Wilmington Prep

With back to back races in Wilmington, Ohio coming up, it was time to go over Bumblestook yet again to make sure everything was still ok after surviving the brutal Toledo ProSolo. First up though was having my trailer modified by Steve at SJF Performance so I can carry an extra set of wheels with me. The Touareg is a fine towing vehicle but it's impossible to fit a set of rain tires, an extra set of race wheels and spares and supplies for such a long trip. Steve welded on removable threaded poles to the trailer tongue make let me bring extra race tires on the trailer instead. He did an excellent job and I can now operate the trailer in either configuration (with or without the extra wheels) without too much trouble.

Mount for removable wheel poles added - SJF Performance - 7/20/2014

Poles installed and wheels mounted - SJF Performance - 7/20/2014

Secured wheels - SJF Performance - 7/20/2014

Trailer loaded with extra wheels up front - 7/20/2014

We then put her back on the alignment rack to see if anything had shifted after running on the grippy concrete and sure enough the right rear toe had moved quite a bit with a significant amount of toe in. We suspect this could happen due to the wonky bolt but it also turns out that the forces back there had somehow also slightly bent the little tabs the alignment washers push up against. Steve hammered them back into place so everything is nice and tight and we replaced all the camber and toe bolts in the rear to restore my alignment back to what it was before Toledo except this time I could actually get the rear toe to 1/16" toe in. Steve's new machine can also take additional measurements of the car so we noted those down too for future reference in case anything ever shifts.

Alignment #5 - SJF Performance - 7/20/2014

Frame is nice and square - SJF Performance - 7/20/2014

Frame is nice and square - SJF Performance - 7/20/2014

We pushed the damaged fender out a bit so it looked a bit better and to address this issue, I switched from 15mm spacers to 10mm spacers and now the top of the tire is well within the edge of the fender. As a quick check of the diff health, we drained the fluid and it came out nice and clear with nothing scary (metal or otherwise) coming out. Cheap insurance for the beating we're about to take again in Wilmington.

10mm spacers and new diff fluid - SJF Performance - 7/20/2014

Other miscellaneous fixes included adding some screws to the rear bumper cover so it stops flapping around after I broke the tabs off from contact. We also added a drop of loctite on the nuts holding the throttle cable in the bracket to address the throttle debacle from Toledo. Thankfully there isn't a lot of stuff we have to do for pre-big race prep anymore. Hopefully we can do better in Wilmington and at the very least get some good set up data before nationals.

Ready for Wilmington - SJF Performance - 7/20/2014