I'm a poor-sha guy now

[moatilliatta]

Weighs just as much as my Cayman. SPC makes a nice toe link with rubber bushing.

[roguetoaster]

As for the sig pic, that was courtesy of my number 1 fan here on R3V and shockingly, nobody on Rennlist has made any comments about it.

Rennlisters are getting lazy, or have never seen multiple generations of MR2s. Glad to hear that the low quality image is at least disconcerting someone here at the very least.

[2mAn]

One thing I forgot to add. Part of what JMP did was a corner balance after installing all of those suspension arms. Ignoring the benefit of the corner balance I was more concerned with the weight. They are factory rated at 2901 and my weight reductions should've put it right around 2800, but sounds like 2901 is a dry weight.



I have 2 items coming soon that should be me to an actual 3000#-dead. My goal of 2750 seems a little bit more difficult, but if I can get it into the 28xxS than it should be a hoot!... We'll see.

[AusScare]

Good to see you getting out there and enjoying the car! Love the updates.

[2mAn]

Getting caught up on your thread Simon.

That engine bay looks like an absolute nightmare to work in. The driving experience must be worth it!

Car looks like a stunner out there on track. Your ugly duckling sig pic on every post really throwing me off haha.

I hope to never have to work in that engine bay again, but I'm a glutton for punishment so I'm sure there's more things I will do myself soon and refuse to pay a shop to do...

That said, I signed up for a track day at Streets of Willow on December 9th which should be a blast. I will be out there with JMP which has been always my go-to BMW shop.... who also helped with the last job.

As for the sig pic, that was courtesy of my number 1 fan here on R3V and shockingly, nobody on Rennlist has made any comments about it.

[Panici]

Getting caught up on your thread Simon.

That engine bay looks like an absolute nightmare to work in. The driving experience must be worth it!

Car looks like a stunner out there on track. Your ugly duckling sig pic on every post really throwing me off haha.

[2mAn]

After a month passing which was just cleaning the ICV and still having the lumpy idle I sent the car to JMP last week to install the adjustable GT3 arms and also dealing with the idle.




Going to get a corner balance and alignment when they are done too, so we'll see exactly how much this Beetle weighs

I have a few updates from the shop and it looks like my aggressive driving has yielded its first casualty. Chances are this would've happened eventually but it looks like the corrugated plastic hose was rubbing against stuff in the engine bay and has a pinhole leak that was revealed during the smoke test. They will repair this section and confirm that there are no other leaks. Initial patch showed the idle settle down.



The other update was that these arms will not work. Looks like the solid bushing wont fit, but luckily the old arm still has a good rubber bushing.

[2mAn]

Action shots!














Car did mostly wonderful, I was having a good time pushing it for the full session. However, it wasnt totally flawless. I had a code for P1397, Camshaft Position Sensor 2. Car wasnt running odd so I ignored it. After the session I checked the codes again, especially since there was a random idle surge that came and went. P1514 Idle Air Control Valve Opening & P1551 Idle Air Control Valve Closing. Sounds like I need to pull the Idle Control Valve and clean it out, but not sure what to do about the Camshaft Position Sensor.

[2mAn]

Where did we leave off? ... Vacuum leak and a ton of codes.

Step 1 was to pull off the airbox and grab the mini mirror to see if I could find anything on the crossover pipes. Luckily it didnt take long to see it. I took a pic so you could see it too...


Could it be an easy repair for once? with less than 24 hours to go?...


Yup! That was it. My first real drive was riddled with traffic as I used the smooth running idle as an excuse to drive the ~5 miles round trip to pick up my daughter from Daycare. She gets more excited to see the Porsche than my wife does haha

So the next day was at the PEC.


All smiles


My buddy joined me and took some pics. I have some more on the way. Next post will have em

[MrBurgundy]

Wtf? That's a clean cut on that ground cable. You just.. pulled it apart?

as Simon and I were scratching our heads as to why there was 0 electrical power, I went to touch the negative battery cable to the battery to see if there was any spark that you’d normally see when attaching a battery.

it literally just fell off lol. There was no battery tie down so the battery was hopping around in there and it severed right at the metal section that is crimped on the copper wiring

[Chilezen]

Wtf? That's a clean cut on that ground cable. You just.. pulled it apart?

[MrBurgundy]

adventure

[2mAn]

Thought I was out of the storm! Pelican Parts had ONE ground cable left in stock and I had just enough time to pick up my kid and head straight out there to pick it up.

Success!




or so I thought... Car immediately came to life with the new ground cable, but so did the hesitation and stumbling. Got some codes and it looks like I have a vacuum leak.

T-Minus 30 hours...

[MrBurgundy]

What an eventful night lol

Skips jig was a great idea

[2mAn]

Eventful evening after being gone for the weekend.

Step 1 was dealing with the Fuel Return Line.




Previously had tried the "Biggie squeeze it to make sh!t fit" method and was unsuccessful. No more joking around if I actually want to be at the event on Thursday (which is non-refundable at this point)

Luckily Skip (a retired, Porsche Tech from Alabama) is a peach and explained again this method of creating a jig to myself and to MrBurgundy . It still didn't make sense to this idiot, but Omar understood and we got to work creating the jig using stuff I had laying around the garage.

Its working!


With that done, we buttoned it up, and moved on to Step 2. Vacuum bleeding the system. Omar had a nice Snap-On tool to handle this. No pics of that, but with that done we wrapped up everything and went to fire it up.

But nothing. Checked the battery and it was showing 12+ Volts. But nothing.

A frantic call again to Skip and we were discussing what it could've been. The car was reacting as it there was no power at all. Discussions of ignition switches, 80A Grounds, etc were mentioned but I knew it was something stupid. But what!?... My buddy had an idea and figured it out quickly.



Remember that ground issue from much earlier? From the last time I drove it? ... Well, I thought it was the 3 ground wires to the fuel injectors, but boy was I wrong....

New ground strap and a battery tie down (that was MIA) should have me fired up tonight and driving it tomorrow. 1 day before the PEC event .

Huge thanks to Skip, Omar and Kevan. So grateful for an awesome community of car enthusiasts.