Golf Version 3.2 Progressing Slowly

[Bildon]

Race Cats are available if interested.

[Knestis]

And - drum roll, please - we appear to be ready for the SARRC/MARRS next weekend at VIR. With actual days to spare. Just need a final bolt check, brake bleed, and tire pressure adjustment, and I think we're ready to go.



Big thanks for the help I've had from Bildon Motorsports, Competition Cages, Koni suspension, Phil's Tire Service, 247-parts.com, and New South Performance.



Most of all, a HUGE thank you to Cameron Conover (introducing Conover Engines/Transaxles for VW products) for his tireless work. I keep throwing Red Bull and pizza at him, and he keeps doing the good stuff We were barely done taking pictures in front of his shop, when we started talking about what the next project would be. More pics...





See you at VIR!

K

[RSTPerformance]

Nice!!!!

[iambhooper]

Nice looking ride! Glad to see it finished.

I'm sure the view of the rear of it will be quite nice! See you friday!

hoop

[VW16VRacer]

Kirk

Congradulations on all the hard work. The car looks great, something to be proud of! Hope all is well on the first outing.

Jon

[JeffYoung]

Looks awesome! Can't wait to see it run at VIR.

[JLawton]

Soooooo, how did the race go??????

[Knestis]

We had a pretty good debut, if we focus on the important stuff. Things I learned...

** When one formats CF card for the DL1, they need to be FAT16 rather than FAT32

** When your technician says, "Dude - just buy a new O2 sensor now, so we don't have to worry about it," you just DO it.

** Rust grows on drivers just as fast in the SE as it does in the NW.

** It's a hell of a lot of fun to have a knock-down, drag-out race for 8th, and even more fun to have two of them.

** We are still off the pace of the B frontrunners but I was battling with the stock rev limit (5200 in 4th!), and the aforementioned crapped out O2 sensor put our AFR numbers down around 11.5-12 under full-load acceleration. Stinkola. News is that we'll benefit from Bildon's chip tuning effort here in short order, and a new O2 sensor is on the list.

** You can put a big rear bar on an FWD car and will still push, if you turn in like a big puss.

** There are a lot of fans of blue race cars out there.

** All of the undercoating, extra wiring, trim, and other minor crap you can take off of a race car weighs only a little more than the aforementioned rear bar. Even at that, with skinny Lawton driving, we might want to not have skinny Lawton in the driver's seat and an empty tank when we finish the enduro...

** An IR test indicated a 70*F difference between the intake manifold and head (130 vs. 200), in the hot pits after the Saturday race, with the new PowerGasket that we were testing for NewSouth Performance. I trusted the product enough to use it but was waiting for some data on which to base any conclusions of value, so it's kind of cool that it works as advertised.

** Mom got a 5th-place SARRC trophy on Sunday, thanks to a really worthy outside pass by David Jones (Honda CRX), into the left at the end of the climbing straight, before Rollercoaster.

K

[JeffYoung]

I saw it run and it looks good. The rev limiter and the wonkered O2 sensor have to be worth at least 2-3 seconds -- Pablo 2 has potential.

Good job guys.

[JamesB]

It was great meeting you Kirk. I hope to chase you down once again. Between chasing you in Friday (thanks for the fast lap 2 spots behind you) qualifing and a lot of hard work to get around Dave Jones only to blow it in 1 a lap later in saturdays race was the best.


I will try to stop by before the races start at the 12 hour, ill be working the pits. Otherwise, see you next year. It sucks about my motor, but I will be out there soon enough. Our first goal is to see if we can figure out why the head gasket poped on #2 and melted the head in that area.

[Bildon]

** aforementioned crapped out O2 sensor put our AFR numbers down around 11.5-12 under full-load acceleration. Stinkola. News is that we'll benefit from Bildon's chip tuning effort here in short order, and a new O2 sensor is on the list.

Confused about the 02 sensor comments. At WOT the car runs closed loop on a map disregarding the 02 circuit. Are you OBD1 ? Our new ECU mods do away with the OE maps and use only 1 high resolution (24x24) map. The part throttle, full throttle and start up maps will be removed.

** You can put a big rear bar on an FWD car and will still push, if you turn in like a big puss.

;-) Use that diff! It works under power ;-) :P

** There are a lot of fans of blue race cars out there.

Yes...we're like flies to a zapper.

** An IR test indicated a 70*F difference between the intake manifold and head (130 vs. 200), in the hot pits after the Saturday race, with the new PowerGasket that we were testing for NewSouth Performance. I trusted the product enough to use it but was waiting for some data on which to base any conclusions of value, so it's kind of cool that it works as advertised.

I just dyno tested one of these.
Some thoughts.
Did you do that same test prior to using this gasket?
Where on the head and intake where you taking the temp readings?
Did you check your IAT before an after?
Our conclusion was that the temp of the column of air inside the manifold (IAT) was not changed.
This is not to say that it's useless. Should it hold up over time I thnk it may provide a bit of under hood temp relief.

[Knestis]

Take technical comments from ol' Kirk with a grain of salt. He's just a driver.**

On the O2 question, we got a CEL indicating a battery positive to ground short failure of the sensor. Without benefit of Cameron's full-time support this weekend (life intervenes) I attributed what looked to me like too-low AFR numbers to that cause. I leave it to the experts to help me understand where I'm confused.

Regarding the PowerGasket, please note that this is a Your Mileage May Very moment. The numbers above (a) should not be construed as official representation from NewSouth Performance, (b ) was not done in any kind of context or conditions where we controlled other variables, and (c ) are only shared because I was surprised that the delta was that much, based solely on my first impressions.

K

** And it's a shame that he isn't better at that, too.

[mgyip]

Kirk - the car looked good. I made a point of watching the ITB/ITC/SRX7 crash-fests since I had 3 paddock-mates in that race - James in the black A2 Golf, David in a black 2002 and Kevin in a blue Civic DX. The car certainly looks good but I think it would be better in City of Minneapolis Municipal Orange with the Star and Bars on the roof - oh wait, that's already been done

Sorry I didn't get a chance to stop by and say "Hi" - I was busy running around doing errands for myself on Fri (buying a spare trailer tire to replace the one that grenaded on Thu) and finding parts for James and Kevin on Sat.

See you at the 12-Hour...consider yourself warned

[erlrich]

Damn, don't I feel like a knothead - I was looking for your white GTI in the paddock all weekend . I even watched the group 5 race Saturday from Oak Tree with the good Mr. Yip, and had no clue you were out there. Guess I need to try a little harder to keep up .

I'll probably be working a corner at the 12-hour; I'll have to stop by and say hello now that I know what I'm looking for.

[JLawton]

Even at that, with skinny Lawton driving, we might want to not have skinny Lawton in the driver's seat and an empty tank when we finish the enduro...

[/b]

Hey now!! Are you making fun of my girlish figure???

[iambhooper]

I made a point of watching the ITB/ITC/SRX7 crash-fests since I had 3 paddock-mates in that race - James in the black A2 Golf, David in a black 2002 and Kevin in a blue Civic DX. [/b]

I'm assuming your talking about Sundays race? I was in the white CRX that kept swapping spots with the red and blue Civics all day Saturday, until the engine let go on the last lap (still got 2nd though). What happened sunday?

BTW, let the folks with those two Civics know I had a blast with them!

BTW2... Kirk, nice car, and nice to finally meet you!

hoop

[mgyip]

I'm assuming your talking about Sundays race? I was in the white CRX that kept swapping spots with the red and blue Civics all day Saturday, until the engine let go on the last lap (still got 2nd though). What happened sunday? [/b]

Rant on...

Friday involved one of the MARRS front runners who t-boned a hapless spinner in an SRX7. Saturday started with the pretty blue SRX7 that took out a white Civic in South Bend on Lap 1. Don't recal the rest of the crashing on Fri or Sat however as I was occupied with other stuff.

Sunday - the hot-pink Golf had some fairly heavy RF damage from a side-to-side with an unknown assailant. On the last lap, the Golf was taken out by an SRX7 who didn't quite complete a pass before moving into the LF of the Golf. At least the Golf pilot was smart enough to take out the SRX7 as he went off - what an idiot in the SRX7.

Rant off...

[iambhooper]

So, I didn't miss any major trauma Sunday? The srx7 and the civic from Saturday... I saw them coming back on... in fact, Martin (Civic driver) listened to me and reentered up near 11, the mazda guy almost came on in the exit of 10, right as I came out!

For me, Saturday's start was a bit hairy... a couple of bonzai's from the rear, through me off and set me back a bit. I had to work a good 4 or 5 laps to get a lot of that back.

In the 2 years of racing, I had never raced with 3 other cars in my class at the same time, it was quite a blast! Too bad she broke, or we could have repeated it Sunday, except with a 1st instead of a 2nd!

[Knestis]

PS - If anyone has contact information for David Jones, let me know. He said something about video.

K

[JamesB]

Kirk thats for sure, I want to see saturdays race from his view.
I know this is what he saw the entire time from the start till I passed him and then spun (I need to work on that)