Went up to Pittsburgh this weekend for an SCCA track trial. On this trip, i managed to : hit my own house, destroy a ball joint, drive 1200 miles on square rt615s, ruin said rt615s, and punch a hole in my radiator.
So, let's see if i can recall everything that happened. It's certainly a heartwarming tale of a young man overcoming adversity.
Wed. I shim the bushings for my front swaybar, which vastly improves the ride quality / handling. Previously the bushing was too tight, causing the bar to bind. I also mount up the new-to-me "only 18 autocross runs" RT615s that i had installed on my K1s a couple weeks ago. Test drive reveals that they're more or less square or something. Great. I know this is going to start off well. I rotate them and the problem seems to follow a particular tire.
Thurs. I rush to NTB after work and spend about 3 hours waiting for them to align the car. They do so to my specs, which was nice. They also have a different guy rebalance the tire that i thought had a problem. More on this later.
Fri. We're all packed and ready for adventure. I start off this adventure by backing out of the garage without being bothered to close the door. The door promptly takes this opportunity to hang out with his friend physics, and it swings open right into the frame of the garage door. After a few moments of deliberation, I give it a few ineffective shots with a sledgehammer. It shuts well enough for now.
On the road, I manage to make it to about the Kentucky border (1 hour from home) before catching a pothole that kills the alignment (more on that later). Tires are still square. The rest of the drive is relatively incident free. I measure 31mpg. When I arrived, dad heaved up on the door, there was a loud "pop" and suddenly the door opened and closed perfectly. I spend the rest of the evening checking out cool stuff at "tranquility base" my parents cabin in gibsonia.
Sat. Dad and I set out for the track. Tires are still square. We arrive without incident, and I eyeball my alignment. Thinking that the left rear camber is out, I crank on the adjuster a few times until it eyeballs about even. Never you mind the 1/8" toe in I just added. Resigned to the fact that my alignment is worse now, I practically drive the wheels off the car, and set a new personal best time that vastly exceeded my expectations. It was a lot of fun! Dad's Mini s did well for itself too. More on the event and driving later.
On the way back from beaverun, i notice a loud squeaking coming from the right rear, especially over bumps. It goes away when i hit the brakes. I take it easy, as I had no issues with the brakes up until this point. We get home from the cabin, and when I hop out of the car, I notice a whistling sound coming from the Miata. Closer inspection under the hood reveals that the upper radiator hose seems to be leaking, and i'm nearly out of coolant. It must have happened on the way home from beaver, as there was no coolant noted under the passenger's side headlight. Back in the garage, we find that the right rear is missing a caliper bracket bolt, causing it to flex / squeak. I close up for the night as it's after 9, and the pens get steamrolled. I take the chance to get a late night joyride in the Healey 3000.
Sun. We get up early, and get a new upper radiator hose and some coolant. Advance also surprised me when had the exact caliper bracket bolts, which fixed the brake issue nicely. We install the hose and fill it up, didn't give it much further thought. I run the car over to NTB and they check it out for me. Turned out the left front balljoint was dead. Nobody has one on a Sunday. We head home. Tires are still square. Family comes over to visit, and I spend about 4 hours reinstalling vista on dad's PC (can you tell i'm being punished this trip yet? ) In the evening, we do a string alignment. I fixed the toe in the left rear, and we had about 1/2 turn of toe in to the left front. The idea being that the balljoint was causing the tire to toe out with a forward load on it. This works, and the car drives pretty darn straight. Wish I would have done that yesterday. Clearly i should do string alignments more often! Dad uses a pipe wrench to bend the door back. It's relatively straight now.
Mon. Charlotte and I head home. I get to West Virginia and notice the temp gauge creeping up. I pull into a rest area and let it cool off a bit. The radiator is dry, maybe it was a huge air pocket? A WV Sheriff checks in with me, turned out he has a '99 at home. We BSed for a few minutes while I refilled the radiator with about a gallon of water, then I'm back on my way. I check at the next rest stop and it takes another 16 ounces or so. Just after the Columbus bypass, it starts to overheat again. We stop and eat, and the car is whistling again. I limp over to a local napa store, the sort that would stock a lot of stuff since they have 50 commercial trucks. No luck with the radiator, though they could get it tomorrow. I dump in some bars leak and refill the rad. We drive for about 30 minutes, and i top off the rad at fuel up at a truck stop. After that stop I put about 4 hours on the car, keeping an eye on the temp gauge. When we stop next, the radiator is still full. Success! The rest of the trip is trouble free aside from the tires being square. We're stressed out at this point though. Cat was very happy to see us when we get home.
I'll work on videos tomorrow or wednesday. The in-car from the mini is sweet, because you can see the gigantic speedometer. Not sure if that'll translate once photobucket compresses it though.
Anyhow, I was taking photos at the event using my dad's sweet Panasonic FZ18. Way better camera than my A630. I love the 500mm zoom and the IS. was practicing taking pans with a 100ish shutter speed. Some of them came out pretty well I thought.
Album is here: http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v511/neonmike22/Wilson%20Track%20Trial%2009/?albumview=grid
