Quattrofest at PIR

[dkpriebe]

I had a blast at Quattrofest this past weekend at Portland International
Raceway. The Northwest Audi club put together a first class, fantastic
weekend. And I can positively say that I improved my driving skills in very
slick conditions. I had a couple of great opportunities to feel what its
like to really have may avant slide around. I had that rare opportunity to
meet another avant owner, David Brill. His car is very nicely set up and got
me thinking about what improvements I should do next.

I did have a couple of minor technical issues with my car. Just before lunch
on Saturday, the passenger side window decided to stop working. This made
for a rather cool and wet ride for my instructors for the rest of the
weekend. Luckily I was able to get it repaired very quickly Monday morning
in Portland by A&P Specialties (thanks David), so that I could have a warm
dry drive back to Seattle. Turned out to be the usual, a broken of a ground
wire in the bundle of wires leading from the car to the drivers door.

The other problem I ran into was when I was driving counter clockwise on the
skid pad. Gas started pouring out of my fuel tank at the fuel filler. Of
course I had a full tank, having only driven about 10 miles since filling
up. The gas was coming right out where my gas cap is. The gas cap was on
securely, and the stranger part of it is that later in the day, when I had
driven some more miles, I popped off the cap just to see if there was a
pressure difference. I could definitely hear the air rushing in. And that's
always been the case in the past. This pressure leads me to believe that I
have a sealing gas cap, which doesn't explain how gas could be pouring out.
I'm sitting hear looking at the Bentley (page 20.16), and the only way for
the gas to come out this way would be for the gas cap to not be sealing
properly. Anyone have any thoughts, or should I just go out and buy a new
gas cap?

Now I'm thinking about a couple of improvements to my car. I think that I'm
going to get a set of the H&R springs for the V8. Anyone have a set that
they are looking to get rid of? When I checked on this about a year ago
shox.com had the best price. I already have the Bilstein HD last I put on
last winter.

The other thing I'm going to finally spring for is the Intended Acceleration
Stage 3 or 3+ chip. Has anyone on the list had both? Any seat of the pants
advice?

Thanks,
Dave Priebe
Kenmore, WA
91 200tqa 162k his
95.5 S6 102k hers