98 TSi awd - Autocross Build

[tunernewb92]

Are you still running stock rubber body mount bushings?

 

[Black95TSIawd]

Are you still running stock rubber body mount bushings?

Which ones are body mount bushings? The subframe bushings? If so, yes, still stock. All my bushings are still stock except the sways bars and front lower control arms.

 

[tunernewb92]

Ha yes sir you got it, some days I have trouble putting words to paper it seems like. Anyway, I built a 1G a few years ago and AutoX it, and now I've moved on to a 2G. I don't really want to do the subframe bushings even though I've dropped everything out of my bay. Just laziness I guess and no garage. Car looks so nice. Did you replaced all the suspension and repaint it or did it just look that minty fresh?

 

[Black95TSIawd]

The lower front arms were new. The shock fork I did clean up and paint. The upper arms were also painted after I modified them. The rear suspension is old and crusty but i'll more than likely clean those up as well when I do the bushings next winter.

 

[Black95TSIawd]

Two more events have come and gone and they will be the last until I come back from vacation. Let me say one thing, autocrossing in the heat is extremely fatiguing. I don't know whats worse, a driving heat or a working heat. Both seem to really beat you up, especially if you're working the slalom or other busy zone.

So MSNE hosted events on both 7/15/2016 and 7/22/2016. Both events were on Fridays so I had to take half vacation days so I could get out of the office on time. Results for both days were mixed. Both course layouts had high speed sweepers and super long slaloms with good transitions in between. However, the course on 7/15/2016 had a very tight final section, including a slow 120 degree left hander right before the finish line. Even with my stock t25, it was such a dog after that turn. The car felt like it was crawling to pass the finish line. I ended up finishing 26th on PAX, 5th in my class. The course on 7/22/2016 started off very similar to the prior week, but everything after the first slalom was different. It was better. For me at least. My driving, of course, is still a work in progress. On this day, I really seemed to get a better grasp of it, especially after my 4th run. The first few runs were all withing a few tenths. Afterwards, my times started dropping by a quarter to half second every run. My last run, a 56.654, was enough to secure 3rd in my class and PAX 8th overall. My first podium. Very exciting.

As I mentioned, I'm going away to visit family and will miss the next 2 events. The car has been a bit of a pain in my ass lately so i'm ok with taking a break for a little while.

 

[greengoblin]

I'm just gotta say you have the cleanest 2gb talon I think I have ever seen. Is that the original paint?!!!

 

[ileagleracing]

I've seen it in person, and it is original paint. My 98 used to be that clean, until Pruven Performance got their hands on it.

 

[Black95TSIawd]

I'm just gotta say you have the cleanest 2gb talon I think I have ever seen. Is that the original paint?!!!

I'm very OCD with my car. You should've seen me flip when my headliner started to sag.


Another from the last event.

 

[Black95TSIawd]

I've seen it in person, and it is original paint. My 98 used to be that clean, until Pruven Performance got their hands on it.

MSNE on 8/21 and SCCA on 8/28. Will you be joining us?

 

[ileagleracing]

I was tentatively thinking about the 8/13 event. But depending on what caused the CV failure on the SM car, it may be done for the year.
http://www.dsmtuners.com/threads/2g-cv-joint-exploded-also-is-my-front-diff-trashed.505197/

 

[Black95TSIawd]

Black95TSIawd updated 98 TSi awd - Autocross Build


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[petegsx]

Sign me up, I will divorce my wife for an evo

 

[Black95TSIawd]

I have a lot to catch up on, but here's a video of my best performance of the season thus far. Writeup coming soon.

 

[Black95TSIawd]

So, back from vacation and back in action.

First event from July was on 8/21/2016 with MSNE. (the above video) Loved the course. Could stay in boost for nearly the whole run, minus the first 3 turns. Car felt great. I was confident in my driving and all my times kept me in a podium finish for Class C. I ran multiple 50.0 sec runs which would have secured me in 2nd place. Last run is up and I decided to drive balls out. If you're not spinning, you're winnin. Run felt super awesome and the timing board lit up a 49.554 time. I was ecstatic. Felt good to sit in 1st place. I knew one of the instructors did not finish his runs just yet, but he always beats us up in Class C so I didn't care much to lose to him. He ran his last few runs in the 2nd heat and was able to manage a 49.7xx. Whoa! Did I just beat Konrad? I was even more excited.

Now here comes the sticky situation. The club was having computer problems the whole day. Either the logging software would crash or it simply would not record the times. Re-runs galore. While I was packing my car up, getting ready to work the course, my brother let me know that my fastest run was not showing on the computer. What?!? I walked over and spoke to the club organizers. I told them what I had ran and explained that my brother, a friend, and a few of the other racers saw my time as I passed the finish line. No problem, they understood the computer was having problems today. I kept my time and got my first place trophy. I was also top PAX for the day.

When I got home, I checked the club's website to check my times. All was well. I ended up checking again a few hours later and noticed that I got bumped to 3rd in class and 6th in PAX. I messaged one of the organizers and he let me know that he was able to recover the crashed files and I coned on my last run. Nooo!!! I'll be bringing the trophy back at our next event.

 

[Black95TSIawd]

8/28/2016 #5 SCCA NNJR event

155 registered drivers for this event. Last event in NJ before nationals. Nearly all of the top drivers in the tri-state area showed up for this event for their final practice and to scrub in their new tires.

Here is my fastest run:



Course was pretty fun except for the 2 hairpins. Turbo lag, even with the t25, really sucks. The car did not feel as good as the last event, but I didn't think anything of it. I am in an under-prepared SM car against top drivers on slicks. I was a bit nervous too. My fastest raw time was 61st overall and I paxed 88th. I don't see myself running slicks anytime in the future so SCCA events will always show poor results. Stockish DSM's in D-street are no fun. I can probably do "ok" in ASP but my modifying both of my front control arms bumps me into SM. SM is way hardcore and out of my reach. STX is cool, but i'm not going to go back to a stockish car at this point. Maybe one day i'll cut my fenders and stuff huge tires underneath and toss a big turbo on..... but i'm not holding my breath.

The event was still super fun nonetheless. Nice to see the regulars and really nice to see the super fast guys haul ass around the course.


Next event is this weekend and i'll be heading up to Deven's to run with the MA Porsche Club.

 

[Black95TSIawd]

I do a once over on the car before every event and I am also due for an oil change. I took care of that last night, but while checking the front suspension, both my lower control arm ball joints had up and down play. The passenger side was pretty bad. (explains the thud I was hearing at the left handed hair-pin) It also explains why the car felt like shit. Even launching it felt different. I thought it was just me being weird, but there was def. something up in the front end. Glad I was able to find it. I tightened up the ball joints and all seems to be back to normal.

I've been running a catchcan on the car for the last 2 events since I noticed a ton of oil in my intake and intercooler pipes. The catch can nearly got full at the last event! I think I'm just overfilling the motor with too much oil. Better safe than sorry. I ordered a Kiggly HLA and it should be here today. I'll get it on after work and hopefully that stops the oil from puddling in the head.

 

[jamel16]

June 2015

I'm back to being single. My soon to be ex-wife and I probably rushed into marriage and it didn't work out. Sucks, but whatever. Talon went back into storage mode and I traded in my Jeep for a new Evo.


View attachment 296657


Being single again gives you plenty of time to yourself so the RNR Racing downpipe, Apex Catback, and Greddy FMIC immediately went on the car including the prior coilovers and wheels.

View attachment 296658


View attachment 296659

Damn that's a clean car

 

[Black95TSIawd]

Damn that's a clean car

Thank you.



All done! Easiest "mod" ever.

 

[Black95TSIawd]

So i'm up on the fence about the kiggly HLA. Not that it did anything wrong, but I had hoped it would combat some of my blowby coming out of the VC, mainly the oil that is accumulating in my catch can. I assumed less oil in the head would mean less oil in my catch can. When I ran up at Deven's (more on that later) nearly zero oil got into the catch can. This included 11 runs with two very high RPM sections. (70+mph in 2nd gear) I thought I was in the clear. Last weekend at a local event, 80% of the catch can filled and oil looked like it was blowing by the seal of the oil cap. Ugh. Back to the drawing board. The only thing I will assume now is that I have a bad PCV valve and its allowing boost into the VC. Next winter, I will have to build a dual catch can setup as I did on my old GSX.

 

[Black95TSIawd]

9/3/2016 - My trip up to Devens, MA.

The venue is a decommissioned Army airport base. Its the main location for all things autocross in Massachusetts. Its also about 4 hours from my house so driving up the morning of did not make any sense. An autocross buddy of mine and I hit the road Friday after work and spent the night at a local hotel. Sam Krauss, my DSM autocross guru, also joined us for the event. He sent me the invite initially.

This was NCR Porsche Club's event # 5. The course was setup up relatively fun and they did use as much of the space as possible. There is only 1 main runway and a few taxi roads with a large open section near the tower. The start was setup so that launching hand no affect, left to right to the start line followed by an offset slalom. This led into a very understeery (sp?) right hander onto the runway with a few left right transitions including this one left hander that looked like it had a half chicago box with the cones purposely setup so you plow into them. (Ask me how I know) Next were a few more left right transitions into another right hander onto to the taxi road. 3 walloms followed by 90 degree right hander. This is where it really got fun. A small right handed sweeper into a left handed sweeper, HARD ON THE BRAKES for a split second, followed by another right sweeper into a little jook right before the finished line. This last section was fast, hitting the rev limiter nearly both times, before and after braking. It was fun.

Going to events with Sam is always a blast because he's such a good driver and he is willing to help. His instruction helped me knock off nearly 2 seconds from my times. Started off the day in the 67's, got down into the high 64's, and dipped into the mid 63's. I kept hitting the last damn cone in the stupid half chicago box so my fastest clean was 65.5. Ran a bunch of 64's and a best of 63.6 +1. I hate hitting cones, but Sam's instruction goes a long way so i'll take the 2 seconds plus 1 cone and try to lose the penalty next time out. My clean runs paxed me 42 out of 71. Really shitty, but i'll take it as a learning experience. Had both my 63 sec runs been clean, I would've been top 15. But, no excuses. It was fun. I'm happy.

 

[Black95TSIawd]

9/10/2016 - MSNE Event #10

Back to my home. I'm going to admit, I get a bit nervous before autocross events. Running with MSNE is different. I've gone to nearly every event this year and am very familiar with the regulars and club organizers. I do my best driving when running with these guys. We were in lot L again over at Metlife Stadium. A bumpy lot, with lots of grip. I usually have some tire/fender carnage in this lot, but whatever. Drive it like you stole it.

My times were a bit weird this time. I usually take at least a few runs to set up my driving lines and post my fastest time the last or next to last run. The variance between my first run and fastest run is usually a few seconds. However, at this event, the variance was only 0.6 seconds. 49.5 for my first and 48.9 for my fastest clean. Fastest overall was 48.3, and I curse myself for this, but I hit the very last cone at the finish line. Here's the kicker, my times were still good enough to podium in my class, 3rd place, and PAX 7th out of 72.




Next event for me is this Saturday, 9/17/2016. I'm heading back out to PA with NEPA SCCA. They are setting up a course at Pocono Raceway infield road course. Will be my first time out on a race track so I'm super excited.

 

[Black95TSIawd]

Had a blast at Pocono today. Writeup and video coming after I get some sleep. Lol

 

[GofaST4life]

This is awesome and brings back great memories for myself.

Keep it up!

AX is a hell of a drug and I think the 2g DSM can be a solid contender.

 

[Black95TSIawd]

This is awesome and brings back great memories for myself.

Keep it up!

AX is a hell of a drug and I think the 2g DSM can be a solid contender.

Thank you!

 

[Black95TSIawd]

NEPA SCCA - 9/17/2016 - Pocono Raceway Infield


I don't think it gets any better than autocrossing on a road course. I cannot wait to do this again next year.

With that being said, I feel like I drove like shit today. I didn't get a chance to walk the course because my first work station was working the entry gate. I did get a bit lucky in that the other 5 cars in SM were just as under-prepared as my car is for that class. We were all on street tires except the Genesis on slicks. My first run, despite not walking the course, was good enough to win the class. I got a bit quicker, but kept hitting cones. I had a talk with myself, yes myself, before my last run and more or less told myself to stop being a *****. Last run ended up being a clean 75.4, my fastest time of day, and put a 2 second gap between myself and second place. I truly feel like the car had 73's in it, just not the driver. I'll get there one day.