Canadian trip report - long

[Igor Kessel <four_rings@worldnet.att.net>]

Folks,
I have just returned from a short weekend trip to Toronto where I, my
wife and my good friend and fellow lister Mike Zamikhovsky had a great
pleasure of meeting with George Kostiuk, Kevin Pearson, Fred Munro, Joe
Vella, Tom Black and Mike Hopton off the S-cars list.

When I pulled into the parking lot I saw a line-up of 6 UrS. What a
pleasant sight!
I parked mine next in line and my wife took a few pix of all of us in
front of the cars.

Unfortunately Mike Hopton had to live shortly after.

George Kostiuk went out of his way to arrange a brunch in a cosy and
classy restaurant and drove over 2 hrs each way in order to meet with
us. George had to live shortly after the meal as he had to address a few
household chores. I regret that I didn't get a chance to exchange drives
in our cars and compare the difference between his H&R and my Eibach,
since both our cars are equipped with identical Bilsteins Sport. Oh, and
to try his boost controller too :-)

That was alleviated by Kevin Pearson who had generously allowed me to
test drive his '96 UrS6 equipped with an Apexi boost controller and
riding on Eibachs with Bilsteins Sport. The acceleration was quite
impressive, especially in 5th gear where you normally don't expect much
to happen. With Kevin's permission I nailed the right pedal on the
highway and within seconds saw 160 km/h on the speedo. From 100 to 160
the car felt like it was propelled by a strong gust of wind blowing from
behind. The Z-rated SP8000 on the car didn't inspire much confidence @
-7œC of Canadian winter, so I didn't take it to 200 km/h and backed off
as soon as we caught up with a pack of traffic in front of us.
The Apexi unit is quite a piece of engineering, looks very good with its
IndiGlo-like illumination, has many useful functions and is
programmable. Kevin's installation was very clean albeit slightly out
the direct line of sight, but I can hardly suggest any better place
given its flat rectangular shape. Naturally, I took some pix of the
unit.

I can't help but mention Joe Vella's innovative approach to mounting the
boost gauge on his car (note the preposition "on" in the sentence :-).
He has zip-tied an industrial grade manometer (to 30 psi) to the LH
windshield wiper. At the table he quite stoically handled all our jokes
suggesting that he had to swing his head from side to side if he wanted
to monitor this gauge in the rain. :-)

I didn't get a chance to see in much detail the cars of Fred Munro and
Tom Black, but the pleasure of talking to you guys has made up for this.

We left the restaurant at about 13:30 and in less than an hour were at
the border crossing. Well, yet one more return from Canada, yet one more
harassment by the American border patrol. What else is new!
No, it wasn't the terrorist paranoia (otherwise they would've searched
the car). They just wanted to give me a hard time, at which they
succeeded quite well by robbing us of more than an hour of daytime
driving. I on my part also succeeded at pissing them off by a few
sarcastic statements (when I realised that either way I was going to be
detained for questioning upstairs, then downstairs, then in yet another
room downstairs, and man, were those questions dumb and insulting!)
Every time I cross the border, the Canadian side asks me with a smile
about my citizenship and the length of my prospective stay in Canada.
Every time I return the American side makes me feel extremely unwelcome
and wanting to turn around back to Canada.

To add insult to the injury, we caught a blizzard in NY and upstate PA
and were home only at 02:00. Poor Mike Z. had refused to sleep over,
jumped in his UrQ, which he left in my driveway, and took off for his
home in N. NJ some 1.5 hrs away since he had the first patient come in
at 08:00 in the morning.

A few observations from this trip:
1. The Pearl White colour makes Canadian salt invisible from a distance
although the car still looks like $hit upclose.
2. Hakka 1's do sing on asphalt rather loudly. Unstudded, mind you.
3. Like Todd Paciorek mentioned in his recent post, the A4 Sport wheels
(7 spoke, not 10, Todd) indeed look sharp on the UrS and the car indeed
looks a lot younger. Mike Z. commented that it looked like a large A4
from a distance.
4. At my request Mike Z. took along his Uniden scanner, which I was
anxious to field test for suitability against the REO ambushes.
Unsuitable. Nothing beats a good CB. Well, that and the V1 of course.
5. Also at my request he took along his Uniden CB and a short magnet
mounted rubber stick antenna. This combo worked _very_ bad. No
comparison with the GE CB and the through-the-glass centre loaded
antenna from JCWhitney that I had in my '89 200TQ and which used to pull
in truckers from more than 20 miles away. My quest for a good CB is not
over yet.
6. I finished the "Frankenstein Instrument Cluster" project a few hours
prior to this trip and violated my own rule by not allowing the 24 hrs
"bug-out" local driving period after finishing such a major electrical
hack in the car before embarking on a long journey. Knock on wood, the
car behaved flawlessly. 
This project involved assembling one cluster out of the S4 and S6 units.
I installed the voltmeter off the S6 in place of the clock (this
required some cutting and resoldering of the existing PCB, adding a
zener diode, a resistor and a trimmer pot and their calibration);
installed the oil pressure gauge off the S4; the oil pressure sender off
a 200 in the block; added a few wires to the OEM harness to run those;
designed and installed the 40 LED Lambda gauge (20 RED/GRN/YEL x 2
rows.) in place of the PRD4321 plug and wired it to the car's main ECU
(Orin, you were right, my amplified design worked better, although I did
try yours prior to designing mine. Yours worked fine but was not as
bright in the daytime, plus the 5mv overlap in the unamplified LM3914
circuit caused the lighting up of two adjacent LED's at the same time.
Since my unit provides 2.6v after the op. amp. all 20 LED's light up
discretely.); installed the super bright red LED in one of the
horizontal bulb holders (6 total of which 3 are empty) and wired it to
the WGFV output on the car's main ECU for monitoring the WOT overboost
condition (per Scott Mockry's website recommendation); cut an instant
disconnect "T" into the ECU's 5mm DIA vacuum feed line and routed a 0.5
m length ot the green 5mm DIA factory Audi plastic vacuum tubing into
the torpedo cavity behind the instrument cluster for the future boost
gauge. I am documenting this project along with the pix and the wiring
diagrammes (where to hack into the ECU harness and how to connect the
voltmeter and the oil pressure gauge and the WOT LED) and will post it
sometime in the future if there is enough interest.

As always this was a very pleasant trip to Canada and I am looking
forward to seeing you guys again soon.

Yours truly,
-- 
Igor Kessel
Two turbo quattros.