track car.... gone

so.... wrx track car is now sold (that escalated quickly)

let's wind back a bit.... after winton, I fitted a new aluminium radiator and slimline fans.

also ripped out the terrible brant alarm - these came standard on a lot of australian delivered wrxs, and they're crap. they spontaneously go off, or the solder joints go bad in the control unit, disabling your ecu or fuel pump (sometime when you're driving!), they don't disarm properly, the key unit goes bad - it's incredible how awful they are.



Replaced it with a Mongoose alarm which is more reliable (well, after month anyway), as well as putting in a nice double DIN Sony head unit with some MB Quart speakers, Pioneer subwoofers, reverse camera etc. Fitted in a set of "defi" gauges, wired in boost and water temp with an adapter in to the top radiator hose after I flushed the coolant again. Haven't wired in the oil pressure gauge yet.

Then my wife was in an accident in my accord euro - written off. decided I wasn't going to have 4 cars at my house, with 4 sets of rego and insurance to pay off, so the wrx was going to go. sold the wrx after listing it for 3 days, and going to pick up a new car for the wife this afternoon.

of course, knowing what's going to happen, i'll pick up another track car soon - but it won't be a road registered track car! a friend of mine has recently given up racing porsches to do go-karting - a lot cheaper to buy and maintain than a car, cheaper track days, and in a way a lot more competitive. now I've got my cx5 it's the perfect tow vehicle for a gokart, so it's just a matter of researching and figuring out how to get started.

winton may 2014

so after staying the night in benalla, enjoyed a very brief excursion onto winton with the combined track day of the WRX club and porsche club. Plenty of great machinery getting around the track was brilliant!

the plan was to have around 5 sessions on the track - but unfortunately during my third session out, my wrx suffered the pretty common problem of a cracked plastic end (top) tank, letting go of all the coolant :( managed to limp home - a pretty slow three hour crawl - without too many major issues.

up to then, was enjoying my first time at winton. Bit of a tricky track to learn, especially the hairpin leading onto the short back straight where I did go off a couple of times.

i've swapped in a full alloy radiator and slimline fans to replace the 11 year old stock radiator, and this weekend with re-flush the coolant as I'm installing a water temp gauge to keep a closer eye on temp, as well as swapping in an adjustable rear swaybar.

also just bought a new daily/tow car, a mazda cx5 - just got to hunt down a reasonably priced car trailer now!

time for updates - long overdue :)

can't believe it's been that long since the last blog entry. too many other things in life, yadda yadda yadda...

anyway after stepping away from the car scene for a bit, it's time to get reactivated.

long time ago, i bought a '04 wrx sedan, and had a few cars since then. bought another one recently, this time an '03. the plan is to make it a weekend track car, but with street registration so it can still be driven around to get worked on (i don't have a trailer!). bought this car pretty cheap - that way should anything go wrong while racing *touch wood* it won't be such a big deal.

first track day: philip island april 2014. pretty standard, just changed to dot5.1 brake fluid a few days before. the plan is to reduce weight and increase handling/stopping capability, rather than adding power.

next track day should be winton raceway mid-may.

(rant) on a final note, it never ceases to amaze me the number of people who spend crazy amounts of money modifying their car so they can stand next to it in a carpark. big power, big wheels, and never been driven on a track. and if you're that much of a moron to drive stupidly fast on public roads, you probably deserve to get into an accident and write your car off. (/rant)