Topic: The Goon and The Darkness

[blame]

After a pretty dismal and wet June and July, August has finally brought some decent weather. I find myself playing with my bike a lot. I like it.





But also I have had the chance to give some much needed attention to The Goon.



(who I noticed the other day has more ground clearance than a jeep. Lawl)

The Goon's clutch has been at the end of its life for a good 3 years now. I keep telling myself I need to get on that and then I never do.. Until now.







There's some pretty good hot spots, but honestly it is not bad for 3 years of intermittent slipping.. I didn't resurface, The Goon ain't care.



New pilot and throw out bearings, obvs



Just a cheapo oem replacement. Both of The Goon's horsepowers will be reined in effectively



I wish the pressure plate was a little stiffer. I hate a weak pedal feel. But oh well, not racecar.



Back in she goes



I didn't have a stopwatch running or anything but I think it was about 4 hours from driving into position to engine back in. If I didn't have to wait for my buddy to get home from work in the evening before getting my engine hoist back from him, I would have been able to drive her with the new clutch same day. So much less to do on a non-turbo

I took the opportunity to do a bunch of other general maintenance, coolant/oil/trans fluid etc. Spark plugs. She drives great now. Cable clutches are so easy to adjust (and no bleeding)

I am getting more deeply into the tuning aspect of The Darkness



It is a hell of a steep learning curve. So much to know. But I'm plugging through it. I found a good starting block, an XPT tune for ej205 with provision for sti pinks and vf39. I've adjusted injector scaling and latency for my wrx blues and she is running pretty great, but she'll be getting better and better as I get more into it.

Also because there is autocross tomorrow, she got a bath





Ain't she just the cutest?

Next weekend is a Quesnel race weekend again, so I am hoping to have her a little more dialed in by then.

And just for fun: a little clip of my buddy driving The Darkness during a horrid wet gross watercross

https://imgur.com/a/OLrtXam

(I don't know how to embed a video)

[blame]

So I am at autocross, it's going great. The Darkness is running well, the course was a bit confusing but I ended up figuring it out. I start hearing a buzz and smell burning plastic..



Something on the top of the fender liner let go and it was riding on the tire. Yank it out of there. No problem.

So I go do a few more laps and everything is great again. Except the launch control I was playing around with yesterday. That's set way too low and I am bogging every start, easy fix but not here.

Then the dreaded curse comes back. The curse where she decides that coolant belongs on the ground and not in the engine.



This time the fan chewed through the upper rad hose. I was so careful when I installed it cuz it has already chewed through a brand new mishi hose. This rad is just too damn thick.

I really don't think I can move the hose any further away from the fan without stuffing it right into the ps pulley..


I may have to shave a bit off the tips of the rad fan.

Stupid car..

Stupid curse.

[seat safety switch]

That sucks. I've been there, but thankfully I caught it in time.