GOLFMK8
GOLFMK7
GOLFMK6
GOLFMKV

2015+ GTI for AutoX

RacingManiac

Drag Race Newbie
Location
MI
2nd consecutive weekend of National autocrossing, this time at the ProSolo at Oscoda. Small courses because the site really isn't that big, but pretty fun courses.

Finished 3rd in class to the same cast of characters but much closer this time. 1-4 in GS is separated by less than .3 sec after 2 days. 2-4 is 0.033 sec.

2 weekends in the row in trophy is a first. But wish it was higher position. Gave it my best shot though, was 2nd into my last right side run.
Left


Right(not actually the fastest, that run isn't on video but this is about 0.014 sec slower


41st on Pax was also the best I've ever done in a National event...
 

GTI Chris1

New member
Location
Indiana
Good work Racing Maniac. I had a good weekend of racing as well (they were not national-level events but there were a lot of people). I feel like I'm starting to get the hang of how to getting speed out of the GTI (it was easy in the C5 - ha)
 

GTI Chris1

New member
Location
Indiana
GTI Chris, Did you go to the Hoosier challenge? If so, who won GS? I usually make it, but with the wife a week away from having a baby, it was a no go.

Hi MK7Brian,

I did go to the Hoosier Challenge (189 entries) - I ended up winning. I was 23rd on PAX. We had 4 run groups, with GS running in group 3. We had only 3 runs and the first run was dry with the other 2 being a bit slippery. It was a fun course!
 

MK7brian

Passed Driver's Ed
Location
Munster Indiana
Hi MK7Brian,

I did go to the Hoosier Challenge (189 entries) - I ended up winning. I was 23rd on PAX. We had 4 run groups, with GS running in group 3. We had only 3 runs and the first run was dry with the other 2 being a bit slippery. It was a fun course!

GTI Chris that is awesome!!! Good to see a GTI showing those ST's what's up. Hopefully I can make it next year.
 

GTI Chris1

New member
Location
Indiana
Thanks MK7Brian!

So a question for everyone - Has anyone used Bilstein B6's? And what are your thoughts? Comparison to Koni Yellows or stock would be appreciated. Has anyone come across the damping curves of these? Would love to hear thoughts.
 

RacingManiac

Drag Race Newbie
Location
MI
Thanks MK7Brian!

So a question for everyone - Has anyone used Bilstein B6's? And what are your thoughts? Comparison to Koni Yellows or stock would be appreciated. Has anyone come across the damping curves of these? Would love to hear thoughts.

Bilstein is non-adjustable, so it loses out a bit on flexibility front. There are a lot of people out there who can revalve them with custom damping curves and probably ones that'll work on our car. But if its going to be effective on our car(assuming what I got for my adjustable Koni is a good enough guide) it'll be a pretty uncomfortable ride as a daily.

I've heard from someone who used to work for Bilstein that you can also pay to have B6s converted to double adjustables. But the cost is probably pretty similar to what I spent on Koni custom DAs. The upside is I think the Bilstein stuff might be more reliable. Koni is pretty universally known that you gonna need to rebuild them over time. I've already done that with my fronts.
 

RacingManiac

Drag Race Newbie
Location
MI
Catching up...started from 2 weekends ago...

Local event at Oscoda, ran almost a Match Tour style event for a combined Morning/Afternoon Saturday and a stand alone sunday. Got a 1st and a 2nd in GS

Sat AM:
Sat PM:

Sun:


On sunday though I got some weird issue going on. Half way through my first run my ESC light came on and my TPMS light started flashing and said ESC Error. I drove the subsequent runs like that and the car maintained ABS function but no ESC(um, not bad but disconcerting). Not fully sure if VAQ is working correctly. Cleared codes and the car seems to work but codriver mentioned the car is behaving slightly off....
 

RacingManiac

Drag Race Newbie
Location
MI
So after the ESC issue last weekend the hope is the codes will come back this week so I can take the car in to get it checked out.

The event was the last before Nats at Toledo Express. The car ran without any issue today which I guess is just as puzzling. But it was pretty damn fast. I finished 2nd to my codriver again:

Ken's 51.878


My 52.373


Ken's run was the fastest clean Street class car today, which is pretty ridiculous...

Only thing I did was reset the VAQ adaptation but I doubt that actually fixed anything. But we didn't have recurring ESC issue so I guess the fuse for the time bomb is longer than I thought...

On well, onward to Nats I guess
 

GTI Chris1

New member
Location
Indiana
So after the ESC issue last weekend the hope is the codes will come back this week so I can take the car in to get it checked out.

The event was the last before Nats at Toledo Express. The car ran without any issue today which I guess is just as puzzling. But it was pretty damn fast. I finished 2nd to my codriver again:

Ken's 51.878


My 52.373


Ken's run was the fastest clean Street class car today, which is pretty ridiculous...

Only thing I did was reset the VAQ adaptation but I doubt that actually fixed anything. But we didn't have recurring ESC issue so I guess the fuse for the time bomb is longer than I thought...

On well, onward to Nats I guess

Poor timing to have little "bugs" pop up with your ESC...Hopefully it stays solid for Nats. Good luck!
 

RacingManiac

Drag Race Newbie
Location
MI
Well that was Nats 2017. The car was working great and had to drive like hell to get there. If you have never been to Lincoln you probably won't know the OPR issue(Other People's Rubber). Having an entirely dry week(shocker) with 1300 cars autocrossing on 2 courses means there are a lot of rubber laid down. And despite them sweeping the courses with a street sweeper every night there are still lots out there. GS ran LAST heat of the last 2 days of the competition means we will have a lot of that. Too much in fact that we really weren't fully prepared for. Day one on the west course we had a very fast moving heat(we were barely getting 5 min between me and my codriver's run) with a tricky course means we were fighting a car that drove like there is an inch of rubber under the actual tires of the car(and there was!). 4th and 5th in GS after Day 1 and more than 8 tenth off the lead. My first run with the cleanest tire all afternoon on course ended up being what I stood on:



Day 2 on the East course we recruited other people from our region to help using a electric multitool to scrape the rear tires between every run. East course also runs slower for whatever reason and that helped giving us more time to do that. Fast sweepers and long corners played into GTI's strength in being able to get on power early and hard to use that diff to our advantage and it showed. I ran the fastest GS time of the day to get into 2nd place while my codriver unfortunately coned away a 3rd place run to end up in 4th in GS. Ultimately I was 0.205 off Doug Rowse, who has now earned 5 jackets to his name.



The time ultimately was good for 28th on PAX with the people that ran the same course order as me(around 330 people) and 172nd on PAX out of 1300 people. I am pretty happy with that. A better day one would probably help but hindsight is always 20/20 and we still drove our butts off with what we got.
 

GTI Chris1

New member
Location
Indiana
Well that was Nats 2017. The car was working great and had to drive like hell to get there. If you have never been to Lincoln you probably won't know the OPR issue(Other People's Rubber). Having an entirely dry week(shocker) with 1300 cars autocrossing on 2 courses means there are a lot of rubber laid down. And despite them sweeping the courses with a street sweeper every night there are still lots out there. GS ran LAST heat of the last 2 days of the competition means we will have a lot of that. Too much in fact that we really weren't fully prepared for. Day one on the west course we had a very fast moving heat(we were barely getting 5 min between me and my codriver's run) with a tricky course means we were fighting a car that drove like there is an inch of rubber under the actual tires of the car(and there was!). 4th and 5th in GS after Day 1 and more than 8 tenth off the lead. My first run with the cleanest tire all afternoon on course ended up being what I stood on:



Day 2 on the East course we recruited other people from our region to help using a electric multitool to scrape the rear tires between every run. East course also runs slower for whatever reason and that helped giving us more time to do that. Fast sweepers and long corners played into GTI's strength in being able to get on power early and hard to use that diff to our advantage and it showed. I ran the fastest GS time of the day to get into 2nd place while my codriver unfortunately coned away a 3rd place run to end up in 4th in GS. Ultimately I was 0.205 off Doug Rowse, who has now earned 5 jackets to his name.



The time ultimately was good for 28th on PAX with the people that ran the same course order as me(around 330 people) and 172nd on PAX out of 1300 people. I am pretty happy with that. A better day one would probably help but hindsight is always 20/20 and we still drove our butts off with what we got.

Good job - You guys did a good job showing the GTI can be competitive and putting up a great fight with that car.
 
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