'05 Evo VIII vs. '06 Mustang GT

[Steiner]

Not a whole lot to this story. I've been messing around with the settings on the KW3 coilovers the last couple of days. I've finally got the ride height and compression where I want it so tonight I played around a little with the rebound when I got home from work. There's a freshly paved service road that cuts through the windmills near my house. It's about 8 miles long. After business hours it's totally empty. I swear to God it would be an awesome place for a rally. Anyways I noticed a blue Mustang in my rear view every so often trying to keep pace about a 1/4 back.



Once I got out of the twisties and back onto the main road I slowed down a little to see if he was going to catch up. Sure enough he did. Once the main road widened to 2 lanes he pulled up next to me and motioned for me to roll the window down. Damn Evo RS manual windows! So I leaned over and rolled down the window - in the process pulling a lat muscle, tweaking my back and nearly dislocating my shoulder. I must have looked pissed once I leaned back into my seat. Right away the guy said he loved my car and asked if I had the stock turbo. I thanked him, said the same about his car and asked what he'd done. He said his car had exhaust, h-pipe, lowering springs and something else that might have been an intake. So naturally he wants to see how our cars stack up so I tell him to follow me.

I take him to a spot I'm familair with and tell him we're safe for a few runs. He's adamant that we only go from a roll which is fine with me since I've somehow managed to make it 43k miles on the stock clutch. The mystique associated with AWD launches and how it transcends different car scenes always cracks me up. His tone was as if wasn't going to let me cheat. The first run was from 10mph and he honked down. He lost traction but I offset it with a bump off the rev limiter. Once I was in 2nd I was off...maybe 3-4 cars between us before I let off after shifting to 3rd. He said he missed a shift so we went again, but this time from 15mph. I decided to go from 2nd this time and it worked out alright. I put about 4-5 cars on him before letting off during the shift from 3rd to 4th at about 80mph. His car made a lot of noise, sounded really good, and looked intimidating in the side mirror but it just didn't keep pulling after that instant and impressive initial hit of torque. After we circled back he more or less waved the white flag, asked me a few questions about the car and then told me about a local place people with modded cars go to on Wednesday nights. He was a nice guy. Not overly concerned with making his car faster but admittedly more interested in looks (lowering springs) and sound (exhaust). To each his own. Just thought I'd share.

[youngvr4]

nice kill, i love a guy who can race for the love of it and not be a d!(k about it

[AMGalltheway]

nice u thinking of checking the spot out?

[Steiner]

Me? Which spot?

[AMGalltheway]

Originally Posted by Steiner

Me? Which spot?

sorry its damn hot here and im not thinking well
the hangout spot the guy in the stang mentioned

[Steiner]

Oh OK haha. I might check it out one of these days. It's basically just a place where spoiled Bay Area highschoolers bring their parents cars...err I mean their cars. When I used to have my SRT-4 I dropped by there once with a buddy. It was cool to see the other cars but I really have no desire to go back if I'm being totally honest. The culture of that kind of younger tuner crowd and the attention it attracts from local law enforcement is something I can do without. There's always some sort of improptu race. That's not to say there isn't always a person or two in the group that would be fun to talk to, because there is. I'm just paranoid about the collective judgement of that kind of group. Ironically I'm posting this in my own street racing thread BTW...but I think you know what I mean. LOL.

[AMGalltheway]

yeah i understand

RANDOM QUESTION

have you auto crossed with your new shocks?

[Steiner]

Originally Posted by AMGalltheway

yeah i understand

RANDOM QUESTION

have you auto crossed with your new shocks?

It's actually a great question. The answer is no but a good friend of mine who also has an '05 VIII RS is the one who suggested the KW3 coilovers when I was deciding between these and the Bilstein PSS9's. He runs in the SFR class when he autocrosses. The guys pretty good too. It's apparently a great setup for autoX but I bought them with the intention of getting the car ready for a road course by the fall. That's my goal. I'm really anxious to track the car. In all honesty though, I'm just waiting for the clutch to go out right now. I thought it would have happened long ago. In the process of waiting I've had time and money available to keep boosting the power. I imagine it will take me some time on the track to be able to drive the car to it's potential, but for the time being it's fun to drive on the street. It's not my daily driver though so it's only seen 800 miles in the last 3 months.

[AMGalltheway]

oh cool what track do you run on?

[VR43000GT]

Good kill Steiner, sounds like the guy was pretty cool about it too.

[Steiner]

Thanks SL.

AMG...I haven't tracked the car yet. It's a goal of mine to have the car ready by the fall for a few track days.

[2000LS1Z28]

Good kill. Those new stangs aren't a complete joke. They actually run respectable times stock. For some reason they really need a good tune when they are modded though, so they can get quite pricey to modify for that reason.

[98BlackTransAm]

good kill man. yeah the guy sounds like he was pretty str8. personally I have a lot more respect for a slow car with a cool driver than a fast car with an ass clown driver.

[Steiner]

Originally Posted by 98BlackTransAm

...personally I have a lot more respect for a slow car with a cool driver than a fast car with an ass clown driver.

+1

[-The Stig-]

Originally Posted by 98BlackTransAm

personally I have a lot more respect for a slow car with a cool driver than a fast car with an ass clown driver.

So which are you?





Kidding...