I think we now have your weather here in the soggy NE.

Nice on wiring in the brake controller.

 

+1

 

I lived in Yelm washington for a few years, rarely even needed an umbrella it's like a drizzle all winter

 

Thanks y'all. The soggy PNW weather and 4-month incessant rain, alas has not been enough deterrence to discourage people all over the country from moving here. The traffic has gone to **** in the last 10 years and I avoid driving on the road as much as I can. Much of which is the huge increased of distracted and free for all driving. Believe me or not I recently have been considering moving to NC. Uprooting from a house that I put in years of work renovating is too much of a sacrefice.

I keep dreaming of an acreage where I can house all these machinery and vehicles to the heart's contend, and lower income tax...

For now I am looking forward to the Trailex trailer to be constructed. Surprisingly a trailer being regarded as one of the best, the company does a pretty lousy job on their site to provide adequate information. I only found out about it with a lot of reading. Sometimes when you makes the best mousetrap, people do travel thru the beaten path to your door and buy it at the premium price .

here is a rather poor and dated video of the trailer's features

the trailer is all bolted together with fasteners

 

NC has the same problem with growth, wake county is gaining 64 people per day it's crazy

I like WA but I like NC too, I do not regret moving here but I probably wouldn't regret moving back to WA as long as it was not seattle. My oldest son lives in Winlock

 

I have toyed with moving to WA countless times. Still the biggest impediment for me is forgoing years of work in my current residence, and the architecture that is next to non-existent in rural area unless build-your-own. I will not want anything near Seattle, nor the armpit of WA that is Vancouver.

 

I know what you mean I have a timber frame home, no nails it's all tenon and mortise and truss things with wood pegs instead of metal, I doubt I will ever be able to convince my wife to move

and we have a basement, nobody builds those anymore

 

I know you do as I noticed the timber frame in a foto of your 2-pole lift. I happen to notice those architectural things.

I am never calculating when it comes to my residence, refuse to think selling it down the road. I use the best of material and imported appliances and I can because I do all the work myself. My cup of tea of residence is modern and that pretty well go against the grain of most. That makes it very challenging.

I respect timber frame architecture for their history and honesty. Not so much if it is new construction that so often found in This Old House money is no object new construction or remuddling.

 

We have been under siege by one of the longest hot spell and today is the 10th day of consecutive 90+ F. Wildfire everywhere here in the left coast but with our luck, the next burrito day will be blessed with a overcast and cool day - as cool as one can possibly hope in August. I gave Mini a quick physical and put the tail hook on. We are ready for a day of fun and excitement.

tail hook is on and ready for some takeoff and landing go around exercises


not this tailhook - though I had worked on a small design of this plane technically speaking

 

Of over 30 days of summer heat and 10 consecutive of 90+ F days, today is the first cool day, which happen to be a full burrito day at PIR that I signed up over a month ago. Only 2 R53 Mini's. It was overcast all day starting at circa 65F with very light drizzle. The day never exceed 70F but I managed to boil Motul 600 again. I am going to put in the SS caliper pistons.

only two Mini's, and both are R53.2


as always there were a lot of Miata's


I was told this race car is built here locally


my burrito lunch (being warmed up) was $5.99, and Mini's lunch was $60.00; we both worked just as hard but obvious Desire is in a higher pay grade , from birthright


I had multiple folks remarked that is one very fast Mini, and what did you do to it? Only a 15% pulley and no tune has been my reply. Our last session was cut short by an M3 spun out and stuck in the grass.

 

Nice Microwave , and a expensive one to add.
LOL.

 

 

Our track team and Desire have no complaint with the godsend August day that we had. I was somewhat reluctant with putting the burrito into the engine bay, but I hate, hate, hate cold burrito. I was worrying that I might forget there is a burrito being warmed up in the engine bay (with the oven lid closed), so I put a towel on the steering wheel to remind myself. A burrito on the race track can be worst than spilled motor oil as PIR is built on a wetland.

Our track team had a great day despite of the last session being cut short by a highly modified M3 spun out and got stranded, and I was just in my zone getting the best lap time of the day when we were given the waving black flag because the M3 spun out and got stuck in the grass. Every track event for us is a valuable learning, and this is no different.

I already have the Ti shims. The next step is to install the SS pistons. To be frank, our track team do not expect big improvement given the very cramped Mini's front wheelwells. We think that what the SS piston buy us is the retardation of when the brake fluid boil in a 20-25 minute session.

With the BMW club track day, I didn't want to sign up in the advance run group as Desire would be way out-gunned by the high powered, or highly modified cars (such as turbo Miata's, Lotus'es, highly modified M3s with seasoned drivers, Porsche GT cars etc in the advance run group. I was passing all the cars in my run group except the silver BMW Z3 M coupe (circa 300 hp baseline). There was a latest model Subaru STI which I let pass in a straight because my brake fluid was boiling and I didn't want to hold him up.

 

 

Desire was quite good being a bully yesterday. Two BMWs 3 series spun out trying to catch us and I saw they happened in the rear view mirror . That does not count the M3 with big wing that costed us 10 minutes of run time in our last session. Mini like shaming those pesky M3s.

Most are familiar faces and we were just having some clean fun. I tried to be careful stalking the car in front so not to be a part of the pileup when it spins. I wasn't driving at the ragged edge. There were no scary moments, though I felt I was constrained by the grip of the Azenis tyres. Each track day is a new learning experience, small or big.

 

If it makes you feel better... I ended up standing around trying to figure out what was going on with the 4th Novice session for a good 20 minutes after you left, only to find out they cancelled the Novice session completely. ARG.

 

Yes. After I left, and exiting the entrance I saw there are cars coming in for the following event. I thought to myself that I bet they cancel your run. I notice they didn't have the tow trucks (Hooked on Driving typically has two) except the ambulance at the event. They must have cancel your session as they knew very well it would take some time to clear the M3 off the track and they have to vacate the track for the following evening event.

My rating of the organizations of HPDE at PIR is HOD and Cascade Sports Car Club are have the best events and best quality and value of the money. TNiA seems cheap but you get what you pay for. BMW is somewhere in between, unless your are an instructor.

 

 

Here at PIR, the BMW club is not the national chapter. Rather it is an independent local BMW club of Portland, unaffiliated with the national BMW club. Despite of it, normally it is quite well ran. I happen to notice yesterday that there was only 1 ambulance at standby, and no tow truck at all. At the time I didn't think much of it. Only being skunked for 10 minutes and seeing bump32's post above that it dawned on me the reason they cancelled all remaining runs were due to no tow truck at site.

Mini did very well in the run group yesterday. Only 2 point-by's all day for higher power cars. In the third session, it turned into a bully and ate up everything along the track like a hungry Pac-Man. Mini sure learnt how to intimidate others to submission.

image credit wikipedia

 

Mini the flying hog sure was hungry yesterday. This is the unvarnished 3rd session. Like the Pac-Man Desire ate up everything that moves along the track.

BTW, now we can play in post Youtube video fullscreen here without the need to go to Youtube.

 

I was getting all stressed out. I have not use the Sprinter motorhome (Mini's future tow vehicle) for a very long time, and yesterday I gave it a head to toe maintenance and then went out to stretch its legs. I notice the check engine light illuminated. WTF? It was like running on 2 of the 5 cylinders because the DME put it in the limp home mode. I use the generic ODB engine tool (Ultra gauge) to see what it is all about. It read a P0404 code which is EGR error. Like Mini DME DTCs you would be a fool if you go by what it says. The Sprinter is one of the hardest diesel car to diagnose, and very expensive if you pay someone to fix it. I was very stressed.

P0404 is exhaust gas recirculation circuit error



I was able to clear the code and the car didn't get out of the LHM. In no time flat is the same pending code, then transition to check engine light again and logged error. The only time I could get it to run normal is to shut it off and restart. Still within a short while the CEL return and again in LHM. I went thru the drivetrain and fuel system very carefully to look for rodent damage and there was none. I wasn't about to pull the ECR valve just because of the error code suggests so. The valve is not serviceable anyway. Checking with Sprinter forum is very little help as there are myriads of seemingly related problem can trigger this code. Today I took out the big gun diagnostic tool that requires a windows PC. It has been so long since I used this tool and just more think to figure out. The turbo diesel 5 cylinder engine is very difficult to work on if you don't have a semi-pro tool. All is well now. Went for a freeway uphill test drive and no more code.

To have a modern car trouble can be stressful when one think of the unknown, and potential big expenses or time loss. Each problem that I figured out and remedied myself adds to my skillset and knowledge. I'd like to take it in stride - what didn't kill me made me stronger.

Relieved of a big worry, I can now return the attention back to the Mini. I recently realized that annoying tapping noise in the video when I released the brake pedal while driving on track. I had assumed it was just how I pop off the brake pedal while switched the right foot over to the accelerator and the tapping sound was the brake pedal hitting the stop. I would only realized that was not it. It was during performance driving, you never want the car to coast for any amount of time - not accelerating or decelerating; that one unconsciously hit the driver's foot well wall with the right edge of the shoe hard. In most cars there is a padding on the carpet for this. But not so in the Mini. Instead of a plastic or rubber patch the shoe hit the plastic air vent, which is the source of this tapping noise. I watched the video of a Brit driving his R53 on track across the pond and he has the same noise.

 

I reviewed the video of the BMW track day. I found the footage that confirm my recollection that there was no tow truck on standby, which normally parks right along side the ambulance. Also it is now quite clear that the M3 with big wing went off the track was more likely due to drivetrain failure. I can see smoke emitting from the engine bay in the video, so more likely than not he pulled into the grass off track. He was driving relatively slow at time in the last session, and that is a very fast highly modified M3.

With no pre-arranged tow truck on standby the organizer knew they will be challenged to vacate the track before the evening event begins.

no tow truck on standby where there was the sole ambulance

you can see the smoke though the front left looks a bit too low

 

Are you ever going to track the Porsche? The Cayman GT4 is a outstanding track car.
was just wondring.

 

Ja! Das Rennauto nicht für die Straße.


I am slowing getting it ready for the tracks. There are many things, including installing paint protection by our track team.

I have came to the view driving it on the road is a waste and more risk than on track.

 

OMG. The world is melting. We have been having the longest stretch of summer days that is exceedingly hot for the West coast. So far we avoided track events on sunny and clear sky days. The whole of July has been scorching, and so far August is not looking better:




Let's hope our fortune with the weather turns for the next track day in August.