Vince's Stuff

Thursday, September 2, 2021

Still no progress on the Civic, but at least I got to drive the Ferrari 360...

I'm still sitting out the track season... it's still weird! At least Choo should be starting work on the Civic soon. He was mostly working on his own car for a race weekend at Calabogie, and it worked out really well for him (a second place and a class win). I sold my spare motor, but there are more items to sell to finance the K-swap. I have all the major parts we need for the swap, I'm just waiting for the header I ordered about a month ago.

I haven't had a chance to go for a drive in the mountains with Mazen, but at least I got to drive the Ferrari 360 for a few minutes with Jules, then Oscar. I couldn't push the car at all, as we were in town, but I can confirm that the car is easy to drive and pleasant, even on the street. It's just quite hard to drive in reverse because of poor visibility. Two things I noticed: the side-to-side travel of the shifter through the gates is longer than I expected (I would hit the notch between gates on the 2-3 shift) and my regular shoes are just too wide to fit between the brake pedal and dead pedal when I clutch. I look forward to a more spirited drive.

The M3 has been working just fine and I quite enjoy driving it whenever we head out of the city. The Saab is mostly gathering dust, but I did use it a couple of weeks ago to pick up some big and heavy parts. I'm still not sure if we will keep this car for another winter or get something newer.

Other than that, Jules has turned 9, the kids are back at school and people will soon be putting away their classic and sports cars. I hope the Civic is up and running before winter!

Super clean E28 M5 near the office

Tasteful work truck

James Bond's 7-series

I kind of like the look of a clean unmodified "narrow-body" 996

Rare 968 in Outremont

DB9 still looks good

The 992 turbo is just too big and wide for my taste

M3's, a couple of generations apart

Jules and the 360

Nice mk.2 GTI (see plate)

The front-engine "cheap" Ferrari is better looking than the previous generation was

Brabus G-Wagen

Tasteful WRX specification

I still love the RS6

... but this is still my favourite family car

I used to like the Rapide, but I don't so much anymore... too long

This Aventador SVJ was so loud...

Furioso indeed!

Cool specs for pretty "normal" cars

I was surprised to see this solar car driving down the street

Really impressive!

Spotted this super rare Brabus on the highway

It's called a Brabus 650, based on the C63 AMG

I had forgotten that the new Bronco is a convertible

The GR Supra looks even better than the already good-looking regular Supra.

Yes that's a complete DC2 Integra subframe with spindles in the back of the Saab!

Thursday, August 5, 2021

It's weird to be away from track events for almost a whole summer...

Just after I wrote my last post, I went to pick up my K-series engine in Toronto. I went to Toronto and back in one day, which may be the most driving I ever did in one day. I took the Saab and the swap fit in the rear hatch, although the seller and I had a heck of time lifting it in... we used a system of two jacks and a plywood platform. I delivered it to Choo's shop and again we struggled with the weight of the engine/tranny combo.

Since then, I have been ordering all the smaller parts we will need for the swap. Choo hasn't got started yet because he has a more urgent project: prepping his own Civic for a weekend of road racing at Tremblant later this month. In a few days I will have almost all the components on my list, but there will be some hoses and hardware and other stuff to buy for sure. Anyway, there was no real timeline for this project, since I haven't planned any track events for this season.

After I got the M3 back from the fuel pump replacement, I noticed that it was running hot in traffic. It turns out the electric fan failed again. I ordered one from Ebay and spent a couple of hours changing it earlier this week. All seems OK now, and I will confirm this with a bit more driving around town.

The big story is how the Saab came through for us. Not only did it easily handle the drive to Toronto to pick up the K-swap, but we used it for our family vacation road trip to the Maritimes (over 3 500 km) and it functioned perfectly. I had not realized that most of the roads on Cape Breton Island were real driver's roads and I was really happy to have a small sporty car with a manual transmission on this trip. I still don't know what to do with this car... it drives so nicely, and it's so rusted!

The trip itself was really fun. We visited historic sites, beaches and went whale watching. We stayed in nice hotels, a university residence and a 70's style motel. It was really a nice trip and it was tough to get back to work this week.