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Good Morning Everyone! I live in columbus and love cars and a friend of mine recommended that I check this place out. Seems right up my ally! I have an 06 WRX wagon that I purchased about 3 years ago. I was a big honda guy before that but we don't need to go there. I still miss my Si Hatch but this subie is on a different planet. It's mostly stock except for the SPT cat back, stage 1 tune, stereo with upgraded component speakers and a custom fiberglass sub in the spare tire (spare tire is still there as I used it as a mold to make the enclosure). Planning a downpipe and a custom tune in the near future. My truck needs a little attention before my car gets any love... The truck is a 74 Ford F100. 302 bored 40 over, Racing Cam, Edelbrock 4 barrel carb, Mallory Ignition, and a few other small things. It needs a whole new exhaust system so at the moment it is loud enough to wake the dead. Which for as often as I drive it isn't really a bad thing. lol.. Any way... Glad to be here and have a great day everyone! http://s28.postimg.org/677s0zbal/WRX.jpg http://s3.postimg.org/e234veyb7/F100.jpg https://www.dropbox.com/s/vd87jk6g7o6sc63/WRX.JPG?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/zz2t36npa88adi0/F100.JPG?dl=0

Since I haven't done a lot of track days this year owing to my shitty schedule, I decided to splurge a bit and do a couple days at VIR last week. I popped my track cherry at VIR back in 2008, and then didn't go back until last year, when I did my first ChumpCar race on the south course. This most recent event was a Mon/Tues, with the conventional Full course on Monday and the 4.something mile long Grand course on Tuesday. I'd had some charging issues over the summer and as usual I waited until the last minute to put my car back together. I literally reinstalled my ignition switch and put my dash back together on hwy 33 driving down to Athens the day before, because I'm an idiot. Nevertheless, the car did the 500 mile trip without issue. During tech, a couple people pointed out the noise coming from the engine bay, which I assured everyone was the exhaust leak coming from the header I've broken twice now. (Foreshadowing). Monday morning is a bit chilly, so I we're instructed to take it easy for the first session. No problem, I'm a bit rusty anyway. So I slowly build some speed into T1 on my first lap and suddenly the car starts misfiring. I figure it just needs to warm up a bit more, so I try to keep the revs up the rest of the lap but it's still misfiring. I pull into the pits, annoyed that I'm missing a session, and try to find the source of the misfire. Everything looks good other than the fact that I'm not getting ignition in cyl 4, so one of the guys I met down there told me to do a compression check. I'm like, What? It's a little misfire, if something happened to make me lose compression there'd be clanging and smoke and shit, right? But, out of ideas, I borrow a compression tester from the biggest racing rig in the paddock and sure enough, no compression in cyl 4. I pull the valve cover off and the problem is apparent -- several of the valve lash adjustment nuts have worked themselves lose, leading to two broken rocker arms and a dropped/bent valve. Fuck. I have the choice -- drive home on 3 cylinders or go into ChumpCar mode and risk it all. I choose the latter, and by noon I have in my possession a "new" cylinder head from a 2000 CR-V, sourced from a local junkyard who highly recommended I have it checked out at a machine shop. I told them no, I was going to slap it on my racecar and beat the fuck out of it instead. Picked up a head gasket from Advance and a few hours later: http://photos-a.ak.instagram.com/hphotos-ak-xap1/10723743_393153340841904_133173205_n.jpg The head gasket had to be ordered from a store in Greensboro so I didn't have that back in my possession and back at the paddock until 5:30 or so. By 8, it was all buttoned up, and the next morning: I told myself I was going to take it easy, that lasted about the first lap until the oak tree turn and then I just said fuck it. By the end of the day I ran a couple 3:17 laps. There's a few seconds to shave off still but 4.1 miles is a lot to learn/relearn in 1 day. I don't think it's too shabby for a car with 146hp at the crank and a cylinder head hastily installed by a substandard mechanic Oh, we only found 3 of the 4 missing adjustment nuts, so one of them probably fell down into the oil pan and is still sitting there. I'm going to have to pull the engine apart this spring, unfortunately; fish anything out of the oil pan and have this head checked out properly. The head and supplies cost me about $300, which sucks but it's still pretty darn cheap. I'm mostly annoyed with myself for misdiagnosing the valvetrain noise, and the lost track time, but I may still keep the car.

That's because they expect everything to be given to them.

welcome

Nice Meeting you too Clay! I should also mention the heater core has been bypassed on that truck also. It was a PRETTY chilly ride home from the lennox that saturday morning!