CaterPillar's AutoHome

This event was held at the South Lot, the bigger one. It was almost a rain event (but the first run for me...). So my first run was my fastest of the day.. Later I did almost get my fastest in my 8th run but hit a cone. These are the fun run photos! I did 8 runs + 3 fun runs. My fun runs were faster and faster (also credit to the drier surface..). Here are the videos: I don't have time to do detailed comparison videos but all of these could tell me these: 1. I was so bad at slaloms... Messed up every single time. 2. Rain and surface condition did reduced a lot of grip. 3. Not looking ahead enough. I was only looking at maybe one cone ahead at the sweepers that day. What I have to correct and work on: 1. Look ahead! 2. Drive at the limit! 3. Perfect slaloms. Don't enter too fast and don't too slow. Remember to nail the entry of the first cone with the pointer. Need to be early at turn in. I was always late every run...

This is a special one: ProSolo! It's my first year autocross and my first year ProSolo! And ProSolo is totally different and hell a lot of fun!! Okay, let's stop this and come back to business.. The 2.5 day event was actually a mess to me. Day 0 Friday I did the Evo Hot Shot school, trying to learn what Prosolo was all about and the staging, launch rules. Well I did complete the mission of launching in neutral, which was not bad at all considering someone once did that in reverse lol! In addition to that, my RSG Gears lip fell off the bumper.. So I ended up putting it in the passenger seat and leaving it in the garage for the next two days. Day 1 Saturday everything seemed to work well but at the end of the day when everyone was wrapping things up heading home, my car threw a beautiful CEL. I used Tim's OBD2 scanner to check it. It was random misfire in one of the cylinder + cylinder 1 misfire. There could be tens of reasons be...

The event was held at TD Bank Ballpark at Bridgewater. This was by far the smallest and narrowest parking lot. So of course we had overlapping just like the one in North FCSCC lot. But the cones were much closer to each other, which caused most of us hitting countless cones, especially me! (23 cones in 10 runs, my record!) Anyway, back to business. This event was the last one before ProSolo 2017. So I took it really serious and pushed the car hard. First let me do a video by video review. Here is my first run: 1) I messed up with the first section course. I was too late to avoid the cones before the sweeper. It was because, I didn't look ahead to see what was coming so when I saw them, I had no way to get rid of them... 2) I seemed to be fast in my first run, but, ... I didn't make corresponding swift steering input. It looks like I was hesitating, waiting for something and it really ruined this run. My fastest run 6: 1) The launch or the start was slow,...

I thought we were gonna do at least 7~8 runs but the weather forecast forced them to shut it off half day time. So we ended up with 5 runs and called it a day. I did my first two runs really slow. For the 4th one I added more gas everywhere, and got almost 2 seconds faster than previous fastest. My 5th one was fairly good but I ruined it with almost missing one gate in the middle of the whole course. Videos: Mistakes that I made: 1. I've never indeed looked ahead over even 30% of the whole course time.. Look ahead could have helped me with speed decision and also more importantly the earliest time to back on throttle. 2. Slow in fast out. This is proven by the 3rd comparison, the first turn after the slaloms, in which my 4th run was too fast and could not turn properly while my 5th was perfect with speed (still need to gas it a bit sooner though). The difference was HUGE after that turn as you could see ! And these two are the main things I should be practicing fo...

Last Sunday I did the second event of NNJR SCCA. The course was the longest one I've ever driven. Most people's fastest time were > 60s.. And there were several set of slaloms on the course. I ran with instructors Evan, Hez and Mark. Their advice could be summarized into below points: 1) Look ahead. Turn my head at sweepers! (Mark yelled at me every time he was with me..) 2) Carry speed and finish the corner. Do not brake too much and then turn. 3) Turning in earlier. So what I need to focus on practicing are still these things: 1) Look ahead, turn my head! 2) Drive at the limit (with the best line)! Don't understeer too much and gas gas gas sooner! 3) Quick hands with intuition and expectation in my mind. So now let's get to analyzing the videos. First, let's look at the comparison video: This one shows why I was faster with my last run (almost 1s faster before I went off): I was just driving faster at the entry of the first slaloms and the big...

I have waited for a whole winter to do this rear diff fluid change. What was blocking me was the 23mm fill plug on the diff. I used every tool I could find and all my strength. It just didn't come off. I tried once in November last year and once last month. With the craftsman 3/8 inch drive ratchet I just cannot do this.. Then I used a 3/8 inch drive breaker bar along with my 23mm socket to try again. Normally the socket won't fit into the narrow gap there on the side of the diff but the one I bought on Amazon fit quite well inside. Finally on Sat I managed to loosen the fill plug. I felt a sudden movement. It was luckily not breaking the thread. It came off!! The next steps were naive. The 24mm plug on the car was really loose when I got it off. I really ran a change of spilling rear diff fluid everywhere before that! And it was quite dirty.. (not that bad in fact...). I used AMSOIL 75w-110 Severe Gear.  By the pump with hose I pumped 0.7~0.8 quar...

Last thursday Otto and I started working on the installation of this aftermarket exhaust (catback). Okay it was basically him.. I bought this used exhaust from girls2k. Also I bought a gasket from AutoZone and a brand new lower tie bar from Honda OEM parts. We had the parts and tools, but the installation was not easy! First of all taking off the old rear lower tie bar was not that simple. Bolts and nuts were rusted and it was bent. Secondly the pipe was stuck at the cat end.. Moreover the gasket I bought didn't fit on both sides (the pipe and the cat). So... we went to local AutoZone and Advance Auto Parts for another gasket which might be a fit. Well not a single one turned out to be a good one.. What we did was discovering the inventory of gaskets at Advance Auto Parts. We ended up with a most possible one and Otto did the customization based on it. Used drilling tool to add a new hole and in addition to that he cut more around the other two holes to make i...