dodint's Automotive Evolution

[dodint]

A trailer that size is $6/yr in PA. So add in another 1.5g of fuel.

[thesameguy]

I don't know PENN DOT rules, but in moSt states registering a trailer is only a few bucks a year, so that's included in my $240 HF trailer plus $140 receiver plus one year's registrationnumber netting 80 gallons of $5/gallon gas. Numbers are clearly rounded, but reasonably close.

$240+$140+20 = 400 /$5 gallon = 80 gallons

If the reg is only $6/yr it's

$240+$140+$6 = $486 / $5 gallon = 77.2 gallons

[GB]

The car already is what I want it to be, tweaks from here on out. Something like that would create a burden and kill the hobby for me.

I can see that. Like my somewhat feeble attempt to build an actual race car. Spare wheels, tires, motors, transmissions, trailers, tow vehicle... too much. Find the balance.

For ME, I could handle an itty-bitty tiny wittle twailer to haul track tires, if it came to it. But I'd rather not.

[dodint]

For me it would demonstrate an incompatibility of efforts. Why would I take the back seat out to save 45lbs and then bolt an iron hitch to the back of the car? The part of the car that least needs extra weight for a car that already oversteers? It's just too jarring for my fragile psyche.

I can already carry a toolkit and 4 extra tires without a trailer if I ever do want to go the slicks route.

[dodint]

Some videos of the May track day. I mentioned to Carlo earlier that I make the videos mostly for me, I study them to rehear what my instructor was trying to tell me and to generally see what I did well and where I can improve. My Dad also really gets a kick out of them, he watches them at work with his buddies at the hose clamp factory. He got to come to this one with me and Ash was there too so it was a really great day, if a little cold.

This is a short (~5min) video of most of my second session. I sped it up 4x so you could get an idea for the flow of the traffic and the track. It's put back to 1x for my fastest lap. I also slowed it down to show the interesting cars that passed me. The '16 Porsche Cayman GT4 got by twice, and the other was the white '13 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1.



This is the full video that I'll go through later. I have some specific questions about my setup and technique if any of the experienced folks want to take a stab at it. I'll post later when I get a chance to figure out what I'm trying to say. The biggest thing is that the car feels like it's oversteering from the drivers front in a very specific condition but I'll try to explain it better later.

[dodint]

Man, this makes me feel good:



This '11 Porsche 911GTS has 19 full mph on me on the longest straight, but his lap is only 2 seconds faster than mine. Same course same day, he was in a more advanced run group.

[dodint]

I mentioned it in chat off and on for a while but the E60 has had a terrible stumbling. I thought it was the twin turbos as the car would switch into low power mode if you got on the throttle too much; this has happened in the past if I've done some prolonged mountain climbing or on unusually hot and long trips. But lately anytime I'd get close to 3k rpm the car would stumble. I planned to buy $2500 worth of turbo parts and tackle the two-weekend job on my own.
Long story short it turned out to be the spark plugs and it was fixed for $35.

The spark plug change interval for the N54 twin turbo motor is 45k miles, not the usual 100k for similar NA applications (car is at 119k) so I was basically running them at 2.5x life as I'm not sure they've ever been changed. Whoops.

I took it out and beat on it like it owed me money and now I can spin up to the 7k redline no problem. Wish I had done this years ago, so much planning and worry for nothing.

[novicius]

$35?? Now that is the feel-good story of the year!

[Phil_SS]

Agreed. I love it when a plan comes together.

[dodint]

So after enjoying the newly refreshed E60 for one day there is a 99% chance I'm trading it on this tomorrow: http://www.pandwbmw.com/used/BMW/200...f890da2534.htm



It has the most complete CarFax I've ever seen, looks like it spent it's entire life being serviced by two BMW dealers. The drivers seat has a scuff and the driver rear wheel arch also has a white scuff that you can kind of see in the pictures. And other than the coolant hose dislodging at 90mph on Bigelow Blvd during the test drive everything looks great.

I know the E63 was a very unloved car by car journo's and the public but it reminds me a lot of my E24 M6 in terms of style 'feel' and it ticks a lot of my boxes. It was even ordered without the faux wood, a car after my heart. It's part of what I referred to as the last great generation before BMW went tits up and lost their identity.

Financing is already done and everything is ready to go, just need to get the new coolant hose in the car and do a last shakedown cruise.