KFunk

You can find various old Porsche clocks on ebay that are affordable, and VDO/Kienzle. I swapped the face of my broken tii clock onto one of those. It wasn't as easy as I'd been led to believe, but it still works and look fine. You could keep the face from a Porsche one and it'd still probably look appropriate, but many have a smaller diameter than the tii one.

Copied and pasted, boom! Hah. By the way, if you take one of the fancy new IE grill ornaments, epoxy a rare earth magnet on the back, and stick it on the rear finish panel, then you can nicely hide a dent in your shiny new paint job that someone stupidly caused by backing into their own motorcycle, while advertising IE at the same time. A 'friend' figured that out.

I'd much rather have affordable parts with a few manufacturing flaws and good customer support, than absolutely perfect parts that I'd never be able to afford. Yeah, sometimes stuff isn't quite perfect. If I were going for showroom perfect stuff, I'd buy OEM and then complain when their stuff isn't perfect anymore either. I've got a lot of IE parts, and its never given me any real issues. Off the top of my head, I have their new cast pistons, 292 cam, HD rockers and valve springs, various 5speed parts, full exhaust, braided brake lines, DCOE throttle linkage, electric fuel pump, and probably a whole bunch of other stuff I'm forgetting. I'll still keep buying stuff from them when I have money to do that.

Damn, that ain't gonna be cheap. If you've got the cash and want all new, then yes that list seems to have all the stuff. You probably want one of the little squirrel cage looking synch tools too (~$30) A lot of people are gonna say that you should also have a better cam and higher compression pistons to really take advantage of them, and to study in some monastery for like 8 months to properly get in touch with the carbs metaphysically to tune them. But, I'm the weirdo that says screw it, bolt 'em on and have fun with a stock engine and figure it out later if they give you any problems.

I have hit 2 large deer, pretty solidly with the front of the car at highway speed, without that much damage other than the grills, windshield, and rear quarter panel from a buck ass after spinning through the air. Maybe by strut bar helped limit some damage.

However, I would argue about the usefulness of a rear sway bar. Yeah, a big front sway can tighten up handling quite a bit. But, a big rear sway can increase wheel spin quite a bit on a tight autocross track, even with an E21 LSD. I removed my big rear sway completely like 10 years ago, and I could get a lot more power to the ground in turns and got a lot better times. I picked up a stock rear sway I'd like to try some time, but haven't gotten around to it.

The usefulness of a front strut brace may depend quite a bit on the roads you drive. You really notice the difference over bumps, like the many potholes here in Appalachia, or if you make a wrong turn off the race track and go bouncing through gravel pits at 70mph.... not that I'd ever do that. A solid feel to the front end can be very nice, but maybe not that noticeable on smooth flat roads.

Yeah, once you start noticing it, it’s really obvious. Even on a daily driver like mine, it stood out real bad after my repaint. Most every 02 you see though has them painted black, so you don’t see it much. But take a look at this....

I’ve had similar issues when the float/fuel level is too high, or low. Hard acceleration or sharp turns slosh the fuel around, and it either doesn’t go in or it spills over into the barrel and makes it hesitate. There’s a procedure for removing a main jet and measuring the actual fuel level with a little stick, which will tell you if this is the problem.

I had mine body color for a few days after the repaint. It just drew your eyes toward ugly structural stuff. I got the old rustoleum out and slopped some paint on, and away it went.

He doesn’t mean the the flexible prop that holds the hood up when it’s open. He means the big uprights that you can see when you look thru the grills on the front of the car. Those are sloppily hand painted flat back from the factory, or else they stand out too bright if they were body color.

It’s not the one from the vid, just seeing if anyone would believe it. BJ Barbieri would know more about the fwd vw 02. I. Haven’t a clue, other than it hurts my insides.

Heh.

Can't you just refer them to the NADA Classic and/or Hagerty guide for pricing? My insurance company (State Farm) just looked at those without even asking me, and cut me a big check for my ~10pt. buck damage.

They all got old and bought new Datsun minivans, and are arguing about the proper doilies to put on the seats and cupholders.

Your lap times will be much faster if you can safely stay on the throttle for longer on the straights, that's all.

I think I've still got a bunch of the right sized jack nuts (the name I found for these) that fit in the hole just fine, and kept my mirror secured for the past 2 years. I bought more than I needed online. I've mailed them to someone else before, and can do it again if necessary.

I can’t say for certain, but my local good ole boy style driveshaft shop didn’t have much of a problem with balancing the 02 driveshaft as long as I took them a guibo so they could make a jig somehow. Thought that made it sound expensive, but only charged me 50 bucks. On the other hand, they refused to touch my staked in u joints, and couldn’t measure worth a damn when it came to shortening it. So, it’s probably worth a shot, unless somebody local to you has a better driveshaft to sell you for cheap.

Ah, sweet, OMRL looks like a blast. I watched one event, and wanted to get into it, but never got around to getting a decent bike for it and wouldn’t have time anyways. I have an 83 Yamaha rx50 street bike (same as ysr engine), and have gotten some parts from Bill Doran from it, not sure if he’s still around OMRL. I’m not sure if I like the setup there for BMC either, it’s just a tight fit. Glad they got a place to run, but they’ve ran in better places with more room to move before. I ran one event with my Miata there this fall, using my 02s race tires. Just one last beating on it before cutting it up for parts. I haven’t ran the 02 since it’s been repainted a couple years ago, but I should, and put the ceremonial first cone marks on it. It’ll get more fun again then.

So it's a girth issue and not a nut issue?

I just use stock gasket with no RTV of any sort, never had a leak there, and you can take it off and on as many times as you want and re-use it. It seems like I take it off quite often for adjusting valves or snooping around for any reason.

Also, my driveshaft on my shelf has a U-joint that won't even move entirely in one plane. I mean I leave it hanging between 2 tiny shelf posts with nothing supporting it in the middle, and that bad u-joint can support the weight of the entire thing instead of flexing. That damn thing was still running fine in the car for years, and just made a popping noise occasionally when parking. You're probably fine with a slightly notchy joint.

John, there's no need to modify your car for trying out autocross at all. Run it as she is and see if its any fun for you. I've run my '65 Datsun pickup with OVR-SCCA just for the hell of it. My car is quite built, but there's not really even a good class for it anymore. I haven't bothered being truly competitive in many years, and just see if I can have fun. You can run with Buckeye Miata Club at the Circleville Raceway Park (go-kart track), or OVR-SCCA at National Trails in Hebron, or there are some Cincy groups, or I go to SWVR-SCCA in Parkersburg, WV or Charleston, WV sometimes. The flat black one in Chillicothe has a long history. It's a 1602 that once belonged to Karl from Yellow Springs (a54atii) and it was a pale yellow he called maisgelb (not original) but once looked decent. He sold it to an OU student, that drove it in winter and wouldn't really wave at me when I waved back in my 02. Then that guy ran it into a pole in winter, and sold it to Jacob for cheap. Jacob replaced the front clip and painted it flat black, and he went to OU for a bit. I think I gave him my old 4-speed, some wheels from my miata, and I think he rebuilt the engine with a 2.0L and a head that I gave him and lots of parts from Karl. It was pretty rusty and beat, though. We lucked into finding a fading verona red 02 in a storage unit in Athens though. I wasn't interested in another, but Jacob opted to sell the black one to his friend Garret that was still living in Chillicothe and paid like $500 for the mostly stock red one. I don't know the status of either right now, but think Jacob moved back to Chillicothe and he got a Smart car too.

Hi John, No, I don't have any 5-speeds for sale, they're hard to find around here. Sorry if I was confusing on that. I had to ship mine over from California. It's not super necessary for a daily driver around town, but makes it a bit more comfortable on the highway. Come to think of it, my extra driveshaft is one that has already been shortened way too much. Jacob (Johnson on the forum) is near you in Chillicothe I think, haven't talked to him in a year or two, and Garret is in Chillicothe and has his old 02. One or both work at the Autozone there, or did, not sure. I don't know if they have any parts laying around. I think I gave Jacob my only decent stuff I had left over. I'm not that familiar with your Turkis car's history, haven't kept up with forums much lately. I have a '74 riviera with mildly built engine (292 cam, sidedraft Weber 40s, etc.), and used to autocross regularly but now just use it mostly for daily driving when roads aren't salty. I bought mine for $700 back in '05 when I lived in Hawaii, drove it cross-country back to Athens, and I have gradually made it better over the years.

Hey, you're in Chillicothe? I'm over near Athens. Are you Garret, Jacob, or someone completely new? Your cheaper bet is finding a decent used one. Post a wanted ad or ask around on the 2002 classified groups on FB, and you might get lucky. If you need a core for free or to play around with, I've got one you can have for free. The u-joints are really shot on it though. If you're tempted to upgrade to a 5-speed anytime soon, then you might save your money for when its time for that, since it will require doing it all over again. I've got a 5-speed, and just got a driveshaft from Dave Varco (Aardvarc racing). Come to think of it, it might be worth emailing Dave to see if he has a decent 4-speed driveshaft sitting around or can get one rebuilt cheap, since he seems to have the hook-ups for that sort of thing.