So last weekend pretty much couldn't have gone better! I had a great time, got to meet a ton of great, friendly people which really made the trip. My girlfriend and dog made the trip up with me and the three of us had a lot of fun, Gromit was in a comatose state last night, as were we. Friday morning I had work off but skipped out on a caravan, went and got a license as mine was a month expired, and finished up a few things on the car and got a few extra hours of needed sleep. The car made it up without issue except that I had a bad tune and zero boost control as the wastegate wasn't opening. But I babied her and before long I was at the show field and stalling it out in front of a tent full of people, not a bad first impression hahahaha
During the week I scrambled to get as many loose ends tied up as possible. The interior went back together, lots of little engine things, bumpers, a wet sand etc. I really wanted all four windows working for the trip, and had two bum pass rear regulators so I broke one down on my bench, cleaned the crap out of it, reflowed the wire connections and BAM, all four windows work which I LOVE, this specific one hasn't opened since I bought the car.
Pic of just a few pieces but I scrubbed/degreased all the bumper and door trim before reassembly
Exhaust got finished up Thursday about 1:30AM, 3" vband on the DP, short flex section and straight through Summit 'glasspack.' I think I'm going to keep the glasspack and add another muffler when I can, it's too loud and it sounds too close to an open header as you get that bap-bap-bap-bap Huge thanks to my roommate Chris, he really stepped up the few days before the show, wouldn't have made it nearly as completed as I did without him!
It looks a little ricey but it was fast
First in line at the MVA Friday hahaha
I also got my BOV installed, temporarily patched an oil pan leak, and made a bunch of very conservative tuning changes before we left and made the trip without issue! Breakfast Saturday morning:
Camping both nights, one tarp, a blanket and two pillows and viola! Chateau de Avant
Next time I'm doing like the guy in the range rover and getting a mattress pad of some sort, length was good but I am still sore from the floor. Starting to feel old for sure
Nick (Amdisthebest) even came out with me and did some tuning which was awesome because not only does the car run unbelievably better but I learned a ton asking questions and hearing him explain what/why/when he was changing things. In general I learned a ton this weekend, but that was definitely a treat. In a crazy coincidence situation a boost hose popped our first pull and limited boost to like 8psi for the first time so it allowed us to get some actual tuning done!
So Sunday morning I woke up and had a boost-piphany. My lower wastegate port was fed from the original port on the intake manifold, which I didn't realize was actually on its own runner that goes to the front of the intake manifold, which I didn't realize until Corey pointed it out on his 5K. Well, my throttle body plate blocks that port, my TB wouldn't have allowed for flow to it anyway, and thus no boost control! I stopped at advance on our way out of town, grabbed a vacuum T and some clamps and BOOST!
The trip home was a lot faster, but we made it without issue and with a healthy dose of boost
Of course I ragged it the whole way home and then once I got into town it was time for some launching. Apparently, even without launch control, I can spin HARD all the way through first. After a couple of those, my friend and I ran to the store for oil and new plugs as it was starting to break up at higher RPM's and these had been in for startup, base tuning, and uber rich barely tuned drive to Carlisle. Stupidly, I didn't put them in, and then proceeded to catch up to an EVO IX in traffic, got along side him, asked him if he wanted to run and he was up for it so we took a little drive to Mexico. It really wasn't a race, I'll post videos if I get the second one from my friend, but I couldn't even get a good launch, instead of full boost and four wheels spinning like before I was bogging bad and coming onto boost much slower. About an hour later, said friend was at my house in his '07 Mustang GT with long tubes, exhaust, intake, tuner-thing, etc. pretty basic bolt on car but on a dyno it put down 299whp so I was curious. Went pretty much as we expected, but unfortunately the 200 was still breaking up occasionally. So we headed to Mexico again, and what we expected was confirmed, I walked him early and he started to come back pretty hard later. The second run I got a jump on him but I also had a totally clean and misfire free pull and he didn't start gaining on me until mid way through fourth. I think at the track with the 200 100% sorted it would be REAL close.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqLodmaobu4[/youtube]
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VDYThi-QQ4[/youtube]
Launching, you can hear the misfire pretty bad in the first which was actually the second video chronologically
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeeoDKVYOgQ[/youtube]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCg1y9CZX_Y[/youtube]
Anyways, thanks again to everyone I met, I had too much fun this weekend! After swearing up and down I wasn't going to touch the car for a week after my pre Carlisle bender... I'm setting aside time wednesday to fix the oil leaks and track down this misfire which I think is plug gap, the knock sensor pulling timing. It was an inspiration meeting everyone, thank you again Phil and themagellan and boost on!
I have it running better than I would have ever hope for this afternoon. Around the block my AFR's look awesome, been working below 3.5k rpm's at light to medium throttle getting my basic acceleration nice and smooth and oh what a difference! It took me about 20min of tuning and I had basic accel smoothed out sooo much it feels like a different car and I felt like a new man!
I have one question, which may be stupid, but I'm going to ask. I know with launch control you're sometimes asking for huge amounts of timing retard; with just a standard rotor dist firing through a single coil, will I have the range to be able to make appropriate timing adjustments? I do have most of what I need to go tooth wheel/COP, but my douche ex roommate took his/supposed to be my coils when he cleaned us out when he moved out, so between that and my time frame/fear of VR sensor schenanigans I'm thinking this is the quick and dirty way to get my feet wet in ignition control. 
So far I have found what I believe are a bad capacitor and a bad diode in the power circuit. I have had problems like this in the past and it always seemed to be a connection problem between the ECU and it's cable, but now I'm thinking it might have been the capacitor slowly dying and then the last two long charges managed to kill it and take out the diode in the process. Would make sense, but I still have some work to do.
