First Solo!

[Kevin Wenzel <kwenzel@privateI.com>]

I competed in my first solo!  Took my '81 S (miserable engine and all) to
a huge parking lot at Stapleton Airport (Denver's old airport) and got my
butt thrashed by none other than Iain Mannix.  He ran a 73.something in an
'84 GTI.  My best time of the day (my 4th and last run) was an 84 - not bad
for a first-timer with street tires (A509s) and an utterly tired engine, eh?
I *highly* encourage any of you that aren't already doing it to take your
Scirocco to the nearest autocross course immediately.

I'm very happy with the suspension so far - I've got the Neuspeed sport-handler
package, with Bilsteins and a 28mm rear swaybar rather than the 25mm.  The
engine (a transplanted 1.6l) will very soon be replaced with a 1.8l JH!
Anybody have any tips on doing the swap?  I've got a couple of friends who've
done it before, but I'm just wondering if there are any common gotchas involved
with it.

In a related story, I suspect my steering rack to be bent somewhere...  The
steering wheel contacts my upper right thigh, and upon close inspection
seems to be tweaked to the right and down a bit.  I looked at the steering
shaft, and it does seem that an impact to the steering that pushed the lower
section of the shaft into the driver's footwell would indeed create that
orientation (due to the location of the univ. joint).  I do know that the
car was run into a ditch at some point in its life - but the suspension
seems perfectly fine.  Any ideas on what part of the steering I need to bend
back into place?  I can't really see much of it now - I imagine it'll get
easier with the engine out.

ps. Pardon my rambling; I just spent the entire night configuring a router so
I'm a bit loopy...

Kevin Wenzel - Director of Network Operations                   privateI, LLC
kwenzel@privateI.com                                Internet and Web Services
KB0MQM                        28.8 PPP/Shell Dialup and Private Port Accounts
                    ***  http://www.privateI.com/  ***


--
To subscribe or unsubscribe, send email to scirocco-l-request@privateI.com,
with your request (subscribe, unsubscribe) in the BODY of the message.