The Project update

[tomc at satx.rr.com (tomc)]

Hey all,

Here's an update on The Project. Last autoX season I race in FSP, and I
trophied, first place in FSP. Now before you all get congratulatory, I
was the only one in FSP class. Anyway, it did show that The Project is
reliable. I only sat out 2 events due to a leaky transmission. Thanks to
Patrick for getting me a decent 9a for a great price, I was good for the
rest of the season. However, I raced on the 4 for $100 el cheepo tires
that I bought just to get it home from New Mexico 3 years ago.

This season, I'm going to get a little more serious into the autoX, last
season was more or less a shake down season. This season, I want to be
competitive, I have put on race springs, poly mounts and bump stops,
next Friday I'll have Falken Azenis tires on 14" VW 5 spoke wheels, and
I'm going to get a professional alignment done. I've been using the eyes
and behind method of alignment. That's probably not the winning
technique use by the top race teams, but with the front end being
disassembled so many times it wasn't worth the money to get a good
alignment. Does anyone have some good alignment specs I should ask for?
If not I'm going to go with what is suggested in the Water-cooled
Volkswagen Performance Handbook by Greg Raven. I'll probably go as close
to stage 3 (-2.5 degree) on camber as I can and stage 2 (1/16") on toe. 
If anyone has better specs let me know. I'll also be changing class from
FSP to DM, which will be somewhat competitive hopefully this year. 

I have a short write up and pictures about the springs on my website
http://www.tom-c.com go to bodywork and at the bottom-left click on the
springs icon. I also got a front airdam by Freedom Design thanks to
Michael Provenzano, I hope the trade was worth it. It makes the car much
more serious looking and I can tell the difference on the highway with
it also I think.  I'll put pictures on the web as soon as I get some
decent ones. Thanks to Virtual World Parts for the other suspension
goodies.

First AutoX of the season is Feb 15th we hope, so I'll let you all know
better after I run an autoX how everything feels.

That's about it, 
TomC
'79 "The Project" Scirocco
http://www.tom-c.com