posted 03-26-2003 05:24 AM         

Please feel free to post relevant(or irrelevant) comments, questions, etc. here

Actually, I should start from the beginning.... Not counting the original GT, which I beat at some point in the dim past... I Pre-ordered GT3 in January 2001, and it arrived in July 2001... It was a long wait. My neighbor had GT2 so I played that occasionally.

I played the game more or less legit off of one memory card, also had a save I created with the Gameshark on another card... only difference being about $999 trillion. I used the GS save to experiment around with different settings & mods, never really trying to complete the game there. Just opened all of the tracks in arcade mode so I could test cars, and picked up most of the cool Prize F1s and LMs. The other save though, I finished the game 100%, in 360 or so race days, with a hodgepodge of License medals and about an 86% win ratio... I didn't always optimize my results there, figuring it wasn't that important, I was having fun.

Fast-Forward to about October 2001... and a game came out involving cars that had the best damage model I have seen... GTAIII. This consumed all of my free time, and GT3 gathered dust as I played hours and hours of GTAIII, MGS2, Twisted Metal: Black, Onimusha 2, Red Faction 2, Ratchet & Clank, ATV Offroad Fury 2, etc. etc.

Then something happened... I was picked to be one of the beta testers for Auto-Molest-ista. An online community of beta testers quickly formed... teams formed up... a lot of real racing stuff going on. The trash talking... "Hey, u really gonna run that POS?" The giggles as you pass your buddy who has spun out and is rolling backwards... So on & so forth. It was just a real blast! But somewhere in the back of my head a voice was saying, "Too bad GT3 isn't online..." but, I was having fun. It really reminded me of the days when I had my own hotrods and used to go racing. Don't get me wrong... my current car, an early Nissan Z, is no slouch... but I don't hang out in the racing scene anymore. Too expensive and time consuming. I work long hours, have a lot of responsibilities, and I have a significant other now with whom I am saving up for some property to build a house on.

So those of us who were beta testers were really looking forward to the arrival of the second disk that would mark the beginning of phase 2 of the beta. We were cheated! Beta 2 had handling little better than that of a curling stone. It was like driving on ice... Formerly awesome cars now sucked. We persevered, trying different cars, but at best we were 30 sec behind our previous times on the same course in beta 1... on a course that the best of us could do in just under 2 minutes. Huge difference.

"So," you ask, "What does this have to do with GT3?" Well, keep your shirt on. It's my friggin diary, and I'll ramble if I want to. I'm getting there.

Well, AM was so bad, I started doing some hot laps in GT3 when I finished playing AM... I didn't try to explain it till now... I just had to. It was a relief to play such a well-crafted game after struggling with a crappy game... beta or no. Well, to make a long story even longer, I had seen The Gran Dorifto video in late January, and in order to aid the transition from monkey-see to monkey-do I picked up a Logitech Driving Force wheel in mid-February. By the time the AM beta ended around March 5 2003, I was playing more GT3 than AM. I was really starting to fiddle with car settings for the first time since the original GT, discovering how much more fun it is to toss a 1000hp car into a turn with ASM & TCS off, playing with various other settings.... I quickly discovered that my driving skills had languished.

Then, I decided that driving with a wheel is so different, I would start a new game. This game would be driven entirely using the wheel, and I would set certain goals for myself.... more on those later, since the list of goals has evolved. I figured that the best way to gain proficiency with the wheel was to beat the game with it. After poking around a bit on the web, I decided I would start my game by getting all Gold on the B license, then selling the prize car. I would then buy an AE86 Trueno and use the cash for mods. Easy, right? I remembered the tests being demanding, but not too daunting.

I figured I would knock out the B license tests all gold in a couple of hours and be on my way... NOT! After really struggling hard with B1 and barely getting bronze after several tries, I was discouraged. Over the hill, I thought. Time to throw in the towel, I opined. "Why in the world do I suck so bad at such a lame test?" I asked myself, wringing my hands as I watched replays... After a while I had it down to the inch, where I needed to stop in order to end the test. One inch further back, and I had to move forward to end the test. One inch further forward, and the test ends.... and the time is barely good for Bronze. Damn and Blast. I recalibrated the wheel and pedals... no difference. Then a lightbulb went on somewhere in the dim nether reaches of my mind, and I turned on the control indicators. Hmmmm.... full throttle off the line, good.... decent hookup for a POS FF car.... OK.... nice fast transition to brakes, no time lost there.... WHAT! Dang... I thought I pushed the brake all the way down. Hmmm. Better recalibrate to be safe. Bronze... replay... #$&$&^@!#$*%$# brakes only go 50% on! hmmmmm.... OK, I'll just under-calibrate.... *@#%&(%$(&^% only 75% brake! So a whole lot of frantic calibrating, testing, sweating, and cussing ensued. To no avail. I asked around a bit and somehow or other came to the #s. I looked immediately for the info I needed most... and while I read through the boards, I began to realize... this isn't just another board, these guys all seem pretty decent. Not a Troll-and-Flame fest, just real people discussing the game. So I signed myself right up and I believe this was my first post here(GB would know):

http://www.granturismobynumbers.com/ubb/Forum31/HTML/000991.html

Thanks to VB's helpful link, which took me here, I had a plan of action. This link has a schematic that I used for my design... if you want to attempt this I recommend you print out that schematic. Thanks to VB & GB's warm welcome, I decided I would be back... maybe I could return the favor, however indirectly, and having read more at the #s since my first post I decided that I should hang around & see if I get to like it. Hopefully this diary leaves no question as to my conclusions in that respect.

I have decided to share here what I am calling "The Saga of the Wheel". Partly due to my ignorance, partly due to my impatience, and partly due to a bit of serendipity(the last will become clear later) I have gone through a lot of motions trying to find the ideal control setup for GT3. Hopefully my sharing will save others from some amount of pain.

The Saga of the Wheel: Part 1, Trying to Make Do with Inadequate Gear

The very next day I went to a local electronics store and picked up the parts that I would need to implement the fix. Really all I needed was the trimpot and the battery case... So here is my stuff ready for surgery:

Here is what it looks like with the bottom plate removed... note that there are two screws under the rubber feet:

And here is a closeup of the wiring layout:

So, I decided that I would need to be able to change the battery, check my reference voltage, make adjustments, etc without having to take the thing apart again... This picture shows the layout of the battery box. I used a piece of safety wire for my reference test point, visible at the bottom center of this shot.... it will be imbedded in hot glue shortly, with only a small metal spike sticking up for my test point. The other test point will be the battery spring that the wire is soldered to.

This next pic shows the battery holder-voltage adjuster assembly after sealing everything in hot glue. There is a knot in the harness to act as a strain relief later. The orange wire will tap into the other side of the circuit to test the reference voltage.

Next, I started cutting the outer insulation off of the wire, so I could get to the wires inside. I recommend starting at this same point, as it will leave you some slack to work with. Between this pic and the other shot inside the base(above) it should be pretty obvious where this is.

Carefully strip the outer insulation off of about 2" of wire, working your way toward the connector that plugs into the wheel. I slid the knife in carefully alongside the inner wires, rocking it back and forth to make the cut. Be careful not to cut the inner wires or damage the insulation, and be especially careful not to cut your fingers.

Here I have laid the wire back in place so you can see how much I cut. I recommend you cut another 1/2" of insulation off... this ended up being the absolute minimum.

Here I have cut just the white wire... I recommend only cutting one wire at a time. You can see here that there is very little wire to work with.

Fortunately, when I was setting up the DSL & phones in the house, I went and bought 100 of these cool connectors like the phone company uses... I think it was about $7 for a box of 100. Anyway, in my case, the black wire from the battery box went to the white wire leading out to the wheel. The red wire went to the white wire going into the pedal unit. Remember that schematic that I mentioned? Double check... triple check... you really don't want to mess up at this point. You have to get the polarity right or it will end up worse than when you started. The pic below shows me cutting the yellow wire, where I need to tap in for my extra test point mentioned above.

Here you can see that the yellow wire is connected back together, with my orange reference wire tapped into the middle.

Here I am using an Ohm-meter to check my work. I verified that all circuits were connected properly, that there were no breaks or shorts, and that the wires still connected all the way through from the pots in the pedal assembly to the connector that goes into the wheel. I really, really didn't want to discover a problem after I had it all put back together.

Here I have tucked all of the wires back into the cavity in the pedal base. The knot that I made in the wire harness is somewhat visible here... I added a dab of hot glue to help hold it all in place.

After re-installing the baseplate. There are a number of things to watch out for here. First, you have to make sure that the little plastic knobs on the position sensors go back into the recesses in the pedal base. This is very important... Easy to miss. Check your work. Second, Make sure the pedal springs are in the right position before you put the baseplate on, and as you bring the baseplate into position, make sure the springs go into the proper grooves in the baseplate. No rocket science involved... just pay attention. The battery box is just hanging at this point, but this is right where it needs to be.

OK, time to test it out. With everything plugged in, GT3 running, battery in place, I set the initial voltage between the spring & my test point to a hair over 5V. Initially this solved the problem. As it turned out, after using it for a couple of runs, this only gave me about 95% braking. Apparently the voltage settles after using it for a little while. Glad I made the adjustment external!

Here is my little black box in its final resting place. It is velcroed into position. As you can see, the adjustment screw is easily accessible.

Satisfied that I will not have to open the unit back up again, I glued the rubber feet back in place:

As I mentioned above, setting the voltage to 5 volts didn't quite do the trick. I ended up going through a cycle of starting a race, applying the brake, checking brake activation in the replay(Often I didn't even let the race start, I just hit the brake & quit), tweaking the adjustment a bit(without the meter), recalibrating, and checking again. After about 4 iterations, I had the brake working perfectly.

The end of the saga? No, not by a long shot. I started trying to use MT, and quickly discovered that the shifters don't always work at full lock, as others have mentioned on this board. I decided that while I could probably fix it, there was another problem surfacing which could not be fixed so easily. Occasionally, while turning, gritting my teeth, etc I would bump the e-brake button on the rim of the wheel. Not at all good when you are going for all gold licenses. So I reversed all of the changes made to the pedal assembly... essentially I cut out the battery box from the circuit and reconnected the wires so that it works exactly as it did when it was shipped to me, and I sent it back under RMA. "Wait", you say, isn't that a bit shady?" My answer is that its on a par with the way they treated my complaint about the problem... they were in denial and were only willing to trade for the same exact wheel or money back. I'm giving it back in precisely the same functional condition as when I received it, but the cord is now about 2" shorter. 'nuff said.

The fix worked good enough to get me through most of the B-licenses, but B-8 eluded me for some time. I needed more practice, and I needed a better control setup.

Side note... the battery box assembly that I made is up for grabs. Gimme a shout if you want it.

The Saga of the Wheel: Part 2, Finally Got the Right Wheel

I decided after much research here and elsewhere that what I really wanted was the MOMO Force. Maybe there will be games that it won't work with later on, but I can get a Wingman Formula Force real cheap if that becomes an issue... most of my driving will be GT3 until GT4 comes out, so I don't much care about the compatibility with other games. So I went ahead and bought the wheel online, and did my best to keep myself pulled together until it arrived.

So, for those who are not familiar with this wheel, here is a quick overview. For those who are, you've already seen all this... skip ahead to the good part.

First of all, This wheel is VERY different from most other popular wheels. It has a real leather MOMO wheel with an aluminum hub. It rides on ball bearings, and the internals don't have the Fisher Price grind of the Driving Force or Formula Force(Or the MOMO Racing, for that matter). It's tight, it's precise... It just plain feels good. it has a nice grip to it... reminds me of my car, tho my wheel is a larger diameter. The stamped steel paddle shifters are connected to some very responsive microswitches... the Driving Force shifters were analog and felt very sloppy... hard to tell exactly when the shift was going to occur.

The following sequence of pix was from my first night with the wheel, so bear with me... I was very happy and a little geeked out.

I was so happy and dumbfounded that it was finally here... Of course I had to take a pic while it was still a virgin... Felt like xmas morning.

The power plugs into the pedal unit... it is the same power adapter as on the Driving Force wheel, same plug. This is one less wire going to the wheel itself. Nice. The other cable is hard-wired with a strain relief and goes up to the large D-shell connector on the wheel.

The pedals are not really aluminum, it turns out. They have an aluminum bezel that seems to hold on the red plastic textured blocks. They also have a pivot right under the pedal head, which helps you to find a comfortable angle for your foot. They are a very tough plastic compared to the DF pedals though, and have a much stiffer feel to them. No more cramps from trying to hold my lead foot at part throttle. The base is tough plastic, and the aluminum diamond plate is extremely thin... Which is fine with me... Just don't expect this to be like the stuff people put on the corners of their jeeps.

The wheel clamping mechanism is meant to clear the usual bit of wood that's attached to the underside of a typical table top. It wasn't enough to work on my coffee table though so I had to improvise, as you will see if you are still awake a couple of pictures hence. Also visible are the steel shift paddles.

This is the D-shell connector on the wheel. Definitely a step up from the phone jack on the Driving Force. This is the only connector on the wheel. The Driving Force had too many cables on the wheel, IMO. You can also see the back of one of the steel paddle shifters in this pic. Note the additional thin wire with the ferrite core on it coming out of the connector... This is the USB cable. Word of advice... this cable is only 6 feet long. Figure out if you need an extension, and get it before the wheel arrives, because you will not be able to stand not being able to use it.... which brings me to the next pic.

This funky little green steel table has been in my family since 1932, and was until tonight doing duty in the garage holding up a bunch of onions, potatoes, etc.... Ms. Dead freaked a little about the mess I made digging it out but... but... I HAD TO GO FOR A DRIVE!!! It's about the same height as the coffee table; much too low. I couldn't use it like this long-term or I'd have to get a live-in chiropractor. But it gave me a feel for how a force feedback wheel can perform.... and I must say I was stunned. The Driving Force Wheel is truly a toy. The MOMO force is what a wheel should be(alright, it could use a set of DS buttons in the center, but not if it screws it up like the DF wheel). I still suck, but now it feels soooo goooood.... The extra stiffness in the pedals makes a huge difference... much easier to modulate throttle & brake. And the wheel feels solid. Honestly, the last car I drove that had a wheel this tight was a Mercedes. It's that good. Of course, the MBZ handled much, much better than my '32 table. But you get what you pay for.

I adjusted the levels in Photoshop just a bit to bring out the detail... but this is probably closer to what you will see while using your wheel... two little LED eyeballs looking up out of the wheel.

Back to the Wheel: The red and yellow buttons double for triangle and X, respectively... Green is look behind, Blue is "Start", and I'm not quite sure what the white ones do. The colored buttons can be reassigned in the GT Force keymap UI. I've found that while doing the license tests, navigating the pause/try again menu, the shifters serve to move the cursor right and left. I have also found that turning the wheel to navigate these menus seems to make the wheel lose center. Oh well. I just don't turn it when I'm not actually driving and have no problem with centering.

The Saga of the Wheel: Part 3, Where Am I Gonna Mount this Damn Thing?

So with a sketch in my hand, I went to Home Depot to get the parts I would need for my new cockpit. I had only a few requirements: It had to be very cheap, simple and quick to build, and functional. At this time I was thinking that what I really wanted was something like the Bob Earl setup, but it would have to wait since Ms. Dead & I are saving for a house.

Pic taken while eyeballing the pedal platform angle & mounting scheme. I arrived at the dimensions from some initial eyeballing & propping up the pedals, etc. Then I measured the width I wanted.... 18" lateral clearance for my legs at the narrowest point. All lateral dimensions were determined by this choice. The inside dimension of the base is 21". The uprights, not shown, will be 18" apart. The side rails are 48" long. The other dimension of the pedal platform, the short side, is a touch longer than the pedal assembly at 15".

Just before pulling everything into the garage for the night.... since I was working in a relatively tight space, I ended up snapping all the tools I've used except for the framing square and the workmate vise. Didn't need much. Pedal platform mounts drilled, mounted, and adjusted to initial settings. Also visible, the u-shaped piece of plywood(carved out with the skilsaw) that was left over from cutting the platform from a 2' square. Should keep the pedal assy from sliding down to the floor. I cut it so the pedal assembly could be moved an inch or so either side of center.

Here is the method that I used to drill all of the major holes in this project... clamp the piece in position and drill, put in the bolt and remove the clamps. I did it this way since I don't have a drill press and didn't want to spend hours and hours measuring, figuring, marking, etc when I couldn't drill a perfectly perpendicular hole anyway.

Upright wheel supports in place... this is also a better view of the extra plywood on the pedal platform which keeps the pedal assembly from sliding down to the floor.

Here I am positioning the diagonal braces for the upright prior to drilling...

Sort of in parallel with the above, I cut the pieces for the wheel platform. Here it is on the bench, with some wooden blocks I added to improve the clamping thickness. At this point the hot glue holding the blocks in place is hardening up while clamped in position with... what else... the wheel.

Next, I clamped the wheel platform in place, at about the angle I wanted and the right position, give or take a bit, drilled the holes & put the bolts in.

And here it is... in all its glory... This is gonna work out perfectly. Here also are: Right Side, Driver's View, and Front View.

And here it is.... tadaaaaa... the all-new, 2003 Futon Flyer 2x4. Now, I should tell you, Ms. Dead about coughed up a hairball when she saw me dragging this monstrosity into the living room. So, my argument was, "Well, there are nice ones out there for ~$400+, but I thought we were saving money for property and a house... I was just trying to be frugal" and hers was "WOULD YOU LOOK AT THE FREAKING THING... YOU WANT TO LEAVE THAT IN THE LIVING ROOM!...." and other apoplectic noises & gestures... comments about my parentage... etc etc So finally, she said I should shop around for a nicer solution... after some "searching" on the web, I told her about the Bob Earl Racing setup... only $300... "YES! YES!" She said... "GET THAT ONE! PLEASE!!!" Now, I sure am glad this was "Her" idea... In this case it was worth a few hours' work & a few bucks. Given our savings plans, I could have never just walked up and said, "Hey, how bout I go buy this $300 gaming seat?".

Also we had a long discussion about how what I'd REALLY like to do is put some extras on my Z and go out and do autocross... Sunday Club... whatever... but that would be a lot more expensive, and I'm trying to save money by living that dream vicariously through GT3. In the end, it all made sense, it's all good, and now I'm waiting for the Bob Earl seat... due in around 3/26 or 3/27.

The Saga of the Wheel: Part 4, The 2003 Futon Flyer 2x4 hits the Track

So, I progressed quickly. The MOMO Force is a very different controller than the Driving Force. It took me an hour or two to get used to it, and in that time I was back in the neighborhood of my best driving Force time on B-8... around 43.3xx. After a while I seemed to hit another wall though, and couldn't seem to do better than 43.1xx using the MOMO Force. I stayed at this point for about 3 hours of driving over a couple of days...

Then, one day, I was reaching into the pantry for some bottles of SoBe, when like a bolt from the blue, inspiration struck:

After I woke up, I noticed how cool the stickers were that came with the MOMO Wheel... I mean, I had seen them before, but until then I just didn't realize how COOL they were! So with a scanner & a color printer I made several copies... you can see some of them in the pix below... Also I added a really sweet wing:

and some more stickers:

and of course the essential Fart Cannon:

Very pleased with myself, I decided that the B-8 test's days were numbered... I was ready to smoke that test NOW... So I climbed in to the "Futon Flyer 2x4R" (Note the type "R"... that really means something... I dunno what but isn't it COOL?) and fired up. B-8... 43.7... Dang. Maybe less downforce? 43.6... hmmmm... maybe if I point the Fart cannon straight back it will boost me along a bit... 43.595... Dang... mb more stickers... 43.65... hmmm... maybe got a bad tank of gas.

Then, while digging around on my garage shelves looking for some octane boost, I had another flash of inspiration... another bolt from the blue:

Ms. Dead helped me bandage up my head, and I looked at the Futon Flyer with a new sense of clarity: "What's with this stupid wing? And this damn piece of foil on the side? And how did all of these lame-assed stickers get all over the place?" I stripped all of that crap off and tossed it. I also decided once and for all that I should start using MT instead of AT... after all, it gives me more control in real cars....

So I finally started using MT, took awhile to get used to it... 43.030... 43.018... 43.008... 42.986!!!! WooHoo! Yippee! I was so happy... now I could sell the POS-iata, buy a Tofu-eno, and get started on my game! Just had to get real... I blew through the first 3 arcades on hard.... wanted to unlock some tracks, and did it as kind of a celebration/reward. I was just too tired to go any further that night, and my head still hurt.

So, to quickly bring it up to present-day:

3/19 Found that the Miata will only sell for a bit over $5k. Screw it. I'm gonna unlock something else.

3/20 Brought my Golds up to A4... beat the A4 demo by about .2 sec.

3/21 Finished all A License tests, Gold... Picked up RX-8... beat Arcade Swiss Alps on Hard. I'm addicted to license tests now... besides, I have to catch up to my buddy LUGZ, who got his MOMO Force at about the same time and also started a new game with it.

3/23 No progress on game...

been working on Ms. Dead's car. New brakes, Valve cover gasket, some minor crap. Have to do the upper engine mount in a couple of weeks. And LUGZ is stuck on iB-8... maybe I can catch him.

3/25 Aced iB-1 & 2... those were pretty fun... easier with the wheel than what I remember of the DualShock.

So, this diary, apart from whatever ramblings I care to interject, will be mostly about my efforts to finish this new game that I started with a Force Feedback wheel. My goal is to have all Golds in all licenses, replays for each(At this point I have a B-8 replay and replays for A1-8 iB-1 & 2, and R-1), golds in all races/series/time-trials with replays for each(where possible), and all prize cars, with the exception that I do not care to get all colors of the same prize cars. I also intend to get 100% completion with 100% wins.

I will post my progress, such as it is, here... along with any league race info, additional "Inspiration"(bolts from the blue), etc.

Happy racing! Keep the shiny side up!

DeadAgain

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GT3 is my excuse for not liking other driving games...

posted 03-26-2003 08:42 AM         

Awesome! Tremendous! Fantabulous!

[/me realizes a bit too late that I'm standing on a wheeled chair, and nearly break my elbow again.]

posted 03-30-2003 07:07 PM         

So, on to my next Diary entry...

3/27 - My VRC cockpit arrived on the morning of 3/25. Sadly, I was far too busy to do anything with it until the 27th, which was pure torture... and I've been far too busy to properly update this diary until now. Anyway, here I am... and here is my VRC:

This is a really, really nice unit, although there is no way to use the MOMO Force's extra hold-down bolt on this setup. I am in communication with Bob Earl about this, I will try to get a quote from him on trading in my old wheel platform for a custom platform that will more closely match the rubber feet on the bottom of the wheel and set the wheel back about 1", allowing me to raise it a bit to clear my knees better. He did send me a steel spacer after I showed him this pic:

Additionally, moving the platform back 1" will allow the addition of a piece of 1/4" i.d. thick-wall tube for the Hold-down bolt to go through. Anyone else interested in such a mod? It might be easier to convince him to make more than one.

So at this point the Futon Flyer 2x4 is up for grabs... There's about $40 in materials there, but if someone wants to pay me half that & take it off my hands, I'm all for that. If I don't get a response from a #'s member by say Wednesday 4/2 I will post it on ebay.

Anyway, I spent a couple hours on the 27th playing with this setup... Very busy lately, and that's all the time I had. During that time I finished off Arcade area A, all on Hard (Trial Mountain & Midway II), Area B unlocked; Picked up Golds on iB-3 & 4. LUGZ is still stuck on iB-8, and had this to say when I told him of my progress: "Uh-Oh"

So onward, I'm going to do a bit o racing today, and we'll see where I end up.

D

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GT3 is my excuse for not liking other driving games...

posted 03-31-2003 07:26 AM         

I would suggest wearing some kind of helmet next time you're searching for something on a high shelf though, otherwise those flashes of inspiration might start taking a toll on your braincell count...

posted 04-01-2003 01:58 AM         

Littleg, FYI I'm not too concerned about the impact on my brain cells... Whatever the fraction one expects to lose from such events, I'm safe since you can't divide by zero...

So, since this is a diary, maybe I should give an update: Advanced my Gold pursuit as far as iB-7, now stuck on iB-8. As is my buddy LUGZ.... hehehehe

D

posted 04-07-2003 04:18 AM         

Do you feel neglected? Me too. It's been quite a week. Heavy work week, lotta stuff goin on at home. I'll backtrack a bit and talk about the Mazda Rev It Up event last weekend. Brian & I showed up early, checked in, and did our 12:40pm "chalk talk". Listened to John Rutherford talk a bit about all the yadda yaddas, be smooth, be safe, pay attention, yadda yadda. I don't blame John, the presentation was canned. He tried to improvise a bit, but that made it just tolerable. 20 minutes of this and we were free to run the mini-courses.

The Mini-courses were Cornering & Braking Clinic, Slalom Clinic, or Race Line Clinic(the last was the only one that was timed).

Cornering and Braking was flat-out acceleration for about 100 yards, then at a set of cones slam on the binders and hook a sharp corner while braking before the stop sign. Fun once. There were two such stops in the course, and both times I got grins & thumbs up from the guys monitoring the test sections. BTW these guys were all allegedly race car drivers of some ilk, but I only recognized a few names.

The Slalom clinic was basically a large rectangle, accelerate through a slalom, hook a left, stop and wait to get flagged through to the next slalom, left & get out. Ho-Hum.

The Racing Line thing had a more challenging course, accelerate north through a slalom, hook left, chicane left, chicane right, sharp left, accelerate south through another slalom, sharp left onto final straight heading East-NorthEast to the finish trap. They said that the Race driver set the reference time at just over 26", I did 27.046". Most times I saw were 32-34 sec. So, having finished all this, we still had hours before our 4:00 track time for the competition.

So we went around and gawked at some pretty nice cars:

Hey, this guy stole my MOMO Wheel!

This RX7 had no engine in it, but looked pretty sweet anyway...

There were also a couple of RX-8s there, but there were people crawling all over them, I couldn't get a picture. Later I could have but was too cheesed off... The shift knobs had been stolen at an earlier event in some other city.... They had pulled the one off of the RX-7 above to keep it from happening to that car.

We discovered that there was another track, where you could drive Mazda 6's with several different option packages, Proteges, or a Miata(they only had 1) over a road course laid out with cones. The line for the Miata was the longest, so we took turns; one would hold the place in line, the other would go do a lap in the Protege(no line for that one) to get an idea what the course was. I drove that thing to its limits... which wasn't very hard... and was ready for the Miata. The guy 2 people in front of us got in & stalled it immediately, to the tune of intense razzing from the lines of people. He then took off, dragging the clutch for ages & ages... I yelled, "Save me some clutch!" which earned me some grins from some of the staff. The next guy drove like he was hypnotized. I swear he didn't cause a single degree of body roll or pitch from accelerating or braking... I was wondering why the hell he bothered with the Miata in the first place.

So I rolled up to the little "start" lady... I guess she remembered me because she said, "OK, Take it easy, this isn't a competition... GO!" to which I replied, "VRRROOOOOMMMM!!!! SCREEEEECCCCHHH!! and was off. I have to say that the Miata is a very fun-handling little car, it's easy to throw around & control a drift, and even if it was underpowered I enjoyed flogging it. I couldn't quite read the expression on the staff member's face because of his sunglasses, but the impression I got was he was a bit flat-footed and slack-jawed.... Some day I might expand on the terror I caused in my region doing test drives at car dealerships while in my early 20's...

There was also a go-kart track, but I know that those things can really blow out your arms in 20-30 minutes of driving, so I skipped them.

So anyway, the starting area for the actual competition looked like this:

But when we arrived at 4pm, on schedule for our track time, the line looked like this:

In the white tent were probably 100 people; the line doubled back on itself at least 10 times in there, and continued out from the far right corner of the tent past the right side of this picture. So we asked, and they said that they were running 1 hour behind schedule. So we took off for a burger(They had food there, but it was like $8 for a pathetic little burger like you get 2 for $1 at Jack in the Box. Fed, we came back a bit before 5 and were told that It would be another hour at least. We waited about another 25 minutes, and when we overheard someone with a 3:40 track time being told THEY had another hour to wait, we threw in the towel.

We were defeated by Mazda's stupid decision to take all comers. There was walk-up registration as well as pre-registration.... What they should have done is kept the pre-registrants on schedule and make the others wait... but I've learned my lesson. Next time I'm going to get there REAL early to mitigate the effects of this sort of thing.

So, I just remembered that this is supposed to be a GT3 diary...

I have decided thet the ib-8 license can wait... stupid NSX. Oh, I've made bronze dozens of times, silver at leat a dozen. but I reloaded my game to remove the ghost from that test and decided to go racing. I was a bit frustrated with the game at this point, and was merciless.

I took the RX-8 that I had won, put some T3 skins on it, stage 2 air cleaner/muffler, and the chip. I smoked the Sunday cup guys by a wide margin, winning a Trueno, which made me feel a bit better. I then did the Clubman cup, winning by a much narrower margin because I haven't raced those tracks in so long. Ended up with a Green Miata, the base model.... worse than the one I won in the B license tests. At this point I did the Lighten Stage 1 and Driveshaft on the RX-8, and won the FR challenge, raking in $15000 and a white Del Sol.

So that's about where it stands at this point....

Happy racing, and I'll talk to you later, Diary!

D

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Keep The Shiny Side Up!

posted 04-10-2003 04:03 AM         

Lic. Test ib-8 --> <-- Me

Boyoboyoboy... can't wait to tell LUGZ...

I'm sure lots of you could finish this test while I'm still on the last turn.... but this is a personal victory for me.

Oh, then there's ia-1...

But That's for another day...

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Keep The Shiny Side Up!

[This message has been edited by DeadAgain (edited 09-11-2005).]

posted 04-14-2003 12:15 AM         

D

posted 04-14-2003 08:58 AM         

quote:

---

Originally posted by DeadAgain:
That 350Z sure looks sweet.

---

Mate, it drives that way too!!!

Been a joy looking through your diary mate, hope you don't mind

Nice to see you did come back and your enjoying your stay here.

Keep up the very entertaining work!!

Reminds me, I should do one of these. Mmmm

[This message has been edited by VB (edited 04-14-2003).]

IP: Logged

posted 04-16-2003 01:13 AM         

quote:

---

Originally posted by VB:
Been a joy looking through your diary mate, hope you don't mind

Nice to see you did come back and your enjoying your stay here.

---

Thanks VB, it's been a pleasure to share. And yes, I am enjoying myself... I participated in my first OLR(other than via networked games) and I already won myself the Stewardship of the next race... WooHoo!

quote:

---

Reminds me, I should do one of these. Mmmm

---

It's way more fun than it looks... I'd suggest you wear a helmet though...

D

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Keep The Shiny Side Up!

posted 04-17-2003 03:16 AM         

I have yet to get to GT3 to do some testing for the Spot Race I'm supposed to Steward.

Hopefully tomorrow night...

D

posted 04-27-2003 06:26 PM         

I thank my lucky stars that they tried this right about the time that my starter has decided to give up the ghost... It started sounding funny about a week ago, and I have a gear-reduction starter on order because I'm tired of going through starters every couple of years. The day they tried this, it was at a point that if you didn't know exactly how much choke & how much gas to use, the car would not start because the starter heats up and quits working after a couple of revolutions. No, I haven't considered reducing my compression ratio to stock just to save my starter. Fortunately, I was able to run down to the Nissan dealer and get a new switch assembly and get it mounted up before nightfall. I've also fixed the short that kept me from activating the alarm system, and figured out a clever way to disable the car. And, just in case, I keep the shotgun loaded now.

The bastards got away with my wheel lock key, so since I figured they might have had plans to come back I put some extra wheel locks on; I'm considering getting a set of 4 for each wheel. That oughta make 'em think twice. They also got away with a $100 set of jumper cables, 1/0 fine-strand wirex15' long.

Also did a rear wheel bearing on Ms. Dead's car today...

Anyway, enough distractions... I'm gonna try to get at least one good run in on my spot race.

D

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Keep The Shiny Side Up!
GT3 Diary

posted 04-28-2003 09:43 PM         

car thieves can kiss my ***!

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- Santiago22 // Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec
Straightaways are for fast cars. Corners are for fast drivers!
Eat asphalt. Drink fuel. Spit oil. Belch fire.
Race to live. Live to race. :)

posted 04-29-2003 02:22 AM         

Although it's possible it's someone local who heard it drive by... The exhaust note is pretty serious. Not as serious as a 12-guage exhaust note though.

D

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Keep The Shiny Side Up!
GT3 Diary

posted 04-29-2003 10:41 PM         

quote:

---

Originally posted by GT3mich:
It looks like all you need is a little wax. Those tires would be high on the theft list. Normal tires aren't grooved like that. Is your car free of body rust?

---

The paint is really horrible on this car.... Wax does wonders for it, but only for a few days. It's just not worth it. As for the tires, I would have guessed that people would be interested in 16"+ tires/wheels, but I guess I was wrong. The passenger door has a good sized spot of skin cancer near the bottom rear edge, but I'll just replace the door when it comes time for cosmetic stuff. There is also a tiny sopt of rust-through where the hatch meets the quarter panel, just over the right taillight. All in all, nothing I'm worried about.

posted 04-29-2003 10:50 PM         

quote:

---

Originally posted by GB24Hours:
Nice ride, DA.... a real 'sleeper'!

---

Thx GB... you hit the nail on the head. Living in Yuppie central(Silicon Valley) I get a huge kick out of smoking M3's and even a few M5's, then checking the look on their face at the next light. I can get 4-5 car lengths easily on an M3 by the time I hit 4th; M5's tend to be a closer match... I run anywhere from a length or two ahead to a length behind on that kind of matchup.

But the most satisfying thing is when some stiff yuppie looks over at me at the next light with a "WTF" look on their face. Ultimate driving machine indeed. Extra points for when they pound the steering wheel as I pull ahead.

I probably only race maybe 1 out of 20 opportunities; it has to be the right place & right time. This kind of fun does not mix at all with traffic or cops. Mostly though I wait for that one sphincter that has a real snooty attitude and edges up on the light like they have something to prove.

posted 04-29-2003 10:55 PM         

quote:

---

Originally posted by Psyfalcon:
If its too much of a theif magnet i'd be glad to take it for you

---

Thanks for your generous offer Psy... I'm afraid I will have to respectfully decline. I love this car too much to part with it, even if I have to hire security to watch over it at night.

posted 01-18-2004 03:37 AM         

Well, this diary is turning into a topic that chronicles a lot of my car activities both with GT3 and with real cars. Hopefully GB won't consider it too far out of line...

Mostly I want to say hi, I'm back, busy, gottago, see ya soon, bye.

Jeez, it's been a busy, busy few months. I wondered for the longest time if I would ever resurface. My IM client fell out of date and I didn't have time to fool with it. Some of my buddies didn't hear from me for months. Aside from the noise level busyness of life being ramped up 3 notches, I wasted entire weekends tramping around looking for the correct parts to get my Ramcharger smogged, although it's the last year it has to be checked! Another weekend gone swapping the whole induction system. More on that in a later post if anyone's interested.

Then christmas, new years, family, stress. Back to work with hardly a day of peace & relaxation.

Finally, this month, I decided that I've REALLY been working hard and I needed to reward myself. The reward itself means more work.... such is life. But I'll manage. Last night I picked up my new ride, and I've spent the day working on it with a friend, both of us hindered by copious amounts of drool inspired by "the Gift".

"The Gift" is currently in the GT tune shop, getting... well, a tune-up. And some hoses replaced. And some bulbs, maybe a relay or two... oh, and tweak this or that while I'm in there... you all know the drill with a used car.

And so without further ado.... >Corny GT3 Drumroll plays<

So there you have it. My official reason for not having time to play GT3 for the next week at least.

I'll be back with some updates... Happy long MLK weekend All!

D

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Keep The Shiny Side Up!
GT3 Diary

posted 01-23-2004 08:42 AM         

Sweeeeeetttt!!!

Is that your Z out the on the curb. Hope you told him good stories to convince him to stay out there all night from now on. Or is that a temp thing?

I might be wrong... but... is the auto barhn lover... green?

posted 01-25-2004 12:31 AM         

Thanks VB, I guess I did, though it was stressful.

Naw, it's not green. It's black. It's going to live outside where the Z is since I don't have any covered parking, and the Z will probably sit in the underground garage at work until I get the 928 dialed in a bit, at which point I'll probably sell the Z. I'm going to get a good car cover soon, to protect the paint & leather. I haven't had time to post the rest of the pics, here's a quick rundown:

1978 Porsche 928 5-speed Black/Black leather
4.5L CIS port-injected OHC 90º V8, 219HP 245lb-ft
Rear transaxle for perfect 50/50 weight dist
Aluminum hood, fenders & doors

Currently in the shop for timing belt, water pump, cam tower recondition(oil leaks), ball joints & alignment.

Picked it up for $4200. Did a complete tune-up & replaced a bunch of hoses and drove it for a bit. Needed a fuel filter too. The handling is just... breathtaking. The sound.... oooohh, the sound... Here's what another guy's sounds like, AT, 0-90 with the window open and again with the window closed. Mine just sounds like that except MT. I didn't get to drive it much though, as with 62K miles on it it's due for a timing belt. I don't want to snap that & bend a valve. The water pump should be replaced, as well as the rollers for the belt. Since all that has to come off anyway to get to the cam towers and fix the oil leaks, I'm having a reputable shop take care of those.

It also has the original aluminum ball joint carriers, which are known to fatigue and snap suddenly. I'm getting those upgraded to the steel ones.... I've heard of at least one guy having this work done by Porsche for $0 but I didn't get anywhere trying it myself. And, I'm going to replace the current 16" Phone-dial rims with something in 17"...

I'll be back later with some updates. The guy I took it to was recommended as "maybe not the cheapest, but the most honest Porsche mechanic around". It'll be at least 2 weeks before I see my car again though. :'(

D

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Keep The Shiny Side Up!
GT3 Diary

posted 01-28-2004 07:03 PM         

Well, the first weekend I had the car, I did a LOT of little stuff to it. First though, here are some more pix:

And here is my good buddy Brian, trying real hard to pick his jaw up off of the ground...

Here is a peek inside.... The leather is all in really good shape... normal wear on the driver's side for 62K miles... It just needs a clean-up and maybe some black carpet dye on some of the carpet.

And of course the token set of "rear seats". I have a couple of neices that might be able to wedge their skinny asses back there, but these are definitely NOT adult seats. When the car comes back from the shop I'll first make sure that I have somebody handy to winch my ass out of there, then I'll see if I can fit.

Here is what the engine bay looked like at first:

And of course, being the nutcase that I am, one of the first things I did was start ripping parts off and trying to clean things up:

So after it dried out a bit, I replaced all of the vacuum hoses that I was able, gave it a cap, rotor, wires, and plugs. Interestingly, the plugs that came out of there looked REALLY nice... some light grey ash, all cylinders the same. The plugs were Bosch, made in India... replaced with Bosch, made in Germany. Still wasn't running right, but well enough to generate LOTS of tire smoke.... A fuel filter sorted out the dead spot starting out in first. You know the kind of dead spot where you keep pushing the pedal, saying, WTF? then suddenly... tire smoke.

Also, if you look at the headlights, they were dropping further into the fenders than they should. According to the records that I have, the radiator was replaced by some little no-name shop.... and it seems that they had to move the headlight motor to get at the radiator, and never moved it back. Also, the light pods have a little plastic ball-and-socket gizmo that is supposed to pop free when the light impacts something, to prevent damage. These had to be popped back into place and the lights are now back where they belong. I'll have a pic with the lights in the "correct" position later.

All of the brakes looked good, but I found that they were a bit spongy. In addition to the work mentioned in a previous post, I'm going to have both hydraulic systems power-bled, and have him inspect the brake pads and replace them if they are sub-par. In addition, I want him to get me a smog cert so there may be other stuff. The EGR was not hooked up and I don't know what it will take to get that all sorted out. Anyway, I should have it back by next Friday or the following Monday... then it's going into another shop the following Wednesday thru Friday for ball joints, 4 wheel alignment(VERY tricky on this car) and corner balancing. I'm trying hard to get tires & wheels on it before the suspension work, but we'll see. I may have to delay the work till I get the skins. I'm looking to go with the same Yokos as on the Z, only 225/45-17 & 255/40-17

More updates as they happen....

D

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Keep The Shiny Side Up!
GT3 Diary

posted 01-28-2004 11:40 PM         

First of all, welcome back! I actually have thought about the lack of your prescence on the board, and had intentions of trying to e-mail you for some time now, but..... you know.... life intervenes. Plus, I have the memory of a tomato, so that doesn't help the cause any. So, you get one 9 month hiatus like that in a lifetime.... you go "missing" again, and we'll come hunt you down.

Pretty cool "acquisition" you've got there. I wish I had the time/energy/knowledge/patience necessary to pick up something like that and return it to glory and keep it running. My wife thought I was nuts buying a car as old as a 1990 last summer, seeing as I barely have time to keep the lawn mowed, let alone 'tinker' with a high-maintenance vehicle. More power to ya, brother! Keep the diary chronicles coming... they're not "out of line" by any means. At GTBN, it's all about the friendships and personal anecdotes..... unlike some other forums lately!

posted 01-30-2004 12:59 AM         

So, was it really 9 months between posts here? Dang... Time flies when you don't have any time for fun. Well, I'm determined to make more time for fun this year. Some of that fun is going to include things like making up for the neglect on this car. Clogged washer system, various bulbs & fuses.... cruise control... blah blah blah. Well, the mechanic got back to me yesterday with results of a compression check, saying the cylinders were all at new spec. So he's working on tearing down the engine, and I'm finding that the wheels that I want are extremely hard to find in the rare offsets required by the 928:

I may have a line on them and the tires, but I'm kind of hosed since the plastic won't cover it until the check arrives and clears on the account... I have the money right now, it's just in transit.

It looks like it's going to be a close thing, getting the car out of the shop, having the skins in time to make my appointment at the suspension shop... on the 11th...

Ah well. Off to do some other stuff now. For those of you who have read this far, here's a little treat.

Updates as they happen(more or less)

D

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Keep The Shiny Side Up!
GT3 Diary

posted 01-30-2004 11:55 PM         

D

posted 01-31-2004 01:26 PM         

Sorry.

D

[Edit]Hosting fixed, Pix are back. [/Edit]
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Keep The Shiny Side Up!
GT3 Diary

posted 01-31-2004 07:31 PM         

D

posted 02-03-2004 02:13 PM         

Update:
Yes, I'm getting a set of wheels like that second wheel, in chrome, with the Yokos. Still looking for a nice locking center cap to go on the wheel.... Porsche chromed center caps ain't cheap and I don't want some yahoo stealing them.

Update from the shop:
Running into minor little issues, bits of hardware were replaced apparently from the junkbin. It's getting sorted out, correct hardware installed, etc and they are going to pull the cam towers today. Damn, I'm