Friday, March 16, 2007

Friday WSP cat and mouse

It's been a while since I've run into this sort of silliness. Sure I see plenty of them running RADAR / LIDAR traps along SR-16 but it's not that often they are stalking the traffic I'm driving in. Today was an exception.

It started off with me not paying attention as I entered Gorst (great place for them to trap speeders). Thankfuly someone well ahead of me tripped the RADAR on and I was warned well in advance. Rolled on through without a problem.

Not long after though I started reading a 1-2 bar K signal. Then it faded. A couple miles later it was back. It did not fade or grow quickly so now I was sure he was someone behind lighting up the group of cars from time to time.

Most of the people without detectors just keept bustling along at 10+ over the limit except myself and an older gent in an Auto Union. I suspect he spotted my detector in the windshield and followed suit when I hit the binders and dropped into the slow lane.

It is a 30 mile or so drive from Gorst to the bridge on SR-16. Every few miles or so the K alert would go off with 1-2 bars. I never did spot the wolf that was hunting us, just too many cars. In fact I'm not even sure why the WSP kept flipping the RADAR on/off/on/off with such a thick group of cars almost all of which were going at or very close to the limit (rare).

I'm happy I had the detector to remind me to pay more attention to my speed and not so much the standard flow of traffic in those areas they typically run traps.

On the way to the highway I was mugged by someone with a Ka instant-on unit. Never did see them either but I was well within the parameters of legal driving speeds. It was the first time I'd seen it used there (probably the local revenuers).

Just another day driving around in a Porsche. Even in metallic silver it seems to attract attention of the local PD. Now, if only the girls were so interested!

Sunday, March 11, 2007

Porsche Club of America - Olympic Region Winter Tour

Weather was pretty nasty for the first PCA-OPR big tour of the year, so I did not expect much of a turnout. We did end up with a pretty decent group of cars though, basically all 911 varients (a pair of 996's, a turbo and a handfull of 911/964 varieties including a sweet black RSA).

Leaving Barnes & Noble books (first meetup point of the day) we headed north to Poulsbo where we'd meet a couple more cars (pair of 944s). Weather was still nasty, raining high wind and just plain uncooperative. Which really was a drag since I'd planned on doing some hiking with my companion after brunch. Not all hope was lost since we were heading into the part of the PNW that is largely shadowed from rain by the might Olympic Mountains.

Crossing the floating bridge on the Hood Canal was in experience. Water on the south side of the bridge was horendous. Not quite breaking onto the bridge deck but the fact they did not close the bridge was a shock to me. We tried to get a photograph of it but by the time we got the camera out of the bag it was too late.

Once on west side of the Olympic Penninsula, we headed north towards Port Hadlock, Port Ludlow and Port Townsend (turing off just before PT), returning back down the highway to 101 and finally out to the 7 Cedars Casino in Sequim.

Brunch was pretty decent. Had a nice conversation with the people at our table, and a tasty desert. I could tell my partner in crime was getting anxious to hit the road so we said our goodbyes and headed west. Way west.

Our first stop was at the Olympic National Park headquarters to see if Hurricane Ridge was open for hiking, but the signs said chains recommended at the top. Frankly I've driving my Porsche in the snow, on ice, and it does pretty good with the weight over the drive wheels but... not something I wanted to do on *this* trip so we agreed to cancel that plan.

All was not lost. Further west we headed (even got lost for a bit.. doh) to Storm King along Lake Cresscent. Sadly weather was not cooperating again. After a breif stop along the lake, we packed it in and started heading home. It had been a pretty big day already, and we had 90 miles to home so east we headed.

Discussion turned again to food (it had been nearly 6 hours since we'd eaten. It did not take much for some agreement was reached on finding a new place to eat in Port Townsend (mentioning an ice cream shop I know on the water, seemed to grease the skids). So north we headed to the top of the penninsula and what turned out to be a nice dinner on the water at 'Fins'.

We returned home at approximatly 9:00pm. I bid my friend farewell and headed home to write this blog. Only a couple of photos were taken by myself, neither of which very good so I'll spare everyone the trouble of posting them.

Until next time....

Saturday, March 10, 2007

964 suspension downgrade

Not long after installing the TRG sways, with the home-made drop links (the TRG sways don't work with the stock drop links on my 1990 C2) I was getting some knocking sounds from the front end. I thought that I might have already snapped on of the home-fab links and it was banging around. However handling did not seem to be suffering. After a few miles I thought I'd see how it worked out. It slowly got worse, handling did not suffer, bit it was time to fix that annoying knock.

It turned out that the bolts securing the drop links to the sways had lossened up a little bit on the passenger side (despite using nylock nuts). A quick tighten and the sound was gone.

Well, at least for a few more months. Then it returned. I tighted it up again but this time notices that the 'stops' on the bars, which bolt on, might be contacting the suspension parts and contributing. So I removed the stops inboard of the body mounts. No knocks.

No knocks, until February when it came back. Arg. I was in the process of moving so I put it off until now. Bummer. What a drag. The passenger side lower was loose, AGAIN, but now after removing the inboard stops on the bar itself, the slight lateral movement in the hard bushing had ripped them up. It all had to come out.

Luckly that guy that was going to buy my stock sways flaked out so I still have them. Knowing the balance of the car was primarily fixed with the adjustabl rear, I just replaced the front (which was the source of that annoying knock and that nagging worry about breaking a home-made drop-link).

It took less than a couple of hours to fish the TRG bar out and fish the new bar back in, rubber bushings and all.

No more noise, no more nagging worry, and oddly enough it seemed to improve the balance of the car in corners. So for now, the 964 is running a massive adjustable TRG bar on the rear and the stock bar on the front.

Maybe when the 993 gets a suspension upgrade I'll purchase another TRG rear and get new bushings for the front and try them out on it (since the bars are supposed to fit both 964 and 993 variants). I do know for sure that I'll be buying a new TRG adjustable rear for the 993 in the near future.