Originally posted: 07-04-2011

The Evo completed 4 run at the recent Corvettes of Minnesota event!
Sadly, it was only 4 runs.  Midway through the 4th run, I heard a large clunk.  Nothing seemed to change, so I figured it was another random noise that comes up in a gutted car.  But the steering started to feel odd as I finished the course.  And then on the return road, the previous mystery clunk (Has been around for a while) had gotten a lot louder, and it was obvious it was coming from the left front.  The top nut of the coilover that goes through the camber plate had done some on the fly weight reduction itself, and was no where to be found.  The coilover had dropped into the strut well and was held in with just the vehicles weight.

Here's the video of that run.  You can hear the clunk at 1:14.

After closer inspection, I did find that I am missing part of the top hat on the left front coilover.  But thanks to Jake Diehl, I'll be back in business shortly.  He was nice enough to offer to pull his top hats off his coilovers(that were currently unused) that are the same as mine, and ship them up to me from KS.
This is one of the things I truly love about the Evo Community.  There is very little that people won't do to help you about.  When my car broke last year, these were local Evo owners stepping up to sell me the parts I needed at a more than reasonable part.  When my transmission broke in Mineral Wells and I decided to go to a 5-speed, I had Terence Cox E-mailing me that he had all the linkage/shifter/mounts/sensor and mailed them up to me without asking a thing (I owe you a few beers at Nationals for sure!).  And once again, I have another Evo owner, Jake, offering to help out.  It really gives you a good feeling when you know so many people have your back.

Here's the video of my last good run prior to the coilover issue.  Still ended up late on the last slalom.  The misfire exiting the offsets will hopefully be fixed by running more fuel in the tank at the next event.



I'll never be willing to go 100% at DCTC.  Just too many chances to break something.  As you
can see, I let off throttle and was braking very early for the sharp corners.

I've done some more weight reduction since the last post.  The trunk, including the springs and hinges has been replaced with my 4lb carbon fiber trunk.  4 captive hood pins hold it in place.  This took about 30 lbs off the rear of the car at a relatively high point.

I was getting a little worried about the wire mesh over the headlight holes.  Although light weight, if it was to rain heavily during an event, I was worried about it soaking the air intake that is behind the driver side, or getting too much water onto the belts and other things on the passenger side.  So I replaced the wire mesh with some dry carbon fiber headlight covers. 



I attached them directly to the bumper with some 4mm bolts and washers.  They can be removed if needed.  However if I really need room to work, the whole bumper can be removed in about 2 minutes with a total of 4 bolts and 2 clips.  I believe the C/F headlight covers are so cool, they may actually have a negative weight... :-D

I'm still in the process of making fiberglass tail light replacements.  I decided to start over and do everything the right way.  With a Plug, Mold and then a final product.  I'm trying to make them as close to the actual tail light as possible.  If everything works out as planned, I should be able to bolt them in with the factory hardware.

Hopefully the next update will be about the car completing 6 flawless runs at Eau Claire next weekend!

-Mike