MexicanDragon Posted June 20, 2015 Report Posted June 20, 2015 https://youtu.be/8GJ8-5FEW78 Wagons FTW. **BRENT** 1
VPI Posted June 20, 2015 Author Report Posted June 20, 2015 (edited) A borrowed cell phone pic of the motor in that Caddy. This thing rumbled more than the Hemi Cuda when it started up. Edited June 20, 2015 by VPI 1
Dreadhead Posted June 20, 2015 Report Posted June 20, 2015 I looked around a bit and used cts v wagons appear to be rather expensive compared to list price
VPI Posted June 21, 2015 Author Report Posted June 21, 2015 (edited) This thread needs more pictures. Cars & Coffee this morning. The General Fuckin Lee. Could not convince the owner to let me jump it. One for Kevin, a 1000+ HP vette. Edited June 21, 2015 by VPI
VPI Posted July 5, 2015 Author Report Posted July 5, 2015 (edited) Boring video from Skyline Drive today on the way out to Luray. I had to cut sound as I could not keep my parents from talking through the whole video. Unfortunately the GoPro battery died before I got to RT 211 which was a far better and more fun road than Skyline. Also met an Estoril Blue Golf R on the road. Wonder if it was the one I passed on. Looked great. Edited July 5, 2015 by VPI 2
VPI Posted July 6, 2015 Author Report Posted July 6, 2015 Sounds like a good plan Jacob. How aggressive would you go on springs if you got those?
VPI Posted July 7, 2015 Author Report Posted July 7, 2015 (edited) Some pics from this weekend's C&C. This guy also owns the Land Rover D110, 3 Ferraris and 2 Lamborghini that I know of so far. Edited July 7, 2015 by VPI 4
MexicanDragon Posted July 7, 2015 Report Posted July 7, 2015 Jeff, I think I may have found you some OEM Audi wheels that would compliment your ride just a few pix up. **BRENT**
VPI Posted July 7, 2015 Author Report Posted July 7, 2015 The White wheels on the Quattro? That would look pretty sweet. 1
VPI Posted July 11, 2015 Author Report Posted July 11, 2015 Finished up my VAG-Com tuning last night and did some detailing today. Ended up ordering a pressure washer and foam canon from Amazon but still trying to figure out what products to use. Have read good things about Adam's, Zaino, Zymol, Chemical Guys. Who is everyone else here using for cleaning, wax, etc.?
n_maher Posted July 12, 2015 Report Posted July 12, 2015 All washed and shiny. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk 5
VPI Posted July 12, 2015 Author Report Posted July 12, 2015 (edited) Nice, saw one that looked very similar to yours at C&C this morning, but he just did a drive through and did not park. Starting with VAG cars. And some others Pair of AMGs This SRT-8 was completely over the top. Sounded like a drag car coming up to the line. More of this one from last week. 23,000 original miles. Perfect. Matte Black i8 Just liked the plates. Sweet Right Hand Drive Skyline R Edited July 12, 2015 by VPI 4
n_maher Posted July 12, 2015 Report Posted July 12, 2015 Great pics as usual Jeff. I was hoping to go to the local C&C with Andrew but family plans came up so we're going to try again sometime soon. 1
VPI Posted July 12, 2015 Author Report Posted July 12, 2015 You definitely should Nate. Typically a pretty great group of people and if you are some lucky some pretty special cars. I have decided to start playing around with the S4 and I am searching for wheels, maybe suspension, and exhaust upgrades now. 4
VPI Posted July 12, 2015 Author Report Posted July 12, 2015 Ordered a bunch of shit from Detailer's Domain including some Sonax Polymer Net Shield and some various Adam's cleaning/protection stuff. Got a couple different leather cleaner/conditioner varieties as the stuff I always used before on my cars doesn't do as good of a job with this Audi Nappa leather stuff.
TMoney Posted July 12, 2015 Report Posted July 12, 2015 (edited) I'm taking Tuesday off work to attend my first performance driving class up at Sonoma Raceway. I'm excited... and nervous. I've never driven on the track before, so this is going to be a totally new experience. Performance Driving Program, Stage 1–One Day This one-day program calls on a specially-developed combination of classroom instruction and in-car exercises to help participants understand the full capabilities of their vehicles. Car-control drills will help hone cornering techniques and explore the concept of lateral load transfer, before drivers are unleashed on our paddock-based autocross track to put their new-found knowledge to thrilling use. And then it’s onto Sonoma Raceway’s world-famous 2.52-mile track, where drivers, bolstered by the expert feedback of our skilled instructors, will discover exactly what their cars can do! Edited July 12, 2015 by TMoney 7
VPI Posted July 12, 2015 Author Report Posted July 12, 2015 That is going to be awesome. Sonoma is a fantastic track. 2
TMoney Posted July 15, 2015 Report Posted July 15, 2015 Holy fuckballs, that was awesome. I'll put up a few pics and a post-mortem tomorrow, but suffice it to say that I had an absolute blast. I haven't had my adrenaline going like that in a long time.
TMoney Posted July 15, 2015 Report Posted July 15, 2015 (edited) So the performance driving program was an absolute blast! It is amazing how much you learn when you can really drive your car HARD. So now for the recap: We had 10 or 11 participants and 4 instructors. The day started promptly at Sonoma Raceway at 10AM. Having never driven on a track before, I was easily the least experienced member of the class. It turned out that I had the second shittiest car of the group (at least to start). People brought some seriously impressive toys. We had: A Ferrari (don't know which one but it was one of the GT ones because it threw its weight around a ton in the corners. That being said it was fast as shit). An R8 v8 (the silent assassin, seriously this thing is quiet. It was perhaps the most impressive car in the group with how flat it stayed in the corners. A true supercar). A couple of Carreras (one S, one not). A Shelby GT500 (the bruiser of the group and perhaps the least elegant). the Jag F-Type (my god what a beautiful exhaust note! must be loud in the cabin tough. also it looked very tail-happy but the guy who was driving it kept it under control). A TT RS (solid all around). An Evo (my Japanese brethren and the closest car to mine performance-wise). A beater E36 BMW (someone's dedicated track car). My WRX. (Naturally, the beater BMW crapped out before the end of the day making my WRX the slowest/crappiest car of the group. I can't say I expected that to happen!) The Mustang GT and Camaro in the pictures were the instructors'/tracks' cars. After a bit of classroom instruction, we started the day using a big parking lot and some cones to do two sets of drills. Half the group started on a slalom course while my half of the group started on a hairpin turn. The goal for the hairpin drill was to approach at maximum acceleration, hit the brakes Hard, turn in at a cone they had set up, make a proper line to the apex (also marked by a cone) then slam full throttle as soon as you hit the apex. It sounds easy, but I sucked at this drill to start. Prior to yesterday I had always thought that the apex was simply the halfway point on the turn. Yeah... that is defiantly wrong. The actual apex of a turn is past the halfway point, sometimes well past it. It took a while to break my bad habit of trying to hit the half way point. I kept turning in too hard right at the start which caused me to be 4-5 feet wide of the apex and come out of the turn at way to wide of an angle. When I'd go to power out I'd have to hit the brakes as my exit angle was taking me right in to the cone "wall." The cool thing about racing is that when you get something right you feel it. I knew right away on subsequent runs when I nailed the turn and hit the apex as I was able to have perfect run-outs at full throttle. We had about 10-12 runs each at the hairpin before we moved on to the slalom course. The slalom course had 5 S-turns in succession. The key to this one was taking it easy though turns 1 and 2 so that you had the grip you needed at turns 4 and 5 to put the power down on the exit. It was hard not to overcook turns 1 and 2. You would know right away if you screwed up as you'd start losing traction and start slipping and have to slow down to regain it. The few times I nailed the slalom felt great. When I get a good line down it minimized the amount of load transfer going through the S's. I was able to exit with much higher speed and felt more in control the entire way. I guess the point of the slalom course is to teach you that you always need to be setting up your next turn as soon as you exit. Lesson learned! We then broke for lunch and I had fun chatting up the other group members. Naturally, it was all guys. At 30 I was the youngest guy in the group, but there were a few other guys who must have been in their mid to late 30s. A guy who worked at facebook was driving my dream car, this blue Carrera S. Very nice whip, sir! I also went and sat in one of the Audi R8s. Go get one of these right now, VPI! The Audi school had basically all the R and S models sitting around. After lunch they had rearranged the cones in the parking lot to set up a little auto-cross course for us to practice cornering and transitions from corner to corner. Being a beginner, it was a bit overwhelming stringing it all together. I found it hard not to let botching one corner effect your performance in subsequent corners. Still, this drill was a ton of fun. We each had 4 runs of about 4 laps each. Like I said before, you new instantly when you had nailed a turn. The feeling of doing something right is pretty damn exhilarating. Stringing turn after turn together to put together a good lap is very challenging. For as much fun as I had already had, the main event was still to come. We were finally ready for the big-boy Sonoma Raceway track. Holy fuck, driving it was amazing! We split in to trains of 3 cars, each with an instructor and two students, and set out for two 25-minute lead-follow sessions. In lead-follow, the instructor car goes in front and the two cars in the train follow and try to maintain a distance of two or three car lengths. For going out on the big track we all had to have helmets and head-socks on, giving the entire thing an awesome feel. My train was me, an instructor in a mustang and the Evo. We started out going reasonably quick and picked up speed on each lap. I have no clue how fast we were going as I never really had time to focus on anything other than driving, but it was pretty goddamn fast. It is amazing how much you feel everything when you are going at speed. The load transfers, the tire slip, the velocity of it all. You have to feel it all too, as any mistake at speed on the big course can easily end up very badly. Sonoma Raceway is a crazy track. There are elevation changes and blind corners EVERYWHERE! Turns 1 and 2 are on an uphill and we would hit them so damn fast I was worried the WRX wouldn't be able to handle it. The tires howled, but she made it time after time. Exiting turn 4 was also insanely fast, as 5 is very gentle and you can take it at speed. The instructor flew out of 4 every time and it was definitely challenging (in a good way) for me and the Evo to keep up. Turn 6 is blind and on a downhill and I could never quite figure that damn thing out. The apex is way at the end, almost completely out of the turn. I could hit it, but it always felt like I was coming out of 6 slower than the Evo and the instructor and they would have to slow a bit going in to 7 to let me catch back up. The slalom turns at 8 and 8a were also easy to mess up, but very rewarding when you hit them right. When you didn't get the right line you could feel the weight of your car causing it to slide. When you did get one though, smooth like butter. We finally finished up at 5:30p.m. and I drove the WRX home pretty gently as she (and I) had had a demanding day. -- Suffice it to say it was a fucking amazing day! I haven't had a spike of adrenaline like that in a long time. I've never driven faster and harder than I did on the big track. I was glad the instructors were leading us, they pushed me to keep up and do things I didn't know my car was capable of. It felt like I definitely had the WRX at 90/95% of its capability and that I learned a lot in just a single day. TLDR version? If you get a chance to do something like this, DO IT! Edited July 15, 2015 by TMoney 7
TMoney Posted July 15, 2015 Report Posted July 15, 2015 Also, Brent, this last one is for you. They had a bunch of these things set up for people to train on. 1
n_maher Posted July 15, 2015 Report Posted July 15, 2015 Sorry the lights didn't work out, Nate. Eh, not that tweaked about it really. What is frustrating is that both the front and rear rotors are thrashed on the car (rush damage) after only 30k. I suspect it is due to the PO not driving much and letting the car sit - it was 2+ years old when I bought it and only had 13k on it. So now I'm researching brakes and trying to decide if I'm going to upgrade at all or leave well enough alone.
MexicanDragon Posted July 15, 2015 Report Posted July 15, 2015 Nate, new blank rotors + nice aggressive street pads (Ferodo DS2500?) and some ATE Super Blue (oh, Mr Slacker can hook you up with fluids,) and you should be fine. **BRENT** 1
VPI Posted July 15, 2015 Author Report Posted July 15, 2015 That looks about like the perfect way to spend a day.
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