Motorsports weeks

[QSHIPQ@aol.com]

A break in the 2 week motorsports extravaganza, most of it quattro related.  
Tues of last week, I headed for the BMW Octoberfest 99 weekend in Indy, this 
past weekend to the QCLUB USA Blackhawk event, this coming weekend to the 
Maine SCCA prorally...  To date:

850 entrants in the BMW national event, more BMW's in every state of tune and 
tweek all in one place.  My first impression was the organization was 
extraordinary, the attention to detail awe inspiring.  1 gimick rallye, 1 
prolevel road rally of 115cars (Satch Carlssen won with a total of 5 points), 
a concourse D'el. (complete with jazz band and 10,000 nitpicking q-tips), 
closed party dowtown including bus transport for the imbibers, roundel2B 
childrens activities all 4 days, club racing at IRP, including an Lemans 
style Izetta (remember that front end opening door go cart car?)  race that 
was a real hoot.  At the host hotel, the new M5 parked alongside the new M3, 
both in smoke red, and the whole lineup of BMW in silver/grey on the flanks.  
2 UrM1's completed the outdoor showroom.  A vendor area filled a huge 
conference room at the hotel, and it was really neat to see a variety of 
toys.  The most impressive was Vortech Inc., the SC company, who have a 
variety of bolt on apps for the boys of the roundel.  

All my seat time was spent in both a 540i 6spd and a MZ3 convertible.  Both 
impressive machines, the 540 is silky smooth quiet fast, the M more raw 
engine, but razor sharp handling kinda fast.  My affection still goes to the 
Z3 hardtop in Silver...  A drive in a M car, really puts the most tweeked of 
quattros in true perspective.  Bottom Line:  Audi could take some lessons in 
steering and overall driver feel from most of these toys.

Back to reality.  The inaugural debut of Bob Dupree's LT1Q was to happen at 
the QCLUB Blackhawk Farms 99 event (1.9 Mile roadcourse, Rockton IL).  A long 
day and night on Friday, got the last of things buttoned up, my coil over 
conversion finished up at 2am Sat (just like racing I'm afraid).  No time for 
an alignment, but hardly necessary, torque has a way of wiping away minor 
issues...

Bob and I caravaned out, me in his pristine 84 Urq (Lehmann 2bar chipped, G60 
conversion, Bilstein sports, eurethane bushings, 17x8.5 wheels, k24 
conversion, tornado red) and the LT1Q (the urq just in case we had 
catastrophic LTQ failure, bob could still run).  A quick stop for alternator 
adjustment, and the corvette motor hummed the 2 hours flawlessly.  A couple 
of toll booth races (there's 5 on the way to the track) revealed that the LTQ 
has gobs of torque, and it effortlessly put the Urq to shame in acceleration. 
 Consider he had a good 300+lbs of res-q tools in back to boot, the Urq was 
empty.  

We arrived at the event about noon, just in time to have me tech both cars, 
and give some final cks to the LTQ.  Bob was gracious enough to have me drive 
the first couple laps in the LTQ, and I found that the initial calculations 
in the choice of spring rates and damping proved spot on.  The car sits about 
1/2 in OVER stock ride height,  and the longer linear rate rear springs 
(12in) proved to be really effective.  Alas, an alignment would have been a 
great last touch, had we the time.  But no complaints by either of us, this 
car moves like right now.  Bob's lauches from the start line would have made 
a fine .wav file.  I know he got some digital shots, so make sure you ck his 
website in the next couple days.  The upper end of the tach was choked some, 
we both think a true dual exhaust might prove necessary, but those audi rings 
on Graydons exhaust might just have to carry over   :)

The one hiccup (pun intended) was a coupling in the radiator hose routing 
that slipped off, spewing almost 6 gallons of antifreeze onto the track via 
the front tires, and inducing Bob's first spinout, no harm, no foul.  A quick 
reclamp of the line, and a voluminous refill, and she ran without a hitch the 
rest of the weekend.  2 quantum synchro radiators fill the quarter panels 
with 2 draw type fans.  We brought shrouding just in case we needed to direct 
the air, but it ran at 100c on the money the whole time, even with the 
97degree ambient outside temps.  

The cars were mostly audis, a couple of vipers, 3 really quick SHO's, and a 
plethora of M3's.  The fastest?  A really hot race prepped SHO.  To put it in 
perspective, I was getting my usual 3 ticket ride from Keith Anderson in his 
dual knock motored urcoupe.  You sit in this car and feel the g's whack you.  
We are enjoying a really fast couple laps, then Keith pulls over on the front 
straight.  What for?  We've been passing all instructor cars.  Right by us 
pulls the SHO on the straight, like we were standing still.  Quite a humbling 
experience.  Last year this same driver did that to a supercharged NSX I was 
riding in with the A/C on.  Unlike Keith, the NSX guy didn't like that, 
turned off the a/c and the tunes, and gave an unsuccessful valiant effort to 
catch the SHO.

The M3's got an impressive nod from the viper boys, they were amazed at the 
torque pull from the 3's, but the 2 straights and an extra gear let the 
vipers squeeze by, but it was no smoke.  So, the kingpins were the SHO, 
followed by the Vipers (actually really close in lap times, the modded viper 
500hp hardtop was the same as the SHO), followed by the M3's, followed by 
Keith and a Big Red, 2B C/O RS2 turboed S6.  A plethora sub 120 lap times was 
impressive for a bunch of street cars.  No crashes, 1 blown headgasket on a 
Mars red 83 TQC, all other incidents could be only ego related.

Bob and I hooked up with 20v and qlister David Hackl and his gal Carol (and 
big points to her for braving upper 90's just to "come watch").  We found 
some shade and set up "camp".  Dave's CQ (Pearl) with it's ram air (removed 
right turn signal) was driving well, and with a couple of line corrections, 
he got some really good lap times for a N/A car.  I was pining after the 
turbo for him during my instruction commentary, a couple humorous yells for 
more turbo boost in the back section.  If Dave does get that turbo, he will 
be a front runner.  A very smooth and consistent driver.

Bob was somewhat tentative on the LTQ, and was spending most of his driving 
time learning not only the track, but his new suspension and newfound torque 
as well.  Not to mention having to think about all the things that might 
break while lapping.  The closing argument came however, when he took a run 
groupe with the Urq on the track.  Even with the LTQ running the URQ's G54 
(yes reread that) with 16in wheels, the Urq running the G60's with 17in 
wheels, he never ran the Urq again.  Some mumbling about the difference was 
amazing.  

Got lots of seat time between 2 rookies in A4q's, back to back, 1 with the 
16in wheels the other with the sport package 17, huge difference in feel, 
even from my instructor seat, the sport package wins big.  I also got into a 
VERY interesting discussion about lower control arm failure (and audis 
multiple, but not right replacement revisions).  Many owners with MULTIPLE 
replacements (I've done a couple in my shop, it ain't cheap, and IMO it ain't 
right even when fixed).  I'll be very interested to see how audi handles this 
issue as these cars exit warrantee.  Right now, it appears they haven't found 
the fix yet, and appears they aren't supporting the out of warrantee cars.  
Watch this closely folks, this is bound to be a hot potatoe (DQ) in the PR 
department...

The highlight of my weekend was the last run of the day in the LTQ.  Bob 
tossed me the keys, gave up his shotgun ride to Carol, and I lined up behind 
only 3 (2 M's, 1 A4) cars on the final run group of the day.  Drove 8/10ths 
for a couple laps, Carol finally got comfortable with the track and my 
driving, then asked about 9/10ths.  Next lap, so done, what a ride!  One 
swing thru pitlane for a hood closure, and back out again.  Driving this 
thing at the limit, was easy (no locked diffs, we didn't have time to figure 
where we missed the vacuum line), and the torque from this motor, made the 
track a 3rd and 4th gear lapping beast.  Some perfect on throttle drifting 
thru the carousel in turn 3, was a blast.  All corner workers were thumbs up 
on the ckered lap, the sound of this car at WOT is not to be missed.  The 
G54's got a wee bit soft, but the open design of the Hokenheim 16in wheels, 
helped a bunch  in keeping the rotors from overheating.  

Well, that's enough for now.  Lots of fun, more to follow.  A big thanks to 
the folks at Hoosier BMW for allowing an heretic (I did get a pix of the 
qwagon amongst a couple hundred roundels), Bob D for the rides, Dave and 
Carol for the compaknee (pun for Carol).   Mark, Joe and Scott D et. al., a 
great Qclub event, glad you guys hung in there those last couple years, a 
full event with lots of heat running without incident deserves great credit.  

Off to Maine.  Looking forward to a Buffum organized rally, report to follow

Scott Justusson
Chicago IL
QSHIPQ Performance Tuning
QSHIPQ@aol.com
'87 5ktqwRS2-10vt
'84 UrqRs2 -20vt
'87 4Runner turbo