MonkeyMD
Autocross Champion
Well where to begin! I picked the wagon up a few weeks ago after getting the LSD, Southbend Stage 2 daily, and IS20 installed, and drove it around for a week to get the clutch broken in before heading up to Thunderhill Raceway this past weekend.
Friday was Thunderhill East, you can see my best lap of 2:10.27 HERE. First session of the day I was pretty much just getting used to the track and trying to learn it. I was definitely not pushing as hard as I could all day, I think under 2:08 is certainly doable in the car. in my 3rd session I noticed a bad vibration under power that was really throwing me off. When I came in I was thinking my stock motor mounts might have been done finally, and the motor seemed very easy to move.. I borrowed a jack and lifted the front end and found this!
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The car drove fine earlier in the day and the week since I picked it up, so I'm thinking the shop that did the work either forgot to install the nut on the bolt, of just didn't tighten it down enough.. With some help of Steven Creek VW in San Jose, I was able to figure out the size bolt I needed and as luck would have it, Ace Hardware in Willows had just what I needed, so I went and got 1 and installed it in their parking lot, and also grabbed a spare.
4th session of the day went well for the first half, later in the session oil temp was getting high (imagine, way more power and temps go up WAY faster!) and I noticed a slight hesitation on the straight between turns 13 and 14. I should have driven real easy for a lap to really let it cool, but stupidly tried to accelerate onto the main straight fairly hard, and it threw an EPC light and limp mode, clearly was not running on all cylinders, I looked down and noticed oil was 265 degrees.. In the pits I scanned code and had cylinder 2/3 misfire and a few others, I cleared them and fired it up and imagine that, it was running perfect. Last session of the day it had just barely begun sprinkle in some area's and I decided to go out and see if the issue would happen again, and get the car hot to test it. The track drove like it was dry for most of the session and I got the oil back above 260 degrees, but then backed off and tried to keep it just above 250 for a few laps, and had no issues at all. Called it a day and decided I'd go ahead and see how it went the next day on the 2 mile West course.
Holy crap the Thunderhill West track is fun! Tight and a little technical. It had rained overnight, but my group was the 5th on track in the morning and by the time we went out, the track was pretty much 100% dry. Being that West would be my 6th track day, I was still in the mandatory point by group, and I quickly discovered that perhaps I needed to move up for next time.. unlike only having 10 cars in my run group for East, on West there was a lot more, combined with the shorter track I was catching cars and dealing with traffic a LOT. By the 3rd session I was feeling really dialed in and aside from needing to do cool down laps a bit more often due to oil temp, the car performed great. First hot lap of the 3rd session I did my best time of 1:29.55, (see that HERE), I think with better exit onto the main straight to start the lap, and a few other things I need to improve, I think there's another 1.5-2 seconds in there. The traction of the AWD as well as LSD really helped getting power down out of the tight corners, and in general, I can get back on the power much sooner than I though would be possible.
By the time it was almost my 4th session I was feeling pretty tired and almost decided to call it and go home, but decided I'd go out again. Unfortunately on my first flying lap the EPC code and missfire came back, same cylinder 2/3 as the day before, however oil temp was only 220 at that point. Limped it around the track and off, cleared the codes and it was fine. At that point I took that as a sign to call it and packed up and headed home.
A few things from here..
First off, the misfire needs to be dealt with. Unfortunately I don't have record of when I replaced the plugs and coils last, but I think it was October/November last year, so based on my normal driving, I'm fairly certain it's been almost 10k miles since, as a thing to rule out, I've already ordered some new Denso plugs and will install those and inspect the old ones when they arrive, fingers crossed that's all it was.
Oil temp: I knew adding another 52hp on top of where I was at previously was going to make oil temps go up faster (woah, power=heat!! Science, man), but I have to admit I was slightly surprised how quick it did go up what with the fairly mild weather (65ish on Friday, low 70's Saturday). For the last few months I've been doing a bit of looking into oil coolers, and while the Bar-Tek option does look good, I still really don't like the idea of dealing with a mess of oil when chaining the filter, as it also removed the drain valve the stock filtration system uses. At this point I'm going to safe up and go for the iABED system. It's going to be a pain to install, but seems to be the best system from my point of view. I'll need to make myself a bracket to hold the oil cooler when I do get it, as once the Golf R bumper I have is painted and installed, I'll have duct on the passenger side to use for it, instead of adding it in the stack in front of the AC condenser.
As far as developing the car from here, I think it's clear as far as performance on track is concerned, I need a bit more camber.. I went ahead and ordered the Whiteline rol center correction ball joints that allow for some additional camber, with those installed and maxed out, it should bring me from -2.1 degrees to -2.6. In the rear, I've got -1.7 currently, I think I can increase that to -2 degrees, though on the passenger rear the fuel filler tube may be a issue, I expect to need maybe a 3mm wheel spacer to get it in the right place to not rub that. My motor mounts are tired, I do plan on tossing in some BFI ones at some point, probably stage 1? The front suspension has the SuperPro control arms with their Duroball bushings, the rear is all stock still. I think adding to the list would be replacing those with Super pro bushings, though I've also looked into the camber and toe arms 034 motorsports sells as a option as well. Stiffening up those and getting rid of as much deflection under load as possible will also help with the passenger rear rubbing on the inner felt fender liner and fuel filler.
My Hankook R-S4's have 6 track days on them now, as well as a couple thousand street miles, wear wise they appear to have more life left, though from what I've seen with other people and those tires, it seems like when they get heat cycled out they can start to chunk, so I'm not expecting too much more out of them.. Thinking about tires to go with next, something like RT660's sound nice as they're supposedly quite a bit faster of a tire than the R-S4, however it seems like they would be expected to be done much faster than the R-S4, so it depends on what my budget for tires the rest of the year looks like and how many track days I'll be able to do as well.
I have LOTS of other ideas of things to improve performance for track use, however they'd very much impact the ability of the car to be a daily driven street car, so I need to think long and hard about that... There's a part of me that likes the idea of developing the wagon further if only to harass what people think should be faster cars on track, however to go down that path more would mean considering something else as a daily vehicle..
To finish for today, track photos from Friday at Thunderhill East!
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I've been shopping oil coolers and was set on the Bartek, until I showed it to my mechanic.
He said it looked cheap and said you don't want a thermostat as it causes more problems. He recommended the VWR. Think I'll bite the bullet and get the VWR with maybe a 19 row Setrab, although i don't think i need much cooling. On an 80° day, just managed to touch 280, and didn't have any issues even up to that point, expect the car showing a warning on the MFD.
