My car's finally back home and on the road. I spent the day at my mechanic's shop last Monday but had to leave it there until yesterday. They got most of the work done on Monday but the fitment of the seat required fabrication work to make it work. It was done on Friday but we had a minor snow storm in the morning so on the way to work I decided I was going to call a flatbed instead of driving it home. I stopped by the shop on the way home and decided I'd just pick it up on Saturday instead.
The day before I dropped the car off I went and bought this set of RS6 reps from a friend. I used these wheels when I moved my car to the new house last year but since then he hit a pothole that bent one of them. He was planned to get them refinished so he could sell them so I just offered him the difference between his preferred sell price and the refinishing cost. It was a win-win, he got his money with none of the time investment or haggling and I got a set of wheels to use for flatbedding and/or sending to shops to have work done in the winter. They're brutally heavy though, I haven't measured but if they aren't at least 75lbs I'll be shocked. I'll never use them to actually drive on though so I don't care, they're literally only for moving on and off flatbeds and around shops.
I had a decent list of stuff that had to be done:
- Replace the starter motor that almost left me stranded at the track last October
- Change the engine oil, just part of my standard pre-season prep
- Change the gearbox fluid, also standard pre-season prep and to check for metal shavings
- Change the brake fluid, standard pre-season prep and the fluid in the car had boiled last season
- Install the CTS Turbo intake I wrapped in gold DEI tape
- Install the CTS Turbo Catch Can
- Uninstall the 034 Motorsports 2" studs I had installed last season and replace them with a new set of 3" studs using green Loctite this time
- Install my Sparco race seat
As always my skid plate needs to be taken off so they can access the engine bay. When it was off I noticed it had done a little bit of skid plating. I'm pretty sure I know when this happened, I was driving down a country road just north of me and there was a bad dip in the road. I can't know if I would have hit the pan without the plate since there's space between them but I'm glad that I didn't have to find out.
The starter motor that was taken off looked pretty nasty. It's like it was pulled out of a shipwreck with the amount of crap all over it. They had to get it out before doing anything else because there are supposed to be two different part numbers and the only way to know which one you need is to find the number on the one in the car.
When they called their parts supplier though it still wasn't clear which one they needed for some reason so the delivery guy showed up with two motors and let them decide which one to use. We went with a rebuilt motor because it's literally half the price and has the same warranty as a brand new OEM one.
Once that was taken care of they moved onto the rest of the list. The studs were taken care of pretty easily. Before they put them in they checked one last time that I did actually want to use green Loctite. I've been told it's like liquid weld and my mechanic said that if anything goes wrong with the studs he's just going to replace the hub. He said the biggest concern is stripping the threads but I don't think that'll happen since I always thread the nuts on by hand and use a torque wrench. My mechanic also uses torque wrenches instead of air guns so the only people that actually touch my wheels are very unlikely to mess up the threads. I will need to make sure that tire and alignment shops I go to don't screw them up though.
I like to spend the day at the shop because I can see how they install parts and learn more about how things work. It's also interesting to see how some things that are supposedly bolt on aren't remotely so, more on that later. I think this is obvious by now but I also just love taking pictures and these two project cars with parts littered all over the floor presented the perfect opportunity for me. The 2002 is a Targa Newfoundland car that's been in the shop for months getting an engine build. The Mk3 is having the bay shaved right now and judging by the mess of wiring they were also doing the fusebox relocation. Having seen the effort people on the forums go to when doing this I had to ask about the cost of getting someone to do it and got a you-don't-want-to-know look. They don't know what the final bill will be yet so all they could say was it'll be thousands of dollars.
Shifting back to my car they put in some fresh Motul Gear 300. I'm always being asked by people what fluids I use but since I don't go to great lengths to use anything specific I usually forget. I've used Gear 300 since having the LSD installed so I figured I'd take a picture so I don't forget that again.
The other thing I get questioned on constantly is what brake pads I use. Since I hang out with a lot of autocross and track guys I'm surrounded by people that put a lot of thought into this. And here I am saying I just use the StopTech Street Performance pads that came with my big brake kit. I haven't had any issues with them so I just kept using them. They work great from dead cold to hauling myself down from 180+ km/h at Mosport lap after lap. I ordered a second set of pads last year so I don't get caught with my pants down in a pinch, StopTech stuff of this size isn't sitting on a shelf waiting for customers around here so I wanted to have it when I need it. I've had my brake kit for three full seasons now and I've only gone through half the friction material. That's 15 track days, 25 autocross events, and 35,000+ km of street driving and the only signs of wear are a couple minor cracks. I had them put the new pads in and put the old ones in the box so I could take a closer look at them, they're so good after all that use that I can put them back in once this new set is done.
The night before going to the shop I went to bed around 10 and mentally went through the list of stuff I needed to do to prepare. I had forgotten to wrap my intake so I spent about an hour and a half doing that in bed before going to sleep around 11:30. I've seen people only wrap the part of it above the headers but I did the whole thing because I think it just looks half assed otherwise. I cut little pieces to shape to surround the various parts that stick out of the pipe and then cut larger strips to wrap around the pipe, covering up most of those original pieces. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out considering I've never done this before.
Installing the seat was a bit of a hassle. The first attempt had my head touching the roof without my helmet on. This was the main reason I had to leave the car there all week but I'll get into that in my next post.
I had to do some cleaning in the garage when I got my car home yesterday so I haven't had a chance to vacuum and wash it yet but that's the plan for today. Then I'm going to take it for a drive in the countryside and get some pictures. The drive home was awesome though. I can actually hear the diverter valve and induction sound now, the tire letters look amazing, and the seat feels so damn supportive. It sounds, looks, and feels like more of a race car than it already did and I love it.
