Brentil's BLOG

Monkey's Solstice arrived and he even went on his first car cruise too this last Sat.

Here you can find all the pics of Monkey's new Solstice arriving at our house.
http://www.inner-ninja.com/gallery2/v/kappa/Monkeys+Solstice/Solstice+Arrives/



Then the very next day Monkey came and joined us at our SSS breakfast meeting in Lake Mary. He finally got to drive his own Solstice instead of mine for once.

http://www.inner-ninja.com/gallery2/v/kappa/Monkeys+Solstice/Car+Cruise/

So I was driving down Alafaya near UCF when all of a sudden I heard a tink-tink POP-thud-thud-thud-thud. I was pretty damn sure I had just blown a sidewall and was getting the thud-thud as the tire revolved around and was hitting the blow area. I pulled into UCF and came to a stop in one of the roads. I get out expecting a blown sidewall like I said but the tire was at full pressure with no sidewall issues. I look under the fender well and spy the issue right away. A big ass fucking bolt, and not just a bolt, a bolt that's larger then 1/4" in diameter sticking out about 3/4" with a big ass nut on it too... The nut was what was keeping it at 3/4" sticking out and 1/2" of that was the nut itself. I couldn't fucking fathom how this huge bolt got in my tire, it wasn't even between the grooves, it was in the middle of a large flat area.



The damn thing was so large I couldn't drive the car. My car comes with a compressor and a fix-a-flat sealant kit but I couldn't even use that cause the bolt wouldn't come out. I ended up having to get Casey to bring me a jack and some tools so we could get the car up and get the bolt out. The fucker was over 2" long!!! I used a plug kit, but the problem with those is you're only supposed to plug items under 1/4" anything larger and you're FUBAR and have to replace the tire (which I have to do). The plug held well enough though to get full pressure in it and make it home at least... Now to deal with getting a new tire, which are fucking expensive for my size, like $195 each and you're sure as hell not going to find them in stock at local stores.

Finally got my trailer all setup and rolling, so this last auto-x I went all out. Got there 7:45am and started changing my tires, it took about 45 minutes so I was done by 8:30am. Had to jack the front wheels independently of each other where the back end I can get all at once. I would need one of those über expensive long flat jacks to do the front at once. Yeah I'd rather save my money for a better impact wrench. I had gotten a 18v Black & Decker one that said it could do 400 ft-lbs, yeah right... It sure as hell can't undo my lug nuts which are torqued at 100 ft-lbs and it sure as hell wont re torque them to 100 ft-lbs.

Well all that matters is having the RT-615s on the car instead of the stock tires made a huge world of difference. No more rear end traction issues at launch or while racing. I really felt like I drove the car for the first time. I ended up taking 3rd place in A-Stock out of 8 cars which thrilled the hell out of me. I believe the two cars ahead of me were using better tires, I'll have to check next time I see their cars.

Went and got the bearings repacked/regreased at Irish Mike's, bunch of great people. They also upgraded the spindles with Bearing Buddies. Awesome little device that that takes the place of the axle cap that puts pressure on an internal grease reservoir that ensures the system always has fresh good grease. It also adds a grease nipple to then take and re-add grease yourself instead of having to remove the entire system and repack it all every time. The trailer is now 100% GOOOO!!!