AutoX results: 4th!!*

* In our class*

* A class of 5.

PHOTO BY RICK @ vcmc

Turns out, running rear springs with rates twice that of the front results in marginally severe oversteer (surprise!). Liftoff oversteer, power oversteer, trail braking oversteer... you name it, & the car would perform a smoky sideways oversteering version of it.

Not exceptionally competitive, but epic fun.

However, in the spirit of a true AutoXer I'll place the blame squarely on the tires.

Motomaster Tires: When you absoulety, positively 100% don't care about performance.

Big thanks to VCMC for the awesome day!

WE'RE IN!

Got the confirmation back, out of 180 teams vying for spots we made it in! Woohoo!

Still a lot to be done. AutoX on Sunday, time to shake the car down.

I gained 6 pounds in 1 week!

And all I had to do was send away for it.

I'm holding 6 pounds of boost in my hand (though it feels lighter than that). It's a manual Boost controller for $20 from NXS Motorsports.

Now to turn the 240 up to 11.

She's Alive!

There's now a Volvo-sized hole in my garage.

After waaay too long being parked up, Tiago & I plugged the 400ft of vacuum hoses back and tried our luck.

Defying all expectations, she started first pop and ran like a dream. There's no more clunk in the rear, the intake actually has vacuum, and most importantly the heater now blows cold air.


With the rear now 3x as stiff as the front and still on stock shocks it's a little lively, but new shocks are slated for the rear shortly.

We pulled parts off a car, put them back on and improved it. Holy Crap... we must be mechanics.

Junking in the Rain

We celebrated Labour Day by treasure hunting out in the mud and the rain at Chilliwack Pick-A-Part.

The rain eased off enough to grab a quick snap of our prize: a pair of fronts shocks from a 1990 Chevy S10 to go in the rear of the 240. Sweet riding Volvo here we come.

$15 for the shocks, that brings the total cost of the rear suspension up to... $26. Still on budget.

My Recurring nightmare...

Putting this back together.

It looks the aftermath of a explosion at a rubber tube factory.

(Clicking on the link for larger image doesn't help either.)

New favourite tool

Sears had a sale on & I picked up a set of Craftsman (aka GearWrench) Ratchet Wrenches with flexible heads.

Freaking awesome.

They operate with less than 5 degrees sweep and can get places that nothing else would work.

The oil pressure sender screws into an elbow which screws into the block. A socket won't fit on it and there wasn't enough room to swing an open end on it. These things saved the day.

4:1

...is our ratio. For every 1 part we attempt to replace/install, we seem to end up taking 4 more off.

On the upside there are only so many parts that can be removed, so I reckon we'll hit that point and day now.

Out oil temp gauge had been decidedly sketchy so we decided to check the connection to the sender, which is thoughtfully placed between the altenator, the oil filter, and the 7th gate of Hell.

To check the sensor we have to pull the filter (cue several emails telling me how wrong I am) Pulling the filter means draining the oil. Then trying to reach the filter by pulling off the tire, the heat shield and the skin of my left hand.

Two hours to remove the damn thing.


See you in Hell oil filter.

Splice, splice baby.

Bit of cleaning and retaping they're good as new. Hard to believe it's the same wire. Spent a few hours going through cleaning up our the connections.

Only problem is once we were done, we found a 'spare' on the ground. Kinda looks important.