oil pressure sensor, and kiggly HLA.  Oh well.

      OH, I did grow a beard though.

     Car goes off for an alignment tomorrow.  -2.8 camber front with zero toe, -1.5 camber rear with 1/16th total toe to counteract the possible over steer i might get from having seized end links and not being able to adjust the rear bar softer...I picked up a Smart Camber gauge for cheap off eBay, but I feel like I should at least get a baseline and only trust myself to make adjustments from there.

     Looking forward, officially registered for Lime Rock on 4/13 and NJMP lightning with NASA in May.  Let the fun begin!

    

The green flag waves, and were underway...

     Well, the first event of the season has come and gone...and what a great event it was.  The event was put on by a group of guys known as PCD aka Philadelphia's classiest drunkards, a large group of guys who all track their evo's.  They had the first event last year as a season kickoff/warmup and had a great turn out, so luckily they decided to do it again this year.

     I went down to my parents house and prepped the car the weekend before, fluids, brake pads etc, nothing crazy.  Trailered down to the track next weekend, and after that it's pretty much a blur at this point.  

     I spent most of the week leading up the event staring at the lame weather forecast, as the midwest got dumped on with snow...it didn't look good.  Everyone kept saying a rainy track day is the best thing you can ever do, but of course that's hard to believe.  I was bummed, but finally accepted the forecast, and damn did my attitude change after the first session on track.  I know understand, and would recommend to ANYONE to do a wet track day if you can.  I learned exponential amounts about my cars handling and how to be smooooothe (learned that the hard way...see below).  When the speeds are lowered by rain you are given all kinds of time to concentrate on exactly what the car is doing and how it is reacting to every little input.

This is what happens when you are not smooth:

     I got on the power way to early and hard and went right around.  

     Don't have much to say, other than to reiterate my big thanks to the guys who put on this event, and that I hope i get to hang out track side with them many more times.

on to the video:

and here's a little teaser of whats to come:

Yes, those are ohlins...and yes, I'm a baller (I would never have bought these if I hadn't gotten the SMOKIN deal I did from one of the PCD guys who switched to something else).  Running hyperco springs in the generic and well accepted evo rates of 8k/10k.  Will add more camber up front and see how awesome the car becomes.  I have some other thing in the pipeline I'll talk about later...

Back to iRacing for awhile....

It's been a long winter...........

     Yeah, I know I have posted nothing basically all winter.  It's called real life I guess.  Some stuffs happened blah blah blah.

     Anyway...

     So lets start the season fresh, did I mention I'll be on track next weekend?  Group of evo guys are putting on a second annual track day at NJMP, sort of a season warmup event/lapping day.  The car has been in the storage all winter, and I finally got my dad to go release it back into the wild this week.  As the "pit crew" he has been tasked with getting the car inspected and burning off the gas that has been sitting in it all winter...I just have to keep reminding him that the boost gauge has a memory function...

      I've spent an ass ton of time playing iRacing the past few weeks, so we shall see if it has any effect on real driving.  I'm also signing the lease on a new place today and it has a garage, which is sweet!  I will finally have both cars in one place.

     I will have some fun new part announcements coming soon too...

The winds of change are blowing (hopefully its not just gas?)

     I'm a pessimist that's just the facts.  Due to that I have been looking over my shoulder waiting to get hit by a bus lately...I've just been having oddly good luck.  Most of it's in the life realm, and I can't post it publicly just yet...

     I also managed to survive the hurricane, and even today's nor'easter.

     Anyway...somehow I missed the fact that a new road course is opening near Albany about 2 hours north of my parents house.

Length - 2.1 miles
Front straight - 2,300 feet long, 40 feet wide
Back side - 36 feet wide
Turns - 18
Elevation change - 450 feet

 

     Looks like a really nice layout and EMRA, who has released a tentative 2013 schedule already (sweet!) has 2 weekends scheduled there so far running counter clockwise one day and clockwise the next.

     Speaking of schedules, with how poorly things are going at work lately including an impending nurse strike, we haven't had to request our 2013 vacations yet.  Most people are pissed, but I'm kinda happy because it is allowing more time for NASA/EMRA/NARAA/RTA etc. to release their 2013 schedules, which should hopefully equate to me getting a bunch more days on track (hopefully this isn't where the bus I mentioned earlier decides to hit me...).

     I'm still plotting/planning the car setup for next year as well as setting aside stacks of cash necessary to pay for it all.  Things might change yet again depending on what black friday deals I find.  So far all I've picked up is a spare ACD ecu and a set up barely used Hawk DTC 60 pads to try. 

until next time...

wait...spring is HOW far away???

     I've been meaning to write a post for like two weeks now, but things have been....well intersting  frustrating. 

 Its tough to think about.  It's like just officially fall, and I want spring and race season back.  In case you didn't realize, this is me saying I put the evo away for the winter.  I got a few days off work and was able to head down to see my parents for the first time in a while, as well as do some car work.

    I swapped out the front pads on the evo, and found this:

     As you can see, I have cracked most of the pad material, and chunked the corner of one pad.  The pads are probably garbage.  Then you can see that i torched my dust shields.

     Moral of the story is I toasted a set of pads and dust shields due to lack of cooling, which I will obviously have full bore next year.

     Also learned that spark plugs on a subaru are a pain in the ass...but 2.5 hours later I had em swapped, and had the car flashed to cobb stage 1 aka what it should have felt like from the factory.  Next issue in line is the sloppiest of slop shifter in that car...otherwise I like it a lot.

     So what you ask, will i be doing all winter?  well I needed to keep the racers edge going in my head....soooo....I got this little dealy (it will probably also serve to further ward off women...damn shoulda thought of that earlier).  Full on racing seat with high end wheel and pedals.  Playing forza4 and F1 2012 for now, but heading towards getting up and going with iRacing for some serious race practice.

     Not sure when the next blog will be.  Still debating shop to use and timing of having all the work done on the evo....will keep everyone updated.

Until then my friends...

The 7 minute fix and my first podium

     Remember the last two times I mentioned I wasn't happy with how the car was shifting?  Yeah, well I finally got around to spending the 7 minutes necessary to adjust the clutch.  After all, the clutch has 60k miles of wear on it.  I wound up putting almost a full turn of clutch rod into it in 1/4-1/2 turn increments, and wouldn't you know...it's a whole new car.  Easier to get into second gear, no more 3rd gear grind and A LOT less low speed parking lot chatter and just general bitchy-ness low speed clutch engagement.  I'm not sure whether i should love it, or hate myself for not doing this sooner?

     In other news the results got posted from last event.  I finished third behind an Evo X and an STI swapped 2.5RS...buuut I left early so I didn't get my damn trophy.  Figures.

     I'm now hard at work compiling my winter to do list.  It's looking expensive way too quickly.  I will be letting a shop do the 60k and install some bushings, the running is between DynoTech and CBRD.  If i get the few days off I requested from work teh car will be going into hibernation in 2 weeks.  Need some more time to get the Legacy sorted for the winter.  Needs drive line fluids, spark plugs and a few other minor tweaks...oh and I have an Accessport sitting on the table now...woops.

     Fast Five is on HBO tonight...I'm gonna watch it for the 27th time.

Finished up this weekends video.

     Had some technical difficulties with the camera saturday.  Lost one session because when I turned on the camera I held the button too long and it went into picture mode instead of video (anyone with a gopro knows how that happens).  Then after I melted off the wheel weights, the video become a little too wobbly.  So this is what I wound up with.

lime rock august 25 edit from Nathan Bookbinder on Vimeo.