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It's the 'off' season here in CT.... snowy roads. Last week I had Dan Jacobs (Hairy Dog Garage) trailer my car to his shop in Southbury for some tweaks. I'm actually pretty excited. Dan and his son Barron are very knowledgeable and experienced with these air cooled cars and were very helpful as we decided a short and long term plan for bringing my new toy as close to perfect (for me) as possible.
As my car is a 95, we are giving the shift linkage some love with a golden rod and ssk... and a few other parts they say should be addressed when they are in there. We are going to fit a brand new OEM shift boot while we are there as my old one shows some wear.
Then we are going to get rid of that heavy old restricting Cat and improve air flow. Darin Fister is helping out with a pair of stage one mufflers. I thought I wanted stage two, but based on what I was looking for in sound (refined and rich but not loud) they all suggested I start with stage one. We could always up the anti later.
Steve Wong is helping out with a custom chip that is going to adjust things to work as they should with the new cat less system. I am very anxious to feel the seat of the pants result of the exhaust/chip modifications. I'm not worried about my car being a race car.... that is not the point. I'm being told the car will feel much more lively in all the places where I will actually be driving the car. Hoping it sounds a little more aggressive too.
Going to get the dome lights working again (fuse), and they are replacing the amp on the stereo so that music comes out rather than just a buzz. The head unit had recently been overhauled by Becker but Barron was saying it isn't uncommon that after you power the system up it will work for a short while and then the amp will give up.
They are going to change the oil.
I am going to go up one day this week and poke around under the car while they are working on it. Honestly I know NOTHING about working on these cars and it is going to be interesting to have them point out some of the key points under the car that I have been hearing and reading about on this forums.
Hopefully we will get a dry sunny day with some dry roads so that I can test drive my car up in Southbury to experience the changes. Then they are going to trailer the car up to Automobile associates in Canton for some minor cosmetic work. I'm going to have the rear bumper scrape fixed, and touch up some scrapes on the driver side rocker panel. Most importantly they are going strip the powder coat off the cup 2 rims and spray them back to the OEM silver before I get new tires. I'm going to have them swap out fresh new fog lights for my old cloudy ones.
That will probably be all until the spring. We are going to lower the car to ROW height (or a little tiny bit less) but there are SO many options with that I want to take my time deciding which way to go. I am not going to track my car, however both Dan and Barron are driving instructors up at Limerock. Looking forward to joining them at some of the PCA events in the spring.
How in God’s name did you get a Riv RS?? Sell your soul? A kidney? Wowzer!
You buy a fully rebuilt clone for a fraction of the price...car is fully redone and I’m not too scared to drive it...still not cheap but nothing compared to a real one.
You buy a fully rebuilt clone for a fraction of the price...car is fully redone and I’m not too scared to drive it...still not cheap but nothing compared to a real one
Very good - being comfortable driving it regularly is so important. Only cars I've not enjoyed are the ones (for whatever reason) that I didn't use.
less about what I did with the car, and more about what I did to the garage. I've been wanting a 2 post lift forever, today was finally the day. Can't wait to start using it.
Installed Elephant Racing front camber plates. Received my Waldemar soft back sport seats, to be installed later today!
One comment about the camber plates - because of the sliding mechanism there are some gaps where dust can potentially migrate from the wheel well into the trunk... if this proves to be a problem may need to cover the strut mounts somehow on the inside.
01-19-2020, 08:37 AM
