Victim of Paparazzi

The Paparazzi was waiting in the driveway when Lisa came home from work today. I've presented the photos in the order in which they were taken so that you can see the emotional progression.



HI!



Tired?




Oh, you can see the turning point here... I caught her rolling her eyes.



Yikes, I think she wants me to stop now.



No chance.



... and getting out of the car.

Laundry

Lisa and I need to work out a better laundry method. Our problem lies in the fact that we both use the floor as a closet/hamper, and after about a month it's near impossible to ascertain the clean stuff from the dirty stuff. The only give away of cleanliness is smell (ummm, smells ok to me), and wrinkled (normally the more wrinkled it is the more likely it is to be fresh out of the wash).

Last night I figured, what the hell I'll give it a go at sorting some of the mess. What you see in the photo above is the partial result of 5 hours of folding and ironing.

I was trying to think of a good life lesson here... all I can really come up with is: nobody likes doing laundry, and people that say they do are lying.

The Bane of My Existence

The only thing keeping the Corrado from being a reliable every day driver are cooling system issues. Since it's been back on the road:

1. The cooling fan motor only works on low speed and wont turn on automatically.
2. The lower radiator hose popped off driving down the high way and dropped ~4 liters of fresh G12 coolant on I75.
3. Lower reservoir hose leaks (drip drop) from a razor line sized cut. I've noticed these cuts on the upper radiator hose as well and suspect them to be a manufactures defect.

As luck does have it, every time I've droped liters of coolant I've been somewhere close to help. Here we are at Johnny B's house duct taping the lower resevoir hose.

ZOMG, It runs - and how!

Made it to the show on June 6th and I've been sorting little issues though out the week. Let me tell you, this thing moves!

More Progress^2

Got home from work today at 6:30pm and hit the garage like a mad man. Brand new thermostat housing and all new temp sensors. New one on the left, old one on the right.

I took the front cross member off sanded it and hit it with some rustolium. Also painted the front motor mount. Installed the thermo housing and new billet crack pipe.



The obligatory "Fuck you old crack pipe!"

Lower intake manifold, new gasket, fuel rail, 4.0 bar fuel pressure regulator (previous was a 3.5 from the Jetta, Corrado's came stock with the 4.0), and 30# injectors.

... and installed. It was pretty dark aout side at this point.

More Progress on the C

I got a ton of stuff done on the Corrado this weekend.

The new head gasket/spacer set up will drop compression from 10:1 to 8.5:1. The gasket is comprised of a two piece mk4 metal gasket that is split and then sandwiches the stainless steel spacer. This means more boost, safer.

New timing chains installed. The head is bolted down using ARP fasteners. Torquing order is same as stock (basically just diagonally from the center out) but the stronger studs can with stand a ton more torque. We stepped it up from 23-49-65-80 ft lbs.

While doing putting the chain covers back on I ran into an issue when installing the upper chain tension. My motor is out of a 96 Jetta, so I have the plastic valve cover and the dual timing chain. This being the first time Ive done the chains on the car, I ordered the new style chain kit-recommended for better durability and ideal for the dual chain setup (also cheaper). The only thing that wasnt back wards compatible with the new timing chain kit was the upper timing chain tensioner bolt. Pictured above-right is the full chain kit, the tensioner is the large brass bolt in the middle.

The new style upper chain tensioner doesn't thread all the way into the early style upper cover. The problem lies in that the new style cover is threaded all the way through, while the old style (the one i have) isnt threaded all the way. Apparently 92 distributors are some of the only cars to get the "old style" covers - which is what I have to make the new '96 motor work with me obd1 distributor setup.

Not being able to find a 22m x 1.5 Tap locally on the Saturday of memorial day weekend, I oped to port out the back end to get the new style tensioner bolt to thread in all the way. Vortex recommends forcing the new bolt in a 1/4 turn at a time using "lots of oil". I wasnt comfortable with this so I went with the Dremel and never looked back, I only removed (max) a few cubic mills of Al from the back side of the case.

Next up, the valve cover, lightweight flywheel (autotech 13lb) and the clutch(Sachs Sport) assembly.

Monday I was determined to get the transmission in. Here's the transmission lookin' funky fresh on the floor waiting to go back in his home.

Ryan and I struggled with it till it almost landed on my head, then we called around for an engine hoist.

Engine and transmission are in and bolted securely to the motor mounts. The shiny trans looks so out of place in the dirty ass bay.



I'm itching to get the car back on the road and plan to work on this as much as possible leading up to the first show of the season (June 7th).

Some Thesis Ideas

The urinals in the men's rooms at work have automatic flushing sensors. These sensors use motion detectors to determine when to flush the urinal. The best I can figure they're armed when you stand in front of them and then trigger once you step away.

I've noticed a strange trend that sometimes they don't exactly work properly. Sometimes they flush when I step up to them and then don't do it when I step away. Sometimes they do nothing. But most times when they act up they flush over and over again while I stand in front of them and then revert back to normal once I step away. It's odd, but it doesn't happen everyday. In fact it's fairly rare that it does happen. Today I think I figured out the problem.

I have a black merino wool sweater. I've deduced that the only time the urinals act up is when I'm wearing this sweater. My hunch is that the reflective properties of the soft micro weave sweater are different than that of most shirts/garments and thus cause the sensor to freak.

I verified this today by three separate trips to the restroom, each time being sure to use the same receptacle. The first time (wearing the sweater) the urinal was at it again - flushing over and over again. The second time (sweater removed, polo shirt) no problems - normal operation. The third time (sweater back on) the urinal went all catywompus on me again.

This may not be enough data to back a doctoral thesis on Operational Malfunctions of Automatic Urinal Flush Sensors or Reflective Properties of Black Sweaters, but so far I think I may have something. I'm going to try it on another floor and see what happens.

Letter in the RS

If you get a subscription to Rolling Stone Magazine you may or may not have already seen it in the June 2008 issue. My dad - an avid reader of the magazine got a letter published, heighlighted here to the right.

The letter reads: "So glad to see Zappa Plays Zappa recognized in RS's Best of Bock. I took my son to see this concert last fall and was able to tell him it was as good as any Frank I ever saw."

This proceeds an article in the May issue of RS about ZPZ, and further so a letter he wrote to the mag (as discussed here) about ZPZ.

What can I say, he loves his Zappa.

Juice

I came home tonight after meeting up with Micah and Ed and was really craving some juice. I was like, "man I really could go for some lemonade." But we were out. So then I realized we had some key limes hanging out in the kitchen and I was like, "oh I can make some limeade!" Let me tell you it was like milking an iguana, but the reward was worth it!

Alright Already... Progress

I'm making progress putting the Corrado back together. After some good work over the weekend, the transmission is basically done and today I gave it a coat of paint for good measure. The progress has really helped to motivate me to do more work. I cant wait to get the car back on the road.

Also, just for fun I thought I'd take a picture of the intake manifold. That's right - mirror black.

Washed + New Picture

I just turned 20k miles on the Rabbit and I couldn't be happier with it.

Coincidence?

There's a funny thing about coincidences. What is it about them? I cant put my finger on it. I'm sure of one thing at least, Phil and I don't own mid-engined Porsches.

Acronyms FTL

If I hear APQP, PPAP, PPDV, and ADVPP in the same sentence again I'm going to do something stupid.

I can do that in the summer...

Skier1 attacks a crazy line with some big air. Skier2 says, "thats nothing, I can do the same line in the summer." Crazy video.

Track Day Horay!

I'll put some words in here later. Great time.