post GRM report

[brianm@earendel.org (Brian McGarvey)]

We'll Now that several days have gone bye, and I've had a few. I suppose 
its time to write  a little note of thanks. Please note for all of those 
that helped. A great big huge thanks.!! and i'm buying. Duan find me a 
place to get a keg (Bass).

First I'd like to thank the sponsors. 
The best of course is the Potterpeople.
www.parts4vws.com with out them we wouldnt have made as good of a go as we 
did.

So your prolly wondering how we did. 45/66 your thinking well that kinda 
sucks cause we heard much smack. Your  right. The smack talking white 
rocco stayed at home -- still on  jackstands. I'll fill you in a little 
later in the saga. 

So here is the timeline. 
Rick calls me up in Dec. and says, "Hey wanna GRM?" I ask," Whats that?" 
He replies,"Its racing on a $2003.00 budget." I reply,"Hellz yeah! Im in!.

So we take a look at skateboard the 88 16v scirocco with a dented front. 
Its a good start with a fast 1.8 16v. (Koni's, race springs, TT race down 
+ exhaust, GLI wheels, euro bumpers, 1.5 eurolights, Momo wheel). Rick 
says hey I got a 2.0L I bought for $35.00 at a swap meet. So with the cost 
of the car $650.00 - eurobumps(200) - GLI wheels(300) we're at a $85.00 
car with a 2.0L block. Now an important point to realize here is that I'm 
in NYC without the rocco or I'm in Baltimore with it. Rick lives in CT 
some 600 mi away. So one weekend I pop on up to CT and meet Rick for lunch 
and a 2.0L block. They fit quite nicely into a milk crate BTW. 

So now I have a running 1.8 16v that Im about to dissasemble.
Now Its early Jan there is a nice day and I hammer out most of the dents 
in the front and move it onto a bit of concrete -- no garage. 

I call around and scrounge up some sponsors. Digilent suppliers of the 
FPGA board we didnt get to use (Next year baby). The potterpeople were 
next (Mike and Kristen are the folks!). Then were talking about clutches 
and I give Kennedy engineering a call, and they get us a good deal so now 
we can consider getting some serious HP to the ground. Next USRT (scotty 
williams) comes thru with a lightened flywheel at a smokin deal. 

Car moves to the concrete pad as I dont have a garage -- oh yeah the big 
blue room baby (outside for you non-engineers). Its up on jackstands and 
the motor gets dropped. I call up NGP for some bits and to see what the 
have I can get on the cheap. Not much -- They do sport CheapAss Racing 
some seals, but more importantly they hook me up with Shaker Enterprises. 
The guy who does thier headwork. I find out later his wife is about 8mo 
pregnant -- this comes into play later. So now I get around to checking 
out the motor. Damn! plastigauge is near max tolerance. Oh well there went 
one thing. Get on the phone w/ www.parts4vws.com and talk to the folks 
send em a list of wants. They get ready to drop ship it. 

Now I have a block I dont have time to rebuild and a head that needs 
ported and polished. Brian says he wants some coverage (machinist) so 
volunteers to be part of the team for sticker space. So I have everything 
out and take it to Brian the machinist and say do what you can. He says 
he'll port, polish, valvejob, and assemble it for me. Im stoked. Cause.. 

Time for my trip to GA for 2 weeks. Now its Feb and and the race is in 
Apr. So Off to GA I go. When I get back what do I have in store for me. 
mild winter -- no. We get multiple FEET of snow. So I spend a WEEK off 
work shoveling, moving, melting, SNOW. I lose another week, buy a 
kerosene torpedo heater, and what happens. dammit another several days of 
continous snow. 

Found a deal on some n2o solenoids. Gonna do a multi-stage nitrous 
injection using 4 solenoids, FI's out of a dodge and the Digilent board. 
Order 2 solenoids on Ebay -- get screwed. Order 4 from a vortexter... 
delay... delay ... delay...


MAR. Snow's all done, Lost many days. Decide CAMS are needed. Call up 
www.Deltacams.com (shameless plug for yet another sponsor). So I order a 
set of regrinds (260/272) for skateboard and get them also dropshipped to 
Brian the machinist.  Another little while passes and Im surfing the list 
and asking a lister for some advice and trying to sort out the budget to 
stay under $1k and get nitrous. When one of them says come on over and 
look around the garage. He says he has a multiport n2o injection/gas 
injection into a lower intake manifold. So I trek it up to his house in 
PA. Man Does Scott Kraus aka Capt Yellow have some cool stuff and he is 
definately a very cool guy. So for low $ that fit right into the $1k 
budget I cruise w. a bunch of cool stuff that he's not using anymore. 

Get call from wife. GIECO cancelled your insurance.  Im in PA..  well USAA 
ins is outrageous. gotta make arrangements for a tow vehicle and trailer. 

vortexer ... delay .. delay..

Now the minutes are ticking by and On my way back from NYC. Im gonna pick 
up the lightened flywheel from Scott Williams (USRT) and a long promised 
N2O (NOS brand) bottle. Not only does he hook me up with that, he also 
hooks us up with a variable NOS brand n2o controller, control solenoids, 
bottle heaters.. So were all set on the nitrous end.

Get tow vehicle lined up and trailer

vortexer .. delay...


So Brian at the machinst says motor is ready. --- now the fun begins i go 
get the motor.. It looks sweet port and polish job looks AWESOME. The cams 
arrived, Potter peeps parts arrived, everything is there. Haul it home. 

Rick says he's coming down to work on the car and the house. Mind you this 
is 2weeks before were due to leave for FL. So Rick comes down dual hat 
contractor and mechanic. He ends up staying all week and only expected to 
stay a few days(mostly working on the house..). motor and tranny together 
when he finally leaves on Friday, but the clutch doesnt do anything, 
damn!!!  so were trying to get it to move. nothing. we figure I put the 
clutch in messed up or something else is wrong. I spend sat getting the 
tranny BACK out. everything is fine. dammit find out that its the 
auto-adjust clutch (we think still). everything hooked back up. car ready 
to be turned over. vroom vroom vroom thats on the adgenda now we'll have 
at least a day or two to get it sorted. So i turn it over with no coil. v 
v v v r r r r o o o.. damn POS battery. I go buy a new small battery. 
still no joy. Im tired and goto bed. 

vortexer ... says he cant deliver sends uncashed MO back. fair enough...

Rick arrives to work on the car before the race. monday we spend screwing 
w/ it, but I have to work. now everything is damn near hooked up. It 
doesnt fire. one full day of screwing w/ it we check the spark - good. 
check the timing -- good (at least 5x). fuel -- that we can smell and we 
added ether. it almost fired. finally we check the compression 30psi yes 
folks that THIRTY PSI!...(add more frustration and checking here)

So while im at work on monday i think Rick pops the head off the car. yeah 
he had to redissasemeble it. He takes it to a local performance head shop 
that I couldnt find (across the street from NAPA). they check it out. the 
porting looks nice polishing too, 3 angle too, but only one slight problem 
the valves dont seal. You could see light thru all 16v's. oh well we ask 
if they can fix it. nope $350.00 and not till next week. we need to be 
gone thursday. So now I'm distraught. 
...
... 
Continued in the next saga.

 
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Brian 
88 16v $2003 GRM challenge car http://www.grmotorsports.com
84 0v Next years car got parts?
82 2.0L Topless bunny -- Knock Ignition and bigger clutch. next.
90 90q20v doing daily driver duty. 
91 VFR750F everybody needs a 11-12 sec vehicle.

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