The Perfect Line's Car Blog

Just thinking about track days…

2011-06-30T10:11:00.001-07:00

So I was looking around my mostly defunct blog, and realizing that I need to go to the track more often.

Also, thought I should update my list of cars I have driven on the track, so here goes;

1995 BMW M3 Coupe (mine)
- The Purple one, fun track car, as good as the M Coupe.
1999 BMW M Coupe (mine)
- The original corruptor. This is the car that made me the trackwhore I am.
2002 BMW 330ci (mine)
- I did a TON of track days in this thing, eventually taking (mostly) full advantage of what it had to offer, but it was sort of slow, and had this horrible drive by wire throttle, and about the only real high end mod I did to it was a badass set of front race pads, which made it the best stopping car I had ever driven, till I got the 95 M3.
1993 automatic 1.8liter 88HP Ford Escort OKGo LeMons racing machine. (mine)
- I mean this little car has done 6 race days (8+ hours per day), and somehow magically wont die.
Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 8 (Will's)
- Fast, and driven rather cautiously given that it wasn’t mine.
2008 Mitubishi Lancer Evo X (P's)
- Driven LESS cautiously, resulting in a spin, Perrie was not happy BTW.
2002 Subaru WRX (Andrews)
- Great sounding boxer motor, remember thinking it needed like 100 more HP to really be badass!
Gen 1 White Miata (Kevin's)
- I broke this car too, well it must have been ready to go, but I believe I killed the diff, or maybe the tranny, it was a while ago.
Gen 1 Brocolli and Licorice Miata (Andrews)
- Andrew wouldn’t let me rev it above 5k rpm, so that means I basically creeped around the track, oh and he had some fairly mid range street tires on, so fast it wasn’t.
White Monte Carlo (Mr. Hertz's)
- The absolute worst car I have ever driven on the track, worse than my 1993 Ford Escort Automatic race car, yes that’s how bad it was.
e90 BMW 328i (Mr. Hertz's)
- Sort of boring to drive on the track, plenty of power, lame automatic, and M+S snow tires meant mediocre handling, with good straight line speed. The brakes were good too, but really, I had more fun driving Bryan’s Scion XB in all its 100HP glory.
1987 Toyota Supra Turbo (Rave Boys)
- I broke this car, well truth be told Tim told me “drive it”, so I took it out at about 8/10ths and overheated his brakes, and he had coming from his pads so I suggested we get the wheels off asap to see what was going on, and that was when one of his wheel bolts snapped. Should have just driven it around at 25mph for a few minutes to let it cool first.
2003? Scion XB (Duffs)
- Slow, but great handling, and actually a lot of fun.
2004 Honda S2000 (a students)
- Awesome car, but driven at like 6/10ths since it wasn’t mine.
2002 Audi S4 (P’s)

This was still when it was in Stage II guise, and I broke this car as well. I wasn’t driving all that hard, and one of P’s knockoff Samco hoses decided to split down the center, and it being something related to a turbo the car basically wouldn’t run without it. Suffice it to say, P was not pleased as I was being towed back into the pits.

2008 BMW M5 (Arnold’s)

I babied this around the track, was impressed by its power, but felt like the car was way too big and had not nearly enough tire for so much get up and go.

Buttonwillow, a weekend of firsts!

2010-04-21T10:14:00.001-07:00

First time on track with the new e36 m3.
First time driving Buttonwillow in 8 years.
First time driving configuration 13CW (the NORMAL config).
First time having a mechanical failure that could have ended up in a AAA tow all the way home.
First time having something fly off the car whilst on track!

I also learned some interesting things this weekend;

e36 M3 stock sized brakes, even with updated hi-performance ‘street’ pads, fresh new rotors, and racing brake fluid (Motul RBF600) can’t put up with my heavy braking.
If your OIL PRESSURE light comes on, it can mean an oil pump is caput (BAD), or that the oil Pressure sending unit is caput (GOOD).
The E36 M3 is a pretty decent car.
Falken Azenis RT615 tires are ‘decent’, but only just so.
Speedventures track days are populated with a majority of highly modified, highly track ready, r compound shod, and crazy fast cars.
I almost actually LIKE Buttonwillow raceway. I wouldn’t say I like it as much as Sears Point, Laguna Seca or Thunderhill. but its MEASUREABLY better and more interesting than Willow Springs.

So about those firsts. This was track day #1 and #2 for the new s50b30usa powered e36 m3. (yes, I am a bimmer geek, its NOT an s50b30, that’s the Euro spec motor that made 46 more HP)

In my notes for the day I wrote “Feels sort of gutless, brakes are spongy and fading, and RT615s feel like crap”. I sort of did feel that way on day 1, but by the end of day 2 I actually like this car a lot. I will be honest and say that the 15 year old suspension definitely could use some replacement. Its not in bad shape perse, for the street it would be totally adequate. But on the track the car leans, leans, and leans. Quick left right transitions make the car sway back and forth in a fairly pronounced way. All in all the car is decent. It feels a lot like the 1999 M Coupe I used to have (this is essentially the same engine, and the exact same front suspension setup, same pedals, etc.) and the 330ci. I guess all bimmers from that era sort of feel the same, which is good. Its what I am used to and like.

First tank of gas guzzled on the S50 m3... 18.99mpg

2010-03-30T12:14:00.000-07:00

So I got my first tank of gas all used up, and the car gets (so far) 18.99 miles per gallon. Not bad considering how I have been driving. I have a feeling I would see about 24 or so if driving 75mph non stop on a freeway. I expect to see below 10 on the track!

Why the 1995 M3 is such a cool choice…

2010-03-23T13:48:00.001-07:00

Now you might be wondering why I didnt’t buy another M Coupe. Well, first off they are going for too much nowadays, they have established themselves as collector cars, and the prices are just going up and up, kind of like the e30 M3. Really I should buy one now before they are totally unaffordable!

The e36 M3 has some advantages as well, Its got 5 seats, a trunk, and pretty close to the same performance as the M coupe. I specifically chose the 1995, because it has a slightly different motor than rest of the E36 M3’s from 96-99. It has a 3.0 liter motor designated an ‘S50’, whereas the 96-99 has an ‘S52’. Now in the world of automobiles more displacement is usually better, but in this case the 3.0 is a slightly more desirable motor, because it used OBD-1 instead of OBD-2, basically a more modern way to limit emissions, which cripples the owners ability to modify the car for more power. Also note that the 95 3.0 and 96-99 3.2 make the same HP & Torque.

The 1995 motor with an addition of a Cold Air intake, new fuel injectors, a new MAF (Mass Airflow Sensor), and an ECU chip can make an additional 35 Horsepower, which is stunning for a BMW. Add a free flow exhaust, underdrive pulleys, and headers and you are pushing a 50HP addition. Replace your cats with Hi-Flow Catalytics, replace your tranny and diff fluid, switch to an electric fan, and you can make it all the way to +60 HP! Granted that’s $1200 for a stageII kit, $700 for exhaust, $200 underdrive pulleys, $500 headers, $500 hi-flow cats, $150 tranny/diff fluid, and $200 for an electric fan, totaling about $3500. But to make 60 reliable and safe horsepower in a Normally Aspirated BMW motor is almost unheard of for even twice this amount!

Out with the old, in with the older?!?

2010-03-23T13:45:00.001-07:00

Yep, you guessed it, its that time again. New car time! Well in this case, old car - new to me time.

I decided to get back to my roots, and bought an E36 M3. Let me explain; My first REAL car, the one that got me hooked on cars, and more specifically driving on race tracks was a 1999 BMW M Coupe. Now this might LOOK like a Z3 hatchback, but the majority of the running gear is identical to the same year M3 (engine, transmission, differentials, suspension, etc.).

There is something special (to me) about these specific cars. They have a unique feel to me, the throttle response, placement of the pedals, gearshift, how the motor revs, everything just feels great to me. So I decided to buy a 1995 M3. I would have loved to have gotten another M Coupe, but I already owned one, and as weird as it sounds they are commanding a mint right now. The car I sold in 2005 for $22,500 would probably still be $20k today with the same mileage!

So here is a pic of the car!

Yep, its a 1995, built in 5/1994 (thats 15 years old kids) with only 54,000 miles on it!

[More to come, about the money spent on upgrades, tires, impressions, etc.!]

Free oil change from Audi, and they FINALLY fixed my headlights!

2009-12-01T12:21:00.001-08:00

I finally got a good service rep at Audi, and the dude did some smart swapping of bulbs/ballasts and figured out what was wrong and fixed my headlight. FINALLY. I have been dealing with a flickering right front light for months now, and this bulb/ballast combo runs about $700 I imagine, so getting it fixed under warranty = primo coolio.

As it turns out my upper control arms were shot as well in front, so those were replaced under warranty too, total bonus.

Then I get my last free oil change from Audi service, and they use Castrol 5W40, which I happen to have about 5 quarts of (from the Lotus), so 3rd bonus score there. (eg. you need lots of extra oil with an Audi because it burns about 8 gallons every 2.5 miles or so)

Here is a little (boring) chart to keep track of this oil change and see how much it burns.

*Mileage*	*Date*	*Level*	*Conditions*
47283	11/16/09	oil change with Castrol 5w40 (Audi)	NA
47700	11/29/09	5/8 up the metal section.	Cold in Morning

S4 burning oil

2009-08-04T10:36:00.001-07:00

Well, as it turns out it seems to be a fairly common occurrence with B6 and B7 S4’s. I haven’t yet discovered (or even searched for that matter) if other Audi’s using the same 4.2 liter V8 have the same issues, but it seems as if some people theorize that its the small engine bay of the S4 that might be contributing to higher heat levels and thus greater oil consumption.

Either way i had to put in 4 quarts of oil since the last oil change, which admittedly was 7771 miles ago. So that’s 1 quart of oil gobbled up per 1942.75 miles. Which isn’t exactly awesome, but not as bad as some people are reporting with 1 quart per 1000 miles!

I went and had the oil changed at a Jiffy Lube, which I am usually against, but these guys totally rocked it. I watched them for the entire 1.25 hours and had them do the oil change in exactly the manner I wanted. They drained the oil and let it drip for 5 minutes, then they ran a whole quart of penzoil 5w40 full synthetic through the engine, let that drain for 5 minutes. Then they swapped out the filter with a cleaning of the filter housing to get all the old oil out, replaced the crush washer on the oil drain plug and filled it up with 9 quarts of Amsoil European formula (specifically formulated or so it says on the bottles for Audi’s and VW’s) 5w40 full synthetic oil. They also filled up 2 Blackstone labs bottles for me so I can send this in to get analyzed. I took some pictures of the plastic (fiberglass?) undertray to see what kind of oil residue is on it, to my eyes it looks like some of the oil is leaking and not necessarily all being burnt up.

So I am going to start a diary, (well a spreadsheet anyway) here in my Blog (which you will never want to look at, because lets face it, this is some boring stuff right here) to keep track of my exact oil level over the next 5000 miles.

*Mileage*	*Date*	*Level*	*Conditions*
42771	?	exact center of hashes	ice cold prior to start in morning
43530	?	Covers the first plastic tab	ice cold prior to start in morning
44634	?	In the center of the first plastic tab	cold, 5:30pm. Hot day, but parked at 9am
44751	9/20/09	completely dry, added 1.6 quarts. now 1/4 way into metal center section.	?
46440	10/28/2009	Added 1.45 quarts. Now 40% up the first plastic tab	?
46770	11/7/2009	7/8 up the first orange tab	sitting for a bit, engine warm, not hot

I got a new garage (and house as well)!

2009-07-23T14:32:00.001-07:00

I know this is only cursorily related to cars, but a new house, means a new garage, means a shop to work on my cars, FINALLY!!!

After not having a real garage since October of 2005 I will finally be back in a house, that I own, with a big old garageskie that will allow me to have all night mechanic sessions without a care in the world, yes!

Here are some videos and pictures of it, pre-me-taking-ownership;

Garage Video

Video of the House

Picture Album of the House

Helmet beautification & the best rental car I have ever had!

2009-06-20T13:42:00.001-07:00

So I decided to spiffy up my helmet a little. Not like it matters right now as I keep missing great track days because my car is still out of commission! (that story to come later, I just don’t have it in me to write it all down right now)

Now on to the best rental car I have ever had. I can’t believe I am about to say this, to admit that I actually like this car, but…… I do, I have to say, its sorted, the gearbox is pretty good (for an auto), the feel of the steering is great, the brakes are very communicative, and the chassis itself feels good. The seats really grip you, and the inside feels like a cockpit, nice low seat, high dash, thick steering wheel, and its pretty easy to light up the tires and do a little sideways slidey slide even with a measly 215HP…. and this…. is the car;

I really can’t believe I like this car so much, I have even been thinking “So, could I own one of these, or would I just be too embaressed?”. Its a rental, and it has Sirius satellite radio, Microsoft Synch which hooked up via bluetooth to my iphone in about 2 minutes, and the ONLY 3 things I have to say as negatives are;

There is this pervasive blue LED lighting everywhere in the interior that is a bit annoying, it comes from the cup holders, so i always think I just got a text message if my phone happens to be sitting there.
Secondly, it really could use a manual gearbox, then this car would be incredible fun!
Lastly the tires are woefully woeful. They are these little bicycle tire 215’s in the front and 235’s in the rear that are too tall and too much designed for all year driving whilst mounted to a wood paneled station wagon. That’s 8.46” wide compared to 10” wide on the REAL Mustang (GT500).
Oh yeah, one last thing, the entire tach flashes red when you hit the redline, kind of cool actually.

Here are some more pics your viewing pleasure.

10 cars I REALLY want to own.

2009-05-28T23:15:00.001-07:00

So I have been doing some thinking lately, about cars (I know, go figure), and have been thinking that it is not completely outside the realm of possibility for me to own a small collection of cars sometime in the next few (10?) years.

So I started to think about the cars I really want to own, and to come up with realistic rational affordable (by me) cars. of course I want a Koeniggsegg, or a Ford GT, or a Pagani Zonda, but those simply aren’t realistic for me. So here are the cars that i really want, in a loose order of how much I love them, and all of these are realistically obtainable if I work my ass off, spend more time investing, and focus on the prize (i.e. a kick ass car collection).

1. BMW E30 M3 with E36 I6 motor swap. ~$30,000 if done right.
I basically want it to look like this. Preferably in Silver, though Metallic Grey or white with the ///M stripes would work for me as well. The M3 I want is a no-no in purists eyes, as I want to retrofit an e36 M3 motor into it, actually, I want an S50 top end (which has OBD1 and if I can find a Euro spec top end 6 individual throttle bodies), and a S52 3.2 block. Even the US spec motors can make about 300HP at the crank with the right application of the modding brush. Basically its a 2800 pound, 300HP car that handles like an e30, looks as beautiful as an e30, but doesn’t have the high strung s14 motor that they usually come with.

2. Audi urQuattro. Maybe ~20,000 for one that doesn’t suck??

I honestly don’t know much about these cars, other than they are beautiful! They made them from 1980 – 1991, though I think in the US we only got them from 82-84. The one with the vents in the hood is a newer one with a DOHC, and I think you can tune these to about 300HP. But I am SURE upkeep on a ur is nonsense expensive, but that seems to be par for the course with awesome enthusiast cars.

3. Alpha Romeo Alphetta GTV6. I havent a clue, maybe $15,000?

Again, don’t care much what color, I just love the lines. I know they made them from 1980-1987 and once again, must be an upkeep nightmare. Italian, sporty, from the 80’s.

4. Opel GT. $10,000? $15,000? More? Who knows! This one I would definitely want in a dark color, and just look at those lines, someone once said it was the German Corvette of the time, and they were so right! (Actually it came out a couple of years before the Stingray, see the resemblance?) They are small, nimble, woefully underpowered (from what I can tell on paper, as the BIG 1.9L motor made 102HP), and look amazing. But were made from 1968-1973, so these are clearly not modern sophisticated reliable cars, but again i draw your eye to the lines, pure sex.

5. Factory Five Type 65 Coupe. $30,000 - $50,000 (build vs. buy)

Again, look at the lines, holy crap I love cars that look like this. The Opel GT is similar, the Ferrari 250 GTO is sooooo similar (this car is pretty clearly based on the design of the 250 GTO IMO), and this is the poor mans version. If I was ever going to build a kit car this would probably be it. There are so many options with this car, what running to gear to use, what rear end, what transmission, what gearing, which motor to put in it (you have to use 1 of 3 Ford old school motors in it though). I am no lover of Ford, and no lover of carbeurators (I can’t even spell it right!), but even so, this car is just awesome, its like a Cobra, but has a roof and that badass oval flat butt. Colors would ideally NOT be blue with white stripes (boring for this car), but instead silver with burgundy stripes, or the inverse of that. mmmmmmm

6. Triumph GT6. Again no clue as to $$$ value, maybe $15,000?

There were 3 versions of this car, the Mark I, Mark II, and Mark 3. I personally think I like the Mark II the best (the picture shown above). Again, my love for the hatchback continues, damn that’s a sweet looking car. Its the only car I ever want to own in British Racing Green. I generally LOATHE that color, but on this thing it just looks right. Now again, this car is ancient (1969-1970), and British, so I wouldn’t expect it to be be reliable, or fast (as a matter of fact it can go to 60mph in about 12 seconds!).

I doubt I will ever actually own one, as I tend to like cars that aren’t slower than my parents Scion XB, but sheesh, imagine if you had the time/skill to swap in a BMW 1.8L motor from the e30 318is / e38 318. 140+ HP high revving, or better yet a Hyabusa motorcycle motor, now THAT would be a car worth having!

7. Ferrari 308GTB. ~$35,000 for one in decent shape.
This has always been my favorite Ferrari (well favorite of the affordable Ferraris). Just look at those lines. I would rather have an earlier one, like 1980-1982 with the carb motor, as it makes about 255HP vs. the 308GTBi which was given Fuel Injection and extra emissions equipment for America which lowered the HP to something in the 215 range. Either way, some day I will own one of these, even if they make Fiat’s and Triupmhs seems like reliable daily drivers!

8. Lotus 2007 Exige S. $40,000
If there is one thing I am an expert on (besides ///M Coupes) its modern Elise/Exiges. After owning my Elise, I am pretty sure I want an Exige S. 2007 please, as that’s the “sweet spot” year. It is the first year of the Supercharged Exige, it has the best price point, came with the Intercooler (which was deleted for the 2008 year except in the Exige S 240 model), and come standard with the equivalent of the Sport Pack, but maybe only 6 of them don’t have the Touring Pack :(. Meaning; track pack=Harness Bar, Bilstein Coilovers, touring pack=Leather Seats, extra sound deadening, power windows. They ALL come with the Sports pack wheels and suspension (unless spec’d with the Track Pack). You can track them out of the box, and are probably the MOST trackable car in stock form you can buy, but for another $1000 you pretty much cover al your bases and have a fully streetable, and incredibly capable track car in 1!

9. BMW ///M Coupe. $20,000-$35,000 depending upon year.

So this is the car I feel I have the most knowledge in. The venerable Z3 M Coupe. Made from 1999-2002. The only difference being in 2001 they gave it the S54 powerplant instead of the S52. Same displacement, but 315Hp vs. 240. Torque went from 240 to about 285. This motor can make a little more HP with a chip, as it raises the 7600rpm rev limit back up to the 8000 the motor has in the e46 M3. If I ever get another M Coupe it will most likely be a fairly track-centric ride. Stripped interior, custom roll bar, better seats are a must (the stock ones are quite heavy and extremely uncomfortable to me), and there is about $5000 of other mods and fixes one needs to do to transform a 2001-2002 M Coupe into an EVO killer.

The ONLY 2 things I don’t like about M coupes are this; 1) The subframe weld-seperation issue, you have to find one that hasn’t suffered damage yet and get that subframe reinforced before it DOES happen, and 2) 3.1 turns lock-to-lock on the steering and that too-big steering wheel can make it feel like you are driving the BMW equivalent of a a VW Van. A smaller Momo steering wheel is required, too bad there isn’t a quick easy swap in to replace the steering rack and get a quicker ratio. Oh yeah, every single one seems to have that stupid useless pop-up moon roof, and for a proper track car it would be better to yank it out, have a piece welded in place and then a new headliner put in. That’s probably $3000 of labor right there though.

OK, so I only came up with 9 cars, but you will notice some universal traits amongst my dream garage (as I said earlier, this isn’t my “I just won the lottery” dream garage, but a semi-realistic array of cars I strive to someday own). So back to these similar traits. None of these cars has more than 2 doors, all but one are either hatchback or fastback design, most are from the 80’s (thats the craziest thing to me, didn’t the 80’s suck for cool cars?), and only 2 of them are mid-engined.

So here is the tally for the 24 hours of lemons weekend.

2009-05-25T09:20:00.001-07:00

So here is the tally. 3 days traveling, working, fixing, (drinking), driving. 10 hours spent replacing head gaskets. 6 laps driven. Yep, you got that right, I drove a grand total of 6 laps this weekend, and only 3 during the race before the car pooped out on me. Plus I stayed in 4th gear, and was nursing the car so as to keep it from dying... [frus.tra.tion - NOUN - See prior sentence]

All in all a pretty lackluster weekend. I never really got to learn the track, in my 3 practice laps and 3 race laps. A whole lot of work and lost sleep for a whole little bit of driving.

Brakes, who needs brakes?!? - Take III

2009-05-15T14:39:00.000-07:00

So, this week, Tuesday night my brakes fail. As in caput, adios, ciao, brake to floor = nada.

In a nutshell, I was at a stop light, the brake pedal went to the floor with little or no resistance. I limped my way to a friends house a mile away with the last 3% of braking and judicious use of the handbrake. (p.s. This is why cars with foot actuated parking brakes suck, had I been in a G35 I would have been stuck).

Over the course of the next hour or so more fluid leaks out (gravity works after all) and the brakes are finite. Zilch. Zip. Nothing there, just a soft floppy pedal.

As it turns out the brake fluid was coming out of the right rear brake line where it connected to caliper. It might be that the copper crush washers were squished too much (check out the link to the pics below, you decide), maybe its because there was flashing/uneven surface left over on the caliper from the powder coating, or who knows, maybe the line is somehow magically bad and is leaking fluid through its sidewall.

I dropped the car off at another shop, one that specializes in Vipers and race cars, so hopefully they have the competence to fix it.

A Gallery of Brake Failure Pictures!

The Never Ending Debacle – Take II

2009-05-11T16:24:00.001-07:00

So, one would think it would be easy to get work done a car like an Audi. This isn’t a 1962 Fiat, or a 2009 TVR, or a custom built 1963 Cobra with a 2004 BMW 5L V8 motor. Its a frickin 2006 Audi S4 Wagon, there a a bazillion of these Audis in the world, and there are countless shops dedicated to working solely on Audis and VW’s. So why or why am I having such a hard time getting my car fixed!!??

To make a very long and dreadfully frustrating story short, here is a quick recap.

Short Shifter attempt #1

Reverse = Goes in smoothly, works well.
1st Gear = Also goes in nicely and works.
Position = Too far back, 1st gear is where neutral used to be!

Short Shifter Attempt #2

Reverse = A “little” bit out of alignment, sometimes hard to get in reverse.
1st Gear = Goes in nicely and works.
Position = Perfect, shifter is positioned right where it needs to be.

Short Shifter attempt #3

Reverse = Goes in awesome, works perfect.
1st Gear = Horrible, you need to wiggle to the right to get in 1st or 3nd gear every time.
Position = Perfect.

Short Shifter attempt #4

We will see if they can get it right on the 4th try!

As to the braking debacle (which is the REAL debacle, the Short Shifter is insignificant compared to the brake hassle).

I bring the car in.
They remove the calipers (all 4 corners) and bring them to the powder coating place.
The Powder Coating place takes 2.5 days to get them done, charges $50 more than their quote, drops one of the calipers, stays late to recoat it, then recoats it slightly off color, and very badly. The “drop” resulted in a chunk of coating missing from the rear, the respray results in 3 dime-size bubbles on the front which pop when you rub them with your finger.
The powder coating owner is mostly clueless, but nice, and says he will make it right, but this is Thursday, and they arent open on the weekend or Friday, so “maybe” we could have them back by EOB Monday night. I tell him forget it, I am done, and don’t want to be without my car for another 5 days (resulting in a $35 / day rental POS car).
I instruct the guys at the shop to put them on the car the way they are and I’ll just have to spend a bunch of time fixing it myself (which was the entire point of taking the car to a shop to do what I am fully capable of doing, and probably capable of doing better than they can, because I give a rats ass).
I go to pick up the car when they say it will be ready at 5pm after they have had my car for 4 days (thankfully I decided against having them do the wheels for me as well, or else I might have been without a car for 3 weeks!). I stay till 8pm with the guy while he tries to get it all buttoned up.
When I dropped the car off the brakes WITH STOCK LINES, STOCK PADS, STOCK FLUID were a 7/10. Not great, but not horrible.
He bleeds the brakes, drives the car and says “Hey, check it out and see what you think”. Its a 1.5/10. The ONLY brakes I have ever felt this bad were Rob’s when I bled the master cylinder dry and there was air stuck in the system we could not bleed out.
So he bleeds em again, another liter or 2 of fluid, now they are a 3/10, and I head home because clearly he cant get them any better.
I drive the car all weekend with brakes that are the spongiest softest worst feeling brakes I have ever felt. A 1973 mustang II with a massive brake leak and no left rear drum couldn’t feel this spongy.
I bring the car in Monday (today) to have them fix it once and for all, its a 2 hour job. I stay there for 4 hours, they bleed the brakes again multiple times, and now they are a 3/10. I give up, and leave, they say they will talk to their Brembo rep and possibly the owner to see if anyone has any ideas. Yeah I do, learn how to work on cars. I mean you only do Audis and VW’s, what happens if a customer comes to you with a super spongy brake pedal, you charge him 8 hours of labor to not fix it? If you call Bill Arnold about bimmers and tell him you bled the brakes 5 times and its still spongy, in 4 seconds he’ll tell you what you need to do. “There is air in the ABS unit, go to a dealership, have them use the special device which electronically opens the ABS reservoir, and then bleed, all will be well.”
To add insult to injury, the clear coat on the rear calipers is crackling, everywhere. I opted for a 2 stage color, silver + clear. When asked what the difference was he stated “One is 1 stage and one is 2 stage”. “Yeah I gathered that from the names 1-stage and 2-stage, but what’s the difference, is one more susceptible to heat than the other.” Well obviously we have our answer to that one, don’t we. I mean the guy is new to powder coating, so I can’t blame him, he has only been doing it for 40 years and inherited the business from his dad and is the only job he has ever had. So clearly he shouldn’t have known that 2-Stage powder coating jobs will end up with cracked clear coat when you put them on calipers.
One thing I am excited about is my first track day. Well if I ever get the car to a point where it can actually do a track day that is. I cant wait for after my first session when I come back into the pits and the powder coating is just sloughing off of the calipers because they got so hot. THATS GONNA BE AWESOME. YAY.
Oh yeah, on a side note, they told me to my face “The rep from Stoptech told us over the phone that stainless lines will result in a spongy brake pedal feel”. I understand the engineering behind stainless lines, they arent stainless at all. They are actually teflon tubing, often shrouded with some flexible PVC conduit, and then finally covered in stainless braid simply for protection from rubbing as well as bursting. Teflon does not give, it works fine, or it bursts, its not like rubber that flexes and stretches and buldges. The ONLY reason to replace your lines is for stiffer pedal feel, there is no other reason to bother.

So as it stands now my course of action is;

Bring the car back to this shop and hope they magically figure out how to fix the super spongy brakes. Chance of Success = 25%
Bring the car to a different place, maybe one that has a master mechanic that can figure this shit out. Cost = $100+, Chance of Success = 70%
Since I dont know if it is air in the line or something wrong with my calipers I need to either buy new calipers on all 4 corners, or maybe a BBK kit for the front and new calipers for the rear and then see if it is still a problem. If it is, then I know its air in the line/system somehow and I will then be out about 20 hours of labor/time and about $2000 worth of parts, awesome huh?

A whole lot of parts being put on my Avant over the next 3 days!

2009-05-04T14:54:00.000-07:00

WOO HOO!

AWE Exhaust (Non Resonated)
REVO Technik tune
Stoptech Stainless Lines
Porterfield R4S Pads f+r
ECS Slotted Zinc Plated Rotors Front and Rear
JHM Short Shifter
Calipers are getting powder coated silver
New Seals are being put into calipers
I already replaced all the wheel bolts with Stock AUDI bolts and some anti-seize

Then when I get this back I need to bring it back to Audi, because there is still a creaking coming from the suspension on the car, so maybe its NOT a wheel bearing, or perhaps its another wheel bearing. I MUST get an extended warranty, this bringing the car back for free is really awesome. Oh yeah, my right headlight has shown an error on my dash of "Right Dipped Headlight" twice, but they could reproduce it, well last week it was winking in and out and flickering for 5 minutes one night, so that needs to be looked at again as well.

I just bought an RS4 grill, and need your input about the fog lights..

2009-04-29T15:21:00.000-07:00

So, I just got a great deal on an RS4 grill, this one to be exact;

Now this is a super stylin brushed aluminum ring with semi-gloss/satin black mesh. It came with a filler plate thats for a front license plate (ughh), so I am going to be purchasing this all black filler plate;

Now where I need your help is what to do about the Fog light inlets. Basically the stock look is pretty cool, but it doesnt have any of that honeycomb RS4 style to it. There isn't a direct RS4 drop in kit, you have to buy the RS4 kit and then modify/glue it in to make it work (which is not that big of a deal to me to be honest).

So I really have 3 options;

1) I can leave it alone, and I think that would look decent. [simplest]
2) I can fit the Rs4 fog light surrounds in and remove the stock S4 inlets altogether [a bit of work]
3) I can do a combo of the 2, if I go this way I would most likely just buy some black metal mesh honeycomb and simply attachg it to the back of the inlet. [a bit of work]

Option #1 (Keep in mind I wont have that grill)
Option 2 (This is pretty much exactly what my car would look like)

Option #3 (I kind of like this one the best, its cheaper than Option 2, but probaly more work, need to source the mesh, paint it, cut it, and then somehow fit it in)

I just placed an order wth Motodyne...

2009-04-28T12:00:00.001-07:00

What do you think?

The avant is registered, and.. my friends must have LOTS of free time!

2009-04-28T01:14:00.001-07:00

The Avant is registered, and I am up at 1:15am posting this. Been working on my house loan application all night. This has been a very productive week for me. I have utterly demolished my massive stack of bills and TO-DOs that have been sitting on my desk at home. You see, I just bought a new car, and being that I am utterly in love with cars I can't help but spend all my time working on it, buying stuff for it, researching options for mods for it, dreaming about what to do with it (i.e. what track days to go to, what suspension to install, which brakes to buy, etc, eccetera, essetera.).

But, I feel like I am neglecting the REALLY important stuff (i.e. my future, a house, my savings, my 401k, my health insurance, my bills, selling my buddies truck he loaned me for 9 months, you get the drift) to daydream about my 4 Rings porn (that would be my Audi S4 Avant to you car noobs).

So, tomorow I will send in my loan application (which should be easy, but only if you have filed all your bills for the past 6 months instead of just piling them up in a nice tidy "to be dealt with later" stack), this week I will list my buddies truck, get the last 2 bits of bill crud done, then fill out some more paperwork to transfer an old 401k into a different plan, and finally call my real estate agent to start the process of finding a house.

I have mixed emotions about house shopping. One on the one hand I am excited to finally be in my own place again, with a garage, and room enough for all my belongings, but I am also dreading the dogged determination that one is required to have to REALLY find the right house for the right price and to make it happen. ugggghhhh....

Anyway, sorry for the life interlude. Oh one more thing. If you go and check out Le Supar Goobar's blog and you will see that he clearly has too much free time on his hands. just loko at those posts. informative, thoughtful, thought provoking, well written, and clearly something you actually WANT to read and in the case of his music post go and listen to each and every one of the youtube's he posts up. I wish I had that kind of time, I am thinking its time someone was given more house chores or something!

Ok, for real, back to the car. To make a long story short, one must get an out of state car smogged upon first entrance into CA without fail, no matter what the DMV website misleads you to believe. I just re-read it, and if I follow the links a different way I can see now that you DO need a smog. Well one thing I learned is that my 2006 Audi uses the CAN system for the OBD port, and that means the smog machine wont read through the OBD port, which is a pain in the ass, because it is DAMN hard to find any place else to clamp a reader to so you can grab the RPMs of the motor.

Long story short = I have the plate I want 4RINGS4 coming in 90 days, and my fees were just shy of $2k. Brutal, Oregon is looking more attractive, no?

On another car related note. I am bringing my car into Eurocode tuning (yes the place that dicked me around, will post about that later) on Monday, and have ordered the following parts;

ECS Slotted Zinc Plated OEM 1 piece Rotors front and rear
Porterfield R4S brake pads, front and rear
Stainless lines
JHM SHort Shifter
AWE Exhaust (sitting in my living room looking sexy)
Caliper rebuild / Seal kits for all 4 corners
New Spring Retention Clips for front calipers
20 new shiny Lug Bolts

So, got the S4 back, and it now has a new Power Steering pump! :)

2009-04-24T00:25:00.000-07:00

So the weird power steering noise turned out to be a pump. Which is a shaft driven job, and requires the subframe to be dropped. Sounds like a serious amount of work, is a total hassle, and woudl be damn expensive (dealership cost on parts is somehow $800+, which is unfathomable to me).

Suffice it to say, Audi paid for this one, and while they had my car for 3 days I had the joy of driving a rental Toyota Corolla LE. I can honestly say there is only ONE redeeming quality to this car. Its trunk is massive for a small car, but other than that it is a completely unenjoyable car to drive. I mean, really blaze'. Its not comfortable, the throttle and brakes are horrible, and its gearbox is about as crappy as a gearbox can be. I have to say, little econobox automatic civics dont feel this bad. I NEVER ever want to own one of these cars. Ever.

All the different cars I have driven on the track....

2009-04-21T17:50:00.000-07:00

So I was thinking about all the different cars I have turned laps in on the track, here is what I can remember;

1999 BMW M Coupe (mine)
2002 BMW 330ci (mine)
Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 8 (Will's)
2008 Mitubishi Lancer Evo X (P's)
2002 Subaru WRX (Andrews)
Gen 1 White Miata (Kevin's)
Gen 1 Brocolli and Licorice Miata (Andrews)
White Monte Carlo (Mr. Hertz's)
BMW 328i (Mr. Hertz's)
1987 Toyota Supra Turbo (Rave Boys)
2003? Scion XB (Duffs)
2004 Honda S2000 (a students)

The only 2 I have really spent a lot of time with though are the first 2, the M Coupe and the 330ci. Those are the 2 I would feel the most comfortable with on a track, though the M Coupe was a long time ago, and I was only just beginning my track addiction back then.

Got the S4 back from the dealership.

2009-04-17T14:25:00.000-07:00

Some stuff fixed, a little bit not fixed, and now a new problem.

First off, I LOVE factory warranties, you can bring your car in every week and have all the little things fixed free of charge, its great! I need to look into an extended warranty, because I want to be able to do this for the life of the car if I can!

Almost all of my warranty items are little, but hey, if its free use the crap out of it I say!

So this time around here is what I had fixed;

Milky chrome trim replaced with shiny perfect chrome trim. (This was a decent sized job, as all the windows had to come out of the doors, panels off, special side airbag seals replaced, etc.)
creaking coming from underneath car (turns out it is the left front wheel bearing, and they said they couldnt hear it, hah!)
Glove box lid replaced (the right hing was starting to break, replaced for free, solid!)

Now the things they couldn't / didn't fix.

The 2nd gear stickyness when you are powershifting into 2nd from 3rd or 4th. Basically they say that is normal in all S4's, and that even if it wasn't it wouldn't be covered under warranty because it is just an adjustment issue. Whatever, no biggie, I want to get a short shift kit anyway!

NEW problems that just showed up.

Something is awry with my power steering now. At very low speeds it goes from super soft to less soft, and makes a groaning noise. Its not horrible, and its not consistent, if I had to hazard a guess I would say the power steering belt is slipping. maybe its a tensioner, maybe its some grease on the belt, either way its going back to have them figure out the issue and fix it!

Thunderhill Track Day April 11th - Recap

2009-04-12T15:54:00.000-07:00

So I flew up to the bay area and went to a Thunderhill track day on Saturday April 11th ran by Speedventures. It was really quite a fun day, SuperGoober, Timmy, and myself all drive, and the Acupuncturist and Duff came along for rides. Duff had never received rides before on the track, and I think he really enjoyed it.

SuperGoober drove his Evo X of course, Timmy drove the 87 cherry Supra, and I borrowed a car from a friend named Hurts (you figure it out). It was a rear drive 4 door sedan, not japanese and not american,and somewhat underpowered and under tired for its 3600 curb weight. Plus of course it was an automagick slushy gearbox, which basically meant the car was not nearly as fun as you would think it woudl be.

I actually only drive it for I think 3 sessions, and put some time in the Evo X (some VERY cautious and careful laps, no shennanigans this time, nothing more than 6/10ths this time around). I mean I hit the limiter maybe once or twice, and hammered it in the straights, but was very cautious with my braking and my turn entry speeds. I also turned some laps in the Duff's Scion XB "the box". I have to say, that car is a frickin hoot to drive on the track. Now it could definitely use another 50-100HP, but even with its 105-120HP it was more fun than the not japanese/not american 'borrowed' sedan. It had more handling than power, and the sedan had more power than handling, and it didnt have THAT much power (well twice as much as the box now that I think about it!).

Duff has done some work on the box, not a lot, but with our guidance has done what really makes sense. I believe his list of mods is comprised of the following;

Exhaust work (maybe cat back, maybe just a muffler, either way it sounds decent.
Axxiss Ultimate Brake Pads.
ATE Super Blue Brake Fluid.
Lowering Springs.
Cold Air Intake?
Lighter than stock wheels with some decent aggressive street tires on them.

The bottom line is that car was pretty damn flat, and handled really well, its shape/form would lead you to believe it is top heavy, but in fact it feels quite flat when driving it at the limit. I would love to get one, retrofit a 300HP v6 or v8 Lexus/toyota motor behind the front seats, convert it to rear drive, and then replace the rear drums with discs and just show up everybody at the track who thinks a 'box' cant be fast!

I really can't report anything more on the sedan, other than I need my own damn track car, I want something I can REALLY learn with. I want a car that's MINE and one I can learn inside and out, get a bunch of track days under my belt with it, and start exploiting the limits of capabilities. With 'borrowed' cars, from people named Hurts and Dohlar it's really hard, and even borrowing your buddies cars it tough. You really don't want to break your buddies cars and need to take it easy in them, especially the nonsense fast ones like the EVO X!

So back to the EVO X. The Goob turned his fastest lap ever at Thunderhill, a fairly impressive 2:16.100. Buttttttt, I keep telling him Lap Times don't mean very much, as was made clear by the fact that he said this was a HIGH DRAMA super dirty lap, and he beyind his comfort level. i.e. he was driving at probably 9/10ths and really having to be ultra focused on what he was doing. He and I talked about his 2:16 and my 2:16 (and my best time, a 2:16.391 was slightly slower than his best time of the day). What he said was "You went out and had a drama free 2:16 driving at 6/10ths and my lap of the same time was a mess and I was on the edge of control". That can be explained in 1 simple sentence;

"50+ track days vs. 7 track days"

I am by no means a pro, far from it, but I have done probaly 1750-2500 laps at thunderhill, and I feel like I know it decently well (I still feel like I need a few thousand more to REALLY REALLY know the track) whereas the Goob has only been there 3 times!

I think if I owned the EVO X that he has, and got to know the car, and pushed it I could probaly turn consistent 2:12's in it, and maybe get down into the 2:10's with some seriously hot (and at the egde) laps.

You can see the EVO's lap times here. Anything in the Blue Group is SuperGoober and anything in the Black Group is me, you can see I only turned 4 laps in the car, and was really self concious and nervous for the first 2 since last time I drove the car I frickin spun!

Here is a video of me turning my 2:16 lap. There was so much wind noise I just put a soundtrack over the top of it so you wouldnt go crazy watching it!

Here is one of SuperGoober's sessions with me passengering. Note: This is NOT when he turns his fastest lap, instead he is working on some good lines, consistent braking, and smooth driving. [NOTE: This is his whole session, is not edited, has horrible wind noise, and ultimately will be extremely boring to the average person!]

I have a choice to make about brakes.

2009-04-06T17:22:00.000-07:00

So I have decided to do some upgraded brakes, this will be the first time I actually bother buying slotted and 2 piece rotors. I have always gone the route of stock rotors with better pads. Sometimes even switching rotors and pads in the front when I get to the track, and it has worked really well for me. But this time I figured what the hell I am going to go all out, and if not a big brake kit up front at least really nice 2 piece rotors, some stainless lines (which is a necessity), better pads (an intermediate pad in this case), and high performance fluid.

OPTION 1
I have the option of getting my hands on an ECS Stage 4 big brake kit. This consists of 6 piston monobloc Brembo manufactured Porsche Cayenne calipers, Special Stainless lines, Hawk HPS pads, and floating 2 piece rotors. The kit that I am potentially going to buy has red calipers (not as cool as Black ones if you ask me), and crossdrilled+slotted rotors (which is lame IMO, the slotted's look better to me). The retail on the kit is $1900+Shipping (which is probably $75 or so). I am able to buy these for $1080 shipped, but there is some question as to just exactly what condition they are in. I am awaiting pictures before I pull the trigger and sent the guy his money. Here is what the kits look like; linkypoo

Now if I go with these brakes I am also going to buy matching ECS rear floating rotors, which are about the most expensive rear brake disk you can buy for a B7 S4. They also cost $360 to get re-ringed, which doesn't include the shipping costs to send ECS your hat, and then to have ECS ship you back the entire rotor. You NEED to send it to them, as they will not allow you to replace it yourself (which makes sense given their design of the product). This is what they look like; das link

Here is a link to their definition of their True Float Technology. Which to me looks very cool as these are true floating rotors and not simply 2 piece rotors.

Now there is a concern with this setup. These were meant to be mounted on the FRONT of a caliper, and not the back. The pistons on these go from small to large in the rotation of the wheel, but ONLY when mounted on a Porsche, not when mounted on an Audi. Now engineers (such as my buddy PZ) tell you that it is important to have the smallest piston hit the pad first for proper and even pad wear, heat dissipation, and for maximum leverage against the rotor. These will be going largest to smallest, which is an engineering no-no. So the big question is;

Is this a significant problem, or a minor one? i.e. Will the brakes get 20% hotter, will the pistons be clamping with a 50%-30%-20% pressure on pistons 1-2-3 instead of 33%-33%-33%, will the pads wear unevenly, will they brake better or worse than a stock with the same model brake pad? If the answer is yes, it will be worse wearing, more heat producing, and will stop less then I had better stay away, but if the answer is the opposite I am pretty sure its a GREAT deal.

Option 1 Plusses;

Great deal ($1080 vs. $1980)
Looks pretty cool (HUGE Porsche brakes seldom look anything but cool!)
Rotors are about the nicest ones you can buy
Already comes with HPS pads (I hope, he knows they are Hawk's, but thats it)

Option 1 Minuses;

Potentially in bad condition (I would be at least the 4th owner)
I am not a big fan of the RED, or the cross drillled/slotted rotors.
If I do this I feel like I NEED to buy the ECS rears to match as opposed to the JHMs (ECS happen to be the best quality 2 piece rotor there is)
No idea if pad wear / heat will be better or worse, and if they will stop better or worse

OPTION 2
This is what I would call a Stage 2 upgrade. Stage 1 would be pads/lines/fluid with stock rotors. Stage 1.5 would be to have the calipers powdercoated, and this is the replacement of LINES, ROTORS, PADS, FLUID, and then the powdercoating of the calipers.

This is the cheapest proposition of all 3, but still higher end than anything I have done on any past cars. With this option I would be having all 4 calipers powder coated (or maybe just painted, and, probably silver), put 2 piece non-floating rotors on, replace the pads with the same Hawk HPS compound I would be using if I went with the porsche BBK option, add some ECS stainless lines, and then a fluid replacement.

JHM makes a beautiful 2 piece rotor that while not being floating is still an aluminum hat with a steel machined ring. They said that the re-ringing of the fronts would be about $300 or the rears $250. Which is substantially less than the ECS offering. I still really like the way these look, and MUST be better than running the stock rotors that are all 1 piece, all steel, and weigh 10 pounds more than these in the front.

Its not like the stock front calipers are small, far from it, they are just big, heavy, cast, 1 piston numbers, and if I had my way I would run the stock RS4 brakes which are 8 piston with floating 2 piece rotors stock! They are badass, and I simply can not find anyplace in the states that sells them.

Option 2 Plusses;

Least expensive option, but still damn nice. Lines are cheaper, rotor rings are cheaper.
Looks amazing, silver powder coated calipers with these cross drilled rotors would look GREAT!
A known commodity, no question of whether or not the calipers brake well, wear well, overheat, etc.
A good solid setup, no trickery, very stock, only parts upgraded are the non mechanical ones. Warranty would be affected the least.
Can easilly sell the car with these parts on it and not worry about the "modded factor".

Option 2 Minuses;

Not as trick as a 6 piston setup.
Doesnt look as cool as huge monobloc 6 piston Porsche/Audi brakes.
Potentialy doesnt stop as well as the 6 piston Porsche setup.
Probably stops just about the same as a stock setup with HPS pads. Rotors for looks and heat dissipation on track, and stainless lines for pedal feel.

OPTION 3

Option 3 is very similar to option 1, the main difference being I might be able to get my hands on some Q7 Calipers for maybe $550 or $650. These are (supposedly) identical to the Cayenne calipers but are in a satin grey finish, and dont say Porsche all over them and advertise with huge shiny redness. These supposedly only have 100 miles on them (i.e. were on a Q7 for 100 miles before it received a big brake upgrade kit). With this kit I would be buying all the parts new (pads, rotors, lines) and could pick the style rotor I really like. You can see that it still costs less than even the cheapest normal big brake kit (i.e. Stoptech), which only covers the fronts!

Option 3 Plusses;

I get actual AUDI calipers that are stealthy and cooler than the porsche
I can buy JUST the slotted rotors for both front and rear
All parts except calipers are brand new

Option 3 Minuses;

Almost $2500 on brakes!
If I do this I feel like I NEED to buy the ECS rears to match as opposed to the JHMs (ECS happen to be the best quality 2 piece rotor there is)
No idea if pad wear / heat will be better or worse, and if they will stop better or worse

Impressions of 2009 A4 2.0T Quattro loaner car.

2009-04-06T11:09:00.000-07:00

So last week I dropped of the Avant at the Audi Dealership and they took care of some issues for me, namely;

They fixed the sagging shift boot (i.e. the shift knob had its shaft broken so the boot was loose and the knob could be pulled straight off of the shift shaft). According to Audi they replaced the whoel shifter, which is weird to me, as all they needed was a new shift knob, whatever.
There was a rock in the passenger door window slit and it scratched the hell out of my front passenger door window. They did that for free, kind of cool.
The 4 chrome pieces that are on the outside of the 4 doors are milky and discolored, they actually warrantied those!
I had this error "Right dipped headlight" 2 times, but it is gone now and they couldn't find any fault, just hope it happens and stays on before my warranty is up.

The 2 things they say they cant find are;

Crackling/creaking comeine from the front suspension at any low speed under any circumstances. Tomorrow I take the shop forman out and show him what I am talking about.
Shifting from 3rd or 4th into 2nd is sticky. Basically when you shift from 1->2 you go straight down, so its not a problem, but when you shift hard from 3rd or 4th you are putting a lot of LEFT pressure on the shifter, and it gets stuck at this little spur or notch or something. According to the guy that owns Ingelstadt West its no big deal and just needs to be adjusted.

OK, about the loaner car. Well it was a 2009 A4 2 liter turbo with quattro. My first impression is that it must have CVT because you cant feel the shifts, well unless you floor it and need to wait a full second for it to drop down a gear, man I hate automatics.

It is surprisingly fast, like really qute fast for a 2 liter. I was actually really impressed by it. That might be because it produces 258 lb. ft of torque. The exterior and interior are not very impressive to me. Audi used to be (just like bimmer used to be) all about smooth svelte and beautiful lines. This car is all angular and funky. To me the B7 -> B8 genesis is exactly like the BMW e46 -> e90 genesis. Perfect muscular, yet svelete, and classy lines turned into angular nonsense. The interior's of Audi's have always been spartan but slean, beautiful, and really nice to look at. The new one is well, just funky. too many weird shapes and different disparat ideas going on. There is no unity to it. I like my car's interior so much better. I would pass on buying this car on the lackluster and unattractive interior alone. I will admit I do really like the 3 knob layout. 1 nice large control screen that handles everthing for the car. 1 knob for climate controls, 1 for stereo navigation, and 1 little one close to your right hand for stereo power and volume. Thats a good layout. The key is funly too, exactly like the new bimmers the key fob IS the key, you slide it into a slot and then push the entire fob which starts the car.

One feature I HATE is the electric parking brake. You pull up on a little switch, this engages the brake, and then you push down on it to disengage it. Its heinous. If you are fusting around and pull on it at speed your parking brake goes from full off to full on. No more E-Brake slides, or even using it in little doses if you happen to lsoe your brakes. Very very lame.

handling its not bad, the steering is a bit soft, and the brakes are epic as all Audi brakes seem to be nowadays.

Ultimately if I was going to spend that kindf of money I would buy a B7, or any of the other 7 manufacturers cars that pretty much look the same and drive the same as this one.

Some 'interesting' cars seen today.

2009-04-04T20:14:00.000-07:00

These aren't anything all special, but check out this doozy!

Now here is something I find VERY interesting. If you buy a $80k+ Aston martin you wont get actual directionally vaned rotors. They simply have 1 rotor and just use it for the left side and right. Can you frickin believe that?!?! I mean an $80,000 sports car and they cant manufacture a left and a right rotor? Thats nonsense. I guess thats why they are really GT cars and not true sports cars. So sad :(

Success and Some failure modding the S4 today.

2009-04-04T19:44:00.000-07:00

First off, I started my saturday by waking up at 7:30 so I could make an 8:30 appointment at Ingolstadt West, an independent Audi tuner that does APR brand ECU tunes. You see, APR is having this ludicrous sale, $100 off any tune, and that means you get a an ECU tune for $499 for my car, which is darn cheap. Now there are some reasons I picked the APR tune over say GIAC, Revo, Neuspeed, etc. Now arguably the APR is one of the more civilized i.e. conservative tunes out there, but considering you can't really get much from a naturally aspirated V8 anyway, it kind of doesnt matter, there are some features of the APR software I realy like, and the clencher was this guys great posting about his independant chicp comparison. "Justincredibles great comparison test".

Now some of the features I really like about APR are this;

$500 gets your 4 tunes (for instance, STOCK, 91 OCTAINE, 93 OCTAINE, VALET MODE).
FREE - Fault Code Erase :: Erases Fault ECU Fault Codes
FREE - Anti-Theft :: Disables Throttle to Render Vehicle Inoperable
Linear throttle mapping (i.e. no cheating by having 20% pedal equal 35% throttle which is lame IMO).
You can change the tunes using the CRUISE CONTROL STALK!

So, on with my story. I get to Ingle West and Ian the owner comes out to help me program my car. Well, he plugs in his trusty computer, and the APR software is supposed to identify my ECU and then give me the option of which of the 4 tunes I want. Well it can identify my ECU at all. Hmmm, strainge. So he/I spend the next hour looking through every single tune they offer and low and behold they dont have the North America B7 S4 in there at all!?!?! WTF?!? They list it on their website as having a tune available. They DO have 1 2007 S4, but its the euro S4 with tiptronic. So me thinks something must have gotten screwed up with their database and somehow the B7 S4 is no longer in it. There are LOTS of guys with these cars, and many of them have the APR tune (at least I think they do), so that's quite weird. So Ian is cool though, he is going to call APR Monday morning, and find out if they can do a custom tune (considering my car is essentially identical to the B6 S4 which they DO have a tune for) or if they have a B7 S4 tune to put it back online, and he will make sure I get the discount pricing which expires next Friday.

So that started my day with a (non)epic fail. There were some neat cars there as well. A TTS with some huge turbo kit putting out like 440HP out of a 2.0 Turbo! Then Ian has the Red S5. I like this car, but damn the wheels have got to go, just totally not my style at all!

Then it was on to the tinting place. As it turns out both of these places were in the valley, so it wasnt that far between one and the other. Also, the tinting place is this little whole in the wall that came very highly recommended by Audizine / Audiworld members, so I thought I would give it a try. Well it happens to be right across from the street from StickerCity, which is the place I had some vinyl film put on the Elise, and is also the place I bought my headlight clear kit from for the S4. So it just felt right.

Anyway this tint was place was PACKED at 11am on a Saturday. They totally have their act together, they have a beautiful waiting room, with knowledgeable girls checking people in quick style, they walk you through your tint options and tell you 90 minutes to have it done. I chatted with thema bit, they do between 25-40 jobs EVERY SINGLE DAY THEY ARE OPEN! This is unheard of for a tint place. They are clearly raking in the dough. There were ALL SORTS of beautiful cars there, the local Audi and Aston Martin dealerships send cars there all the time. I saw a brand new Q5, a DB9, about 3 S550/S63AMG/S500 Mercedes, an Audi S5, M3, etc. etc. etc. So 4 dudes worked on my car and the owner would pop his head in to make sure it was all going smoothly. Bottom line, these dues are so crazy skilled its ridiculous. I could put tint on, but it woudl turn out just OK, and would take me 6 hours. These guys know all the tricks, and are really fun to watch work.

It was $165 for 7 windows, and I chose 35% for the rear 5, and 50% for the driver/passenger doors. I didn't want to go too dark, because I hate it when you cant see out of your back window at night, but I think I might have gone a bit too light. I will have to see how it gorws on me. Its a beautiful job, and if I think I shoudl go darker I might do just the back 3 windows with 20% film. We will see. Here is a pic of the dudes working on it in their itsy bitsy work bay;

Here is what it looks like with the windows tinted. You be the judge if this is enough tint.

Then, since I was next door I decided to bring the car into the guys at Sticker City and have my door edge guards and headlight film I have previously bought from them installed. These are all things I can do myself, easilly. But who knows when I will get around to it, and I figured crap, i might as well just pay and have it done. Its a rip off to have someone do this for you, but if I got a rock chip and had to replace my headlight before I got around to it I woudl be so pissed I didnt do just that (pay for the install that is).

Some good has come out of my Eurocode debacle..

2009-04-04T19:30:00.000-07:00

A LOT of people have responded to my post (see the last blog entry) about my non-responsiveness with a shop I was willing to give $3000-$4000 to. One of the best things to come out of it is a personal email from the owner of another very highly recommended shop that he can totally take care of all my needs. The downside is that they are NOWHERE near where I live, but I think I am going to have to live with that, if this guy has competitive pricing, and is willing to do exactly what I want and is as cool as he appears to be, it will be worth the 30+ mile drive and having to go there on weekends, leaving my car, getting a rental, etc.

It was like gong to Bill Arnold Independent BMW Service when I lived in San Mateo. He was a good 45 miles from where I lived, and over the GG Bridge, but worth every trip because he is a badass, is willing to work with you, has good pricing, and really knows his shit and is a great guy. Worth all the hassle in my book.

So it looks like I will be giving AE Performance a ring soon and seeing if they can handle my needs.

On another note El Super Goober gave me an instant epiphany the other day. 'Don't tell a shop your list of to dos and expect them to remember it, write it down for them so they dont forget or miss even one of your items'. Brilliant, simply brilliant!

Here is a link to AE's website, no guarantees I am using them yet, but given the guys cool email to me they are at the very top of my list!

My frustration finding a good local LA shop to give my money to!!!

2009-03-31T18:36:00.000-07:00

Here is what I posted at Audizine.com, spelling out my frustration with the shop I was hoping to work with.

Here is the thread; Audizine Eurocode Thread

Subject: Who do you deal with at EuroCode in Torrance?

I am really interested in using them to get a bunch of stuff done to my new S4, but am having a tough time with the salesman I got saddled with.

I am looking at spending close to $4000 with them, and its almost like the sales guy I got could care less about my business. They are located exactly where I want a shop to be and have the facilities to handle my powder coating needs, but man, its like pulling teeth to get anything out of my salesguy there.

Has anyone else had a similar experience? if not who is your contact there that has always taken care of you, because I still want to give them my business, but I am on the verge of going somewhere else because of the inability of my contact to handle my needs.

Just for those that are wondering what's going on, here it is.

I'll start by saying that I haven't done business with them at all yet, so this is all pre-first visit to their facility.

I called 8 days ago and spoke with this guy there, and he was very helpful, and spent 30 minutes on the phone with me giving me advice about Audi aftermarket options. I told him I had some things I wanted to do to my car, and I wanted to know pricing and if they could handle my needs. Which are;

1. Remove brake calipers all 4 corners.
2. Take tires off of wheels.
3. Bring Calipers and Wheels to powder coat place. (He quoted me 50-70 a wheel and between 250 and 400 for the calipers)
4. When they come back sell me and install stainless lines (he quoted me $160 all 4 corners for stoptech).
5. Sell and Flush with Motul Brake fluid.
6. Sell and Install Pagid RS42 Blue on all 4 corners.
7. Sell me JHM 2 piece rotors front and rear.
8. Sell and Install JHM Short Shifter.
9. Sell and install black wheel lug covers.
10. Sell me and custom tune using REVO and the seitcher (his suggestion, over the APR solution, and he doesnt resell GIAC).

He said it was all no problem, and then told me he would get me quote (as I hoped to have had this all ordered and installed by now, whereas I am still havent even found a shop to handle everything for me yet!). 2 days go by, no quote. I call and a leave a message, no call or quote, I call again the next day and I think it took 3 calls before I got him, and then he FINALLY sent me a quote, 5 days after the day he said he would send it to me intially.

And the quote was about 45% wrong. He was missing items from the quote, and the estimate for powder coating went from $500-$750 to a straight $925. Part of the reason I wanted to go with them is because the powder coating wasn't going to cost me $1000, but was going to be 50% or at the very worst 75% of that amount. None of this is that major of a deal, but I called him and kind of laid in on the line.

"I want to be your customer, but you are making it very hard when you cant get me a quote in a timely manner, can't get it correct, and tell me different pricing on the phone than what is in the quote. I am ready for you to order all these parts for me, and take my credit card and ring me up for maybe about $2000 today, but not until the quote looks a little more sorted out and the pricing is correct."

So he says he's sorry, and that he will send me the revised and fixed quote right away (that was of course 4 hours ago, and no quote in my inbox, imagine that). We also basically agree that *I* will have to take my car to the powder coater to get a real price from them as to how much it will cost for my calipers and wheels. My entire purpose for taking it to Eurocode is because I have no time to work on my car. Everything I am having them do I can easilly do myself, I just don't have time to do it. I am willing to pay them the 3 or 4 hours of labor its going to take to get the calipers/brakes off and then back on the car, as well as the labor to install JHM shifter, plus they are going to make some margin on all the parts I buy from them.

Maybe I am just small potatos, or maybe I just got the proverbial rotten apple of a guy who works there who either doesnt have his act together or just doesnt really care. He is a nice guy, and willing to give out loads of advice, and I like that about him, but I am trying to give them my money, and they are making it awfully awfully hard to do that.

Another idea for a license plate... I think I like this one..

2009-03-25T12:34:00.001-07:00

What do you think? I am thinking I want to move away from my previous theme which was MY xx. After seeing that guy with his MY V8 M3 over the weekend I think I am over the theme. Ideally I would get S4AVANT or B7AVANT but those are already taken.

So I came up with this, I think its kind of cool how the S from the RINGS also works for the S4.

I am wondering if there are other cool combinations in this style.

S4RINGS maybe?

Help me pick out a license plate!

2009-03-17T10:43:00.000-07:00

Hey all, I need some help picking out a license plate for the new car. Here are some ideas I came up with, let me know which one you like, or what you think;

2006 Audi S4 Avant, the new toy.

2009-03-16T16:12:00.000-07:00

So, I just bought a 2006 Audi S4 Avant. I haven't even taken delivery of it yet, but its mine nonetheless!

I've already started to discuss my possible options with my buddy "AudiExpert". There is most likely a fairly long list of things I want to do to the car, but to start with here is the order I plan on tackling things;

1. Bring the car to Audi and plunk down between $200 and $500 for 2 new keys, as this one only came with a single key (SOOO lame, I wish I could get a hold of the last owner and get the damn keys from them).

2. Take off the shifter and fix the detached shift boot (it looks like it is probably just a retaining clip that needs to be re attached).

3. Potentially replace the passenger side sun visor, as the previous owner clearly had a garage door remote control hanging off of it, and it left some permanent indentations in it. If this is less than $100 I'll do it, if its more I'll not bother.

4. Bring the car to a detail shop and have them steam clean the headliner, as there is some dog hair and maybe splashed fluid up there. Looks like kids maybe spilled a coke or something and some got onto the headliner. Also, while its there have them try to buff out the scuff marks that exist on the top of the rear bumper.

5. There is also one of the removable carpeted panels in the trunk area that has some gouges out of it, clearly from a stroller or something, and I want to replace that piece as well.

6. I will also put on clear side markers, and smoked taillight covers, as well as clear front headlight covers.

7. I need to find some black non-rustable wheel bolts as well, for after I get the wheels powder coated black.

8. Those are the basics. Now I want to drop it off at a shop, which is probably going to be Eurocode Tuning here in Torrance and have them do the following;

Install a new exhaust (which I would rather buy used, and woudl like to hear before I decide which one to buy).
Install a drop in filter (NOT K&N, maybe a Green filter or a ITG).
Do a chip reprogramming. They resell a few chip manufacturers tunes, but not GIAC, which is pretty much my favorite.
Have them remove all the calipers and take all 5 tires off of the 5 wheels. Then drop the wheels and calipers off to get sandblasted clean of all rust and paint. The wheels will have their curb rash sanded and smoothed, and then wheels powder coated a semi-gloss or satin black, with the calipers in maybe a medium silver, or perhaps just gloss black.
Then when it all comes back to the shop, pick the 4 tires that don't have any patches and use those as my main set of 4, with the patched tire as the spare. If more than 1 have patches I'll pick out the best looking out of the tires, and make sure to mark the inside sidewall to identify it as a patched tire.
I'll also have the shop put on stainless lines, new pads (maybe Axxiss Ultimates, Maybe Hawk HPS, maybe Mintex), and flush the whole system with super blue.
I also want to discuss with them putting a trailer hitch on, and making that work. Since I can find CLass II hitches for the A4 Avant, but not the S4 this is going to take some custom work to make it all fit I fear.

Now the rest of the items are all "Want to Do's" for now. But I am not really sure what order they will come in.

1. I also want to eventually replace the front grill with a blacked out RS4 grill, and then need to figure out what I am going to do for more blackout on the car. Perhaps the brushed silver trim and roof racks, or maybe I'll leave it the way it is and simply do the front grill and fog light grills with something that looks like this;

2. Then a nice medium tint on the back 5 windows, and something very very light on the 2 front windows.

3. I want to find some bumper protector for the rear of the car. Where I can permanently attach a piece of rubber or foam that I can easily swing out of the car and dangle against the rear bumper to protect it.

4. I also want to find some pieces of ABS plastic and glue them onto the front bumper valance/splitter section. So that if and when I scrape on something it doesnt hit paint but rather hits a piece of black ABS plastic.

5. The stasis center diff that allows a torque biasing of 4:1 rear to front instead of the stock 2:1 rear to front.

6. Lastly I want to get some form of coilovers. This very much depends upon what people say about towing, and if coilovers will work better since I can stiffen up the back end when I am towing.

The ELISE is sold! A Sad and Happy day for me.

2009-03-11T17:30:00.000-07:00

So, as you may know I sold the Elise to a fella in Wisconsin. We spent a lot of time chatting on the phone about cars and we are very like minded people. I am confident that the Elise is in good hands and will be enjoyed for years to come. He plans on taking it to Road America once the snow clears up, and I am happy that the car wont just sit in someones garage not getting driven properly.

I don't feel like I went above and beyond, considering the guy bought the car from me, close to my asking price without ever having seen anything expect 30 or so pictures of it. But he was so excited about our interaction he wrote me this very nice email;

**************
The car arrived late Saturday (after dark) and it looks great. My son, Robert, came home from college for the weekend just for the occasion.

We still have a ton of snow here, but a stretch of warmer weather melted most all the snow from the roads. We just couldn’t resist, so we went for a short drive as soon as the truck pulled away. WOW!!! Was that fun. We both got behind the wheel, and I even got it on the second cam for a short stretch. The next day we got 5 inches of new snow.

The car is exactly as you described, and I couldn’t have asked for a better seller. Thank you for all of your candor and patience.

I’ll forward photos and updates as they become available. Your car has made us very happy. (The previous sentence was a vast understatement.) I hope you don’t mind me sharing some kind words about you on the Lotus Forum.
*************************

Basically the guy is what my dad would call a "Mensh". Real great to deal with, totally on top of things, flexible when it came to payment. Just a great experience. But now that the Burgundy baby is gone I have some figuring to do. Buy a 2007 Exige S? (If I can find one in my comfort price zone) Buy a full race car? Do something I have always wanted to do, and buy an 1988-1991 e30 M3 replace the motor, and completely convert it to a fully prepped track car? buy an 01 or 02 BMW ///M Coupe and strip the interior, upgrade the suspension, add a roll bar and harnesses, a new seat, replace the steering wheel and have one of the fastest hatchbacks on the planet? Too many choices, too many choices.

I have been saying I am selling the Elise because I want an Exige S, and that's the truth. An Exige S is damn close to the pinnacle of a sports car. I am certain nothing feels quite as connected and fun as one (even though many cars are faster). It is fast enough though to feed that need I have to not deal with being passed all the time on the track. I dont mind people passing me perse, what I do mind is people holding me up in every turn, and then punching their 405HP Corvette's down the straight keeping me from passing them just to be holding me up again at turn 2. The Exige S with a tune pushing 250HP or so (and weighing 2150pounds wet with driver) I hope would be a VERY fast car around a track. It might not have EXPLOSIVE acceleration like a Z06 or a GT3, ubut it has SOOO much handling capability that you should be able to maintain so much speed through the turns that you can get to the end of a straight at a higher speed than an even faster car who has to come onto the front straight at a much slower speed.

So decisions to be made, but in the interum I am shopping for a daily driver, than a house, than a track car!

A Mazda 6 rental and my impressions

2009-03-11T16:40:00.000-07:00

This is my rental car;

2009
Mazda 6
Grey
Cloth Interior
5000 miles
Automatic slushbox

Here are my impressions of this car;

First off this car is nice, but very soft. I can not get comfortable in it, I cant adjust the seat and steering wheel to actually feel good at the wheel. And let me tell you, automatics suck, they really, truly completely suck. This car has the old steptronic "put it in a gear manually and 'shift' nonsense", which kind of helps, but here are my problems with it (or at least my findings);

1. It will stay in gear when you manually choose that gear and ride the rev limiter, which would be good, but really isnt because you cant hear the motor at all, so you have no idea whats going on until you look down and see the tach at redline. It doesnt bounce off the limiter, but just sits there riding it.

2. If you manuallly choose a gear, and are at say 3500 and you punch it, you want to floor it in that gear, not necesarilly downshift, and THEN punch it. Which is what happens.

2a. So you are going through a light, in 3rd gear that you manually chose, and you punch it to get through quickly, instead of just leaving it in 3rd and increasing the gas/air into the motor it does this;

PAUSE------PAUSE-------DOWNSHIFT INTO 2nd-----THEN GO

Which is much damn slower then jus increasing your speed a tad in 3rd gear, its not like 3500rpms is that taxing on the motor or anything.

3. The throttle is overboosted, meaning that the first 2 inches of the throttle are quite hard to modulate, its hard to take off from a stop without the car 'rushing' to get off the line. It makes the car feel fast, but they need to make the throttle pedal more linear.

4. The brakes are as touchy as any brakes I have ever used, it makes me feel like I am bad driver, I can not smoothly and lightly apply the brakes. Its kind of an all on or all off sort of deal. Weird coming from a Mazda.

5. Its handling is .... well what you would expect from a mid grade mid sized crappily tired family sedan. I would say from my limited driving it is marginally better than a Monte Carlo, but only marginally so. It does NOT bestow confidence. i.e. when I take a few turns going to my work in even a Honda Accord or Civic the car feels planted and while it has lots of body roll still begs me to feed on the throttle. This Mazda 6 feels wet loose and just floaty, and I am somewhat scared to feed on the right foot, since the car is so wallowy. A fun track car this would not be, at all.

6. Fit and finish are nice. Its decent quality, somewhere between a Mercedes and a Ford. Its solid, and looks 'nice'.

7. The placement of things is a total mystery to me. I am not short, or do I have short arms, and it is damn hard to reach half of the controls on th radio. The door lock and door handle are so far foward in the door it is actually awkward to lock the doors, so much so that I find myself not doing it, and I ALWAYS lock car doors when I am driving.

8. It has a 1/8" mini AUX input, which every single car in the world should come with, this is one of the first cars I have driven where I get to h0ok up my iphone, its nice. It also can read MP3 and WMA disks, but really who cares in this day and age. The Audi SD card slot for MP3s is way more slick if you ask me.

9. Lastly, something is weirdish with the windshield. The angle of the windshield or just the curvature of it makes my vision look a bit weird. When I am loking straight ahead things are just the slightest bit off, maybe its an interaction between my glasses and the windshield, but it would be enough to bother me if I owned this car.

So in a nutshell, this car is OK, but pretty lackluster and pretyt unmoving. I think I would rather have the Toyota/Honda/Nissan offering in ths same class if push came to shove, but I am sure they are slightly more money.

The REAL sad part about this rental car is that I was on the verge of renting a Porsche Cayman for the 2 days, but they didnt have one available. It woudl have been a waste of $300 considering my pretty boring ass commute, but at leats I would have been in a very cool car that I have never driven before (even if it was the wimpy non-S version and had the "I am a complete lame-ass" automatic tranny).

24 Hours of LeMons was AWESOME!

2008-12-30T13:04:00.000-08:00

So those that didn't know, I am partook in a race called the 24 Hours of LeMons last Saturday and Sunday, and it was AMAZINGLY fun!

I took all of last week off and basically dedicated it to cars (which is a pretty damn good way to spend a week if you ask me), it went something like this;

Saturday12/20 = Drive from LA to Bay Area.
Sunday 12/21 = Head over to Ben's house and work on the race car till 2am.
Monday 12/22 = Ben's house again. The team needed to finish installing the seat and harnesses, installing 3rd tail light, changing of all fluids, installing new shifter, cleaning up wiring in engine bay, tune the engine, get decent tires mounted, move battery to back of car, clean up all wiring in cockpit, attempt to put on new lower control arms, install the fire suppression system, wash car, and apply all decals to the outside. Oh yeah, at Ben's till 2am.
Tuesday 12/23 = See Monday
Wednesday 12/24 = See Monday
Thursday 12/25 = Go to XMas party and stay up till 3am.
Friday 12/26 = Wake up at 5am to head to Sacramento to pickup Andrew and then head to the track to stake a claim on some good covered paddock space, since we expected rain. We then did a track day in Andrew's track prepped miata just to get some track time in, but his clutch started to go, so we parked his car and called it a day.

Yeah yeah, I bought a new race suit..

2008-12-08T16:37:00.000-08:00

That last suit (The Challenge by Sparco) was nice, very nice actually. 3 Layer, Exceeded SFI3.2/5 fire safety ratings, but was as thick as a frickin comforter (or at least it felt that way), so I went ahead and traded it in for another 3 layer suit, called the Sparco "Sparco". Yes the model name is the same as the brand, don't ask me. Its just as safe, but is about 2/3's as thick and bulky, which means it is quite comfortable. They didnt have it in grey, so I went out on a limb, and bought a crazy color called "Celeste". Check it out (and as the crasftman poinmted out, I am INDEED a Sparco fanboy.)

New pictures, right after a detail!

2008-12-08T16:34:00.000-08:00

This car transformed from being beautiful to being something greater than umm, well, beautiful I suppose. I took it to a place in West Hollywood called Melrose Strip Detail to get it gone over, and my lord they did an amazing job. Any and all swirls marks, gone. All little detritis chillin on the paint, gone, the whole thing just looks amazing. Oh yeah, and it was all for $109.95!

Check out some pics if you would like;

Pics post Detail

So I am ready for the 24 hours of LeMons race!

2008-11-17T10:41:00.000-08:00

Andrew and I did some shopping this weekend and I am now ready for the race at the end of the month. You have no idea how hot all this stuff is, man, I don't know how people do this all the time! Nothing like driving a $500 85 Mustang 5.0 to make you really think about your needs as they relate to fire preparedness!!!!

Pin / Racing stripes fixed

2008-11-12T09:56:00.001-08:00

So last week I brought my car to www.stickercity.com to have them fix some of the racing stripe that had faded and been scratched. Dean, the owner of Sticker city calls it rusting, which I suppose is sort of what it was, somewhat of an oxidization of the metallic content of the racing stripe. Also, some of the black pinstripe (which I am now realizing seems to be made of inferior quality material) was sun damaged, so he went through and fixed that as well.

We found the EXACT brand and model of grey metallic film, but he had to order it from the manufacturer, which means I am now the proud owner of about 10 yards (by 2 feet wide) of metallic grey vinyl film. Anybody want to do a stripe job on their car! hahaha

I'll post picks once I get the car back from the mechanic, who is sorting out the 3 or 4 little vacuum hoses for my newly acquired and installed stock airbox. Which by the way, has made a world of difference for simply how the car idles and runs.

Maybe there IS a way to drain the oil Coolers

2008-11-11T16:47:00.000-08:00

So I think I might have found the beginnings of a way to drain the oil from the Coolers and lines. The Oil Filter block has those 2 elbows coming off of it running to the front of the car, so I could tap into those rubber lines, OR I might be able to use that threaded hole that currently has that black bolt in it, or even perhaps I can use

I was under the car yesterday and was poking my head around checking stuff out, and it looks like the oil cooler lines are rubber (sweet) and terminate into the front of the oil filter block. There is also a drain nipple (like a brake caliper) on the bottom of that oil filter block. I think I would need to take the oil filter block off to see how the internal channels go, it depends if that bleed nipple connects to one hose, both, or neither. If it connects to just one hose then its really easy, my plan would be;

1. On the hose that is not connected to the bleed valve add an inline valve as close to the oil filter block as possible.
2. Downline of that on/off valve and potentially directly screwed into the on/off valve (i.e. closer to the front of the car) attack a petcock or any type of inline drain valve that has an on/off and a barbed protrusion.
3. I would need to rig up a gallon of oil that had a silicon tube attached to the barb/nipple on the petcock.
4. Then you open the drain valve on oil filter block, and as the oil drains out the new oil feeds into the system.

Here is a great picture of the lines going to the oil coolers. Theoretically this could be done on the front hose as well, assuming its rubber and accessible. There is also that black bolt for a presumeably unused port of equal size to the 2 that are being used for the rubber hoses. Who knows, maybe I could use that in some way!

http://www.lotusgarage.com/shop/images/products/112_elise_46.03_large.jpg

The BEST Lotus color available.

2008-11-11T10:51:00.000-08:00

Well, I suppose it WAS available. I haven't seen it except on 2006 or 2007 Exige's. I REALLY love this color, and think it would look amazing with some black stripes right down the center.

First Oil Change, and a design flaw is discovered!

2008-10-19T19:23:00.000-07:00

So in a nutshell, the Elise is badass, one of the things that make it badass is either 1 or 2 oil coolers at the front of the engine, oil coolers are great, right? Well in my opin not when they make up 44% of the oil in the system, and there is no way to drain them. Who the hell designed that part of the car? So i have historically been SUPER anal about oil changes... I let the old oil drain out for hours, to make sure every last drop is out, then I run 1/2 of a quart of fresh, new, expensive oil through the system, some through the oil filler on the valve cover and some through the oil filter pickup reservoir (from my BMW days where there is a reservoir with a filter element, and not a metal canister filter) to get out the reamining driplets of the old. Once that has drained for at least 30 minutes, THEN I close everything up and put the new oil in. When you check the dipstick it looks like new oil, there is maybe 1% of the old stuff stuck in nooks and crannies, but I am ok with a 99% - 1% ratio of new to old. I also routineyl (maybe once a year or every other year) use Amsoil oil flush which completely breaks down your oil to make it the consistency of water, thus getting even MORE of the oil out of your motor.

Now I have been posting back and forth about this on LotusTalk, here is the whole thread.

If you want just the juicy bits, here it is;

"I would never do it every oil change, I tend to do it every 15k-25k miles or so, and what I am concerned with with this whole topic is motor longevity. You can take filthy, disgusting, gnarly oil and put it in an engine with 10k miles on it and then run it for 3k miles and it will most definitely be OK. Its a almost brand new engine, and is at the very beginning of its life. But I am thinking 100k down the line, 200 track days later, and while having old oil in a motor will seldom have an immediately negative impact its kind of like smoking. Eat 3 steaks in 1 day, or even do it for 6 months, it wont have any immediate affect, but do it every day for your whole life, and there is a pretty good chance you are going to have yourself some problems. That's how I see oil, its like eating healthy, but for your motor!

Its also not like the engine will suddenly seize up 1 mile past at 100k just because you only changed your oil every 15k or 20k miles. But as parts start to wear, and things start to break (which inevitably WILL happen) having old, dirty, broken down oil running through the system throughout its life will definitely have an impact. I am not an engineer, but I have a close friend who is a chemist, and he has always drilled into my head the importance of having 'fully functioning" (as he calls it) oil in an engine. I have to say, he gets an obscene amount of miles from his automobiles before they start having problems, so I tend to listen to what he says. I also think that engines under normal load conditions driven lightly (such as 99% of all drivers on the roads) will be affected far less from dirty oil. But in my opinion high performance cars where you are constantly bringing the engine to the peak of its efficiency, temp, and RPM range will be affected by not having clean and uncontaminated oil in the system.

I just did some research, and the manual states that our engine holds 4.4 liters of oil and the oil cooler and lines leading to it hold 3.5 liters. It also states that the oil from the lines/cooler/s isn't drained out on an oil change. That's 56% in the engine and 44% in the oil cooler/lines.

Again, maybe I am alone here, but that's like going to get an oil change at Jiffy lube, and if your car takes 7 quarts telling them to only drain out 4, and to leave 3 quarts of old, dirty, broken down oil in the engine. That's ludicrous, never in a million years would someone WANT to leave that much of their old oil in.

I did some comparative analysis today of my oil BEFORE the change, FRESH oil, and then 20 miles AFTER the change. See what each looks like in this pic;

I also plan on sending the BEFORE oil (which most likely was about 5k miles worth of use) and the AFTER oil to BlackStone Labratories to see what they say about the oil.

So while I understand that this is the way oil changes go on Elises/Exiges and that everyone simply goes with the flow and swaps out 56% of their oil per change, it definitely bothers me, and unless I can find some already existing method for draining the whole system, I want to look into engineering some part and/or process to get it all out. Now understandably there is always some oil left in the motor itself, there isnt much you can do about that, I am OK with leaving up to maybe 5% of the old oil in all the nooks and crannies in there, its the 44% PLUS the potential 5% stuck in the motor that scares me!"

More thoughts on the initial ECU Dump

2008-10-07T14:48:00.000-07:00

In response to SuperGoober's comments about the ECU dump;

I wonder about the validity of that report though. So if you look at the engine speed section you are referring to you will notice that the first number doesnt have a descriptor (so we assume thats 1-2500, but I have a feeling its actually 1500-2500 given the other ranges listed, and that 0-1500 is left out).

You also will notice that the engine speed scale ends at 7500 rpms, so anything between 7500 and the sky isnt listed (which is so ridiculousy lame IMO, these are the numbers I care about the most, and its left out, WTF?!?).

I added up all the hours and minutes and got 184 hours and about 36 minutes. The total engine time is listed as 262 hours and 32 minutes.

So 262 minus 184 is 78 hours of rpms that are either below 2500 or above 7500. Your guess is as good as mine (assuming we are interpreting these charts correctly) as to how that 78 hours is allocated between those 2 extremely different ranges!

The ECU dump from 9970 miles right before I bought the car.

2008-10-07T12:56:00.001-07:00

Here is the ECU dump you can do on a Lotus. Its pretyt impressive the data you can glean from this thing.

Here are some data points of interest;

Top Speed = 108 mph

Fastest 0-60 = 2.8 seconds?!? Come on, clearly thats wrong, unless it was on a dyno perhaps!

Total engine running Life = 262 hours, 32 minutes, and 43 seconds.

Standing Starts = 1 [This is the one that Lotus sees and denies warranty work for supposedly, 1 aint bad from what I hear]

100+ hours at 2500-3500 rpms

only 9 minutes at 7000-7500 rpms

4 highest revs;
--8720 rpm - 31 hours 5 mins 52 seconds ago
--8696 rpm - 31 hours 5 mins 47 seconds ago
--8688 rpm - 50 hours 42 minutes 31 seconds ago
--8640 rpm - 143 hours 15 minutes 15 seconds ago
[These first 2 sort of bother me, they were within 5 seconds of each other, chances are the person slammed through a couple of gears and the rpms wandered above redline (which is 8500 supposedly)]

NOTE: The ECU dump isnt perfect, you will see that there is 1 more highest rev, but for some reason it cut off the number, it was 30 hours 57 minutes and 37 seconds ago. so clearly whoever was driving that car on that day was really pushing it.

I cant wait to get another ECU dump every 6 - 12 months and keep comparing the notes, to see many revs i have put on the motor, what new speeds I have attained, and a clear picture of my driving style (i.e. at what speed and at what rpmp the majority of driving come from)

With the Elise comes the blog.

2008-10-03T16:57:00.001-07:00

Well I did it. I have been talking about it, threatening it, and promising it. But I finally did it. I bought an Elise.

Last Sunday my buddy Mike sends me a link to an Autotrader post for an 05 Elise, 9970 miles, Bordeaux Red, grey racing stripes, Sports Package, no Touring Package, Body color matched shift console, Maxogen/ITG Carbon cold air intake, complete StarShielf and Lotus Stage 2 Exhaust.

Its in Seattle, I start making calls, I completely bail on my Sunday plans for this car, and next thing I know I am flying Virgin America (first class mind you) to Seattle Monday morning at 7am, and by 3pm I am the owner of a used (and slightly abused) Elise!

Now granted, it aint no showroom perfect car, nor is it someone's baby that has been meticulously cared for, but I got it for a good deal, and it is going to be a track car that sees street use on occasion. here is a pic of it, looking filthy living outside in the Seattle weather.

Here is a quick little video i made walking around the car;

MY FIRST DRIVE / MY IMPRESSIONS OF THE CAR;
So my impression of the car after my first drive is that its loud, REALLY loud. The Stage 2 exhaust and the Maxogen Cold Air Intake make the thing nutty loud. Plus it doesn't have the touring package which adds some layer of sound deadening. You can hear the air filter 'whooshing' air into the car with a quick blip of the right pedal, and the exhaust groans like crazy and start wailing when you hit the second cam at 6000 rpms. When I mean loud, I mean loud enough that I could NEVER have a phone conversation while driving this thing the way it is. Whether I am OK with that or not is still up for debate. On top of that it does the little "lift throttle burbles" that P. so dearly loves.

My second impression is that these seats suck for comfort. I mean suck dilly sucktastic. They feel like pieces of metal with 1 inch of padding and some cloth thrown over em! If I wasnt so thin it might not be so bad, but when you feel your belt pressing into your pelvic bones, you know pain is on the way.

My particular car has crappy tires on it, Toyo Proxes F4, tires I would put on a Yaris, maybe, but definitely not an Elise. I tell you this because even with those crappy tires the thing is on rails. Thats my 3rd impression and the most important one, the thing frickin handles, its inasane how well. Also, because its so loud and I am not used to it even being at 30 and accelerating to 50 feels like a rush, its a measly 20 mph but the noise is so invigorating that you forget you aren't actually driving fast at all!

The car isnt perfect, at all. Its been used decently hard I am sure. The idle sometimes wanders a bit, and requires a little blippety-blip to get it going smooth. But hey, its got a CAI and an exhuast, I wouldnt expect it to idle perfectly. The seats have a little noticeable wear on em, but I doubt there is much you could do about that, and the body has lots of little road rash dings and scratches, which are mostly in the clear Starshield, so if I want to spend the money I could have pieces of that replaced. But its going to be a track car, and is going to see dirt, flying debris, and will get more mechanical attention than beauty attention, thats been my M.O. for my tracks car in the past.

WHY I WAS SO STOKED ABOUT THIS PARTICULAR CAR:
Well, for a few reasons. I have been looking for a car that had the Sports Package and NO Touring Package. The Sports package is key because it drops 20 pounds from the total weight of the car, and all of that is in the wheels. I personally like the look of the sport wheels much better, and it weighs substantially less, look at this comparison, stock vs. LSS (Lotus Sport Suspension);

STOCK

	Front	Rear
Dimensions	16" x 5.5"	17" x 7.5"
Bolt pattern	4 x 100	4 x 100
Weight	15.17 lbs (6.88kg)	20.94 lbs (9.50kg)

SPORT

	Front	Rear
Dimensions	16" x 6.5"	17" x 7.5"
Bolt pattern	4 x 100	4 x 100
Weight *	12 lbs (5.44kg) *	14 lbs (6.35kg)*

That's 3 pounds lighter up front per wheel and almost 7 pounds lighter per wheel in back! Thats 20 pounds of unspring weight, THATS HUGE! Thats the same (some say) as taking 80 pounds off of the car itself! Not only that but the fronts are an inch wider and come with more rubber (195's vs. 175's)

The Sport Suspension also comes with coiliver suspsension (Bilsteins), though it is not adjustable at all it is still supposedly stiffer than the stock. Most people say going with Nitron's makes a big difference, but then again I am a guy who ran stock ///M Coupe susspension for the entire time I had the car on the track and never felt like I "needed" coilovers. So we will see how long I keep these LSS coilovers.

Now the other thing is that the Touring Package adds 15 pounds to the car with sound deadening, leather trim on the seats and door panels, and it does have electric windows, which supposedly weigh less than the milled aluminum window cranks on the stock version like mine.

But really by having one and not the other I am down 35 pounds from a regular elise with just the touring pack, which is how most of them come. My car also has the stage 2 exhuast, which supposedly does absolutely nothing for power, but saves 8 pounds from stock, and is louder, these stats according to Sector111.

Now you have to understand that the vast majority of these cars have the touring package and NO sport package. I now know that I would probably be OK with a touring package with Sports package, and I would just remove some of the carpeting from the interior, and after I experienced the crazy loudness of my Elise I might have been OK with the sound deadening. But I REALLY wanted the sports package, because I think I'll end up running the Sports Suspension for quite a while before I feel like I need to upgrade, and the wheels, I dislike the stock wheels immensely and LOVE the look of the Sport wheels (and I love the lightness and wider fronts). To get a decent looking set of aftermarket wheels looks to cost about $2k, and I am just not willing to pay that for such small wheels when the Sport Wheels look so good IMO.

I also loved this car because this is one of the 5 colours I wanted for the car. Plus, I was already thinking of doing the racing stripes, so when I saw this car was Dark Metallic Burgundy WITH grey racing stripes it was one step closer to being mine.

WHAT I NEED TO DO TO THE CAR;
First thing for me is to take it to 3 places, one is a pin stripe repair shop, two is a Lotus mechanic that can give it a thorough inspection and do a complete fluid change for me, and three is an auto upholstery place that can add some padding to the seat and maybe make it even slightly more comfortable!

I called some shops and it looks like the BEST place for me to go is Sticker City, they specialize in automobile vinyl and the owner Andy is supposedly a Lotus nut, has an Exige himself. This is pretty obvious when you realize they have a page dedicated to all their Lotus product offerings! I need him to fix some of the racing stripe, and then to redo some pinstriping, these pictures make it clear as to why;

Once thats done I plan on taking it to one of 3 shops that came very highly recommended in the area to go get the final inspection and all the fluids swapped out. I really want them to go overboard, remove the underside panels, check all the bolts for proper tightness, give the engine a real inspection, remove the ITG filter, clean it, and respray it, clean the MAF, the works.

I just need to find a good upholstery shop that can add my padding and maybe add some more leather or perhaps alcantra on the worn parts of the seats.

Then I feel like its read for its first track day. I plan on running it in its stock configuration for the first day, leave it the way it is, with the less-than-stellar tires and all.

Stay tuned for the next blog post about the car's history, and all the items I already ordered and plan on putting on the car at the earliest opportunity........