5kcstq improvements

[auditude at neta.com]

Ah, the smoothness.  Relatively speaking.

I just replaced my tires with some new Yoko S306's from Discount 
Tire.  It's their house brand, I believe.  Not a bad tire IME.

But the best part about it is they put my old tires on their load 
inducing balance and runout or whatever machine, and totally 
showed me exactly where my two big flat spots were on the front 
tires.  Thanks to the malfunctioning abs, apparently due to old dirty 
corroded cv thingees.

So now I have a couple tires for the donor 5kt to roll on, and later a 
full size spare for the 5kcstq.

I was tempted to get some wheels, but managed to calm myself 
down to resist.  So much to do...  Isn't this the spare car?  What's 
happening here?  These darn Audi's start out comparable to most 
other cars on the road.  Then you start to fix the thousands (okay, 
hundreds) of thing's wrong with them, and they get better and better!

The car is much more comfortable now.  All those that suggested I 
flat spotted the tires were right on the money.  I'm glad it wasn't 
some kind of catastrophic failure in some system after slamming 
on the brakes and sliding.  At least I can blame the abs for not 
working correctly.  Plus, my pocketbook is always there to remind 
my braking foot to get off the pedal.

I read some compelling arguments for getting eurolites next.  I 
convinced myself that I am getting full stock boost.  The stock 
meter showed 0.8 with the engine off the other day.  I consistently 
get 1.2 bar, and have on rare occasion seen 1.3 on the stock 
gauge.  I was wondering if these things need to be zeroed, or am I 
just in a low pressure area?

Autometer told me they could do the squared off font I like in their 
silver/white faced guages, on a black faced, white lettered gauge.  
It would cost like $50 setup extra, as long as they could use the 
sillkscreens already made.  I guess I don't need the gauges to 
match perfectly.  I really like the font on my 5kcstq gauges.  It's 
kinda squared off, unlike the black Autometers, and even the 
VDO's.

I'm going to do some debadging to the rear, probably leaving the 
rings and quattro script.  Any particular things I should watch out 
for, or special chemicals that help in a good way?

Thanks,

Ken