Pre-TSD Parking Lot Meeting
The TSD rally kicked off the season. I'd been looking forward to an "event" for months and it didn't disappoint. They ran us through some roads West of Portland I'd never been on that were tight (single lane at points) with tons of curves. Not many people had been on those roads I'd guess by the way all the high school age kids were pulled off on the shoulder doing....?
One of the things that cracks me up about TSD rallys is that you often stop and wait, just outside the windows of mansions.. Well, when you're running around the country hillsides just outside of a major metropolitan city you're in rich people country. More than once we found ourselves sitting down the long driveway of someone who pays more in taxes per year than my home is probably worth. They were probably sitting in their huge bay windows wondering why people kept sitting at the bottom of their acreage for a minute and then leaving. Lots of people casing the place (I'm not sure if anyone else uses that term; it's a circa 1930's detective movie term for reviewing a home for thievery).
My buddy Brian navigated and we had a great time. Don't tell our wives but I think partially we just enjoyed a two hour break without any potty breaks, crying for treats, whining, etc. Actually, we still did that, it's just our children weren't with us for two hours.
The next weekend I headed down to the Salem area autocross. It was dumping rain. Possibly my own fault but not one person said "hi", "good morning", etc..
Fun looking vintage car at the autocross!
At one point as I was hurtling towards a corner (remember the motor runs awesome) I literally saw the corner workers take off running ha ha ha. I was pushing it. A lot of people were going slow but I figured I get to drive slow all the time, it was time to push and feel my limits. I only took out one or two cones a lap doing that so it wasn't too bad. Other than the turning, that was bad.
At home the M3 forums told me this was normal behavior for the M3. Some BMW people are so goofy; there were threads discussing that if it came from BMW with understeer that must be the best way for it to be. Pure goofy, borderline cultish/stupid. Apparently you fix it by putting a pair of the wider rear wheels in the front and kicking the camber in. Now I'm looking for some cheaper beat-up rear wheels.
At home I removed a million rivets from the Lotus taking it down to the frame. I had to. It's ridiculous how bad some of the welds are. Some of the frame pieces fell off in my hand when I took the rivets out. It was a very full day drilling all the rivets out. I saw one internet poster guy say there's around 500 in his Lotus 7. I didn't count but that sounds fair.
I spent another day cutting little tabs in each frame tube to get the rivets out so my car didn't permanently rattle like a baby shake toy. I thought that'd take a few hours. Nope. A very full day. There's a lot frame tubes in that car, although it my not look like it. And yes, I hung it from my tree to get to some of the tubes; I'm sure the neighbors wish they had an HOA.
I've almost got the frame to a point where I can start fixing things. I like that point. It's when things start getting better, rather than worse. There's something depressing about taking a car apart. Fears of seeing it in boxes on Craigslist years down the road under the title "Project" I guess. I think I'll be all right. There's so little to this car it's barely more than a motorcycle project. I'm actually looking forward to it. I think it will be an absolute blast when it's done. How could a cigar body, motorcycle fenders and sitting 4 inches off the ground not be fun?
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