Pic of the Day

I was getting annoyed because these should’ve shown up awhile ago, then I checked the tracking number and saw they were delivered the 13th. I’ve been walking past the box sitting on the mail shelf for a week now! They came out nice, and will be shipped out with the PP#4 tees once those are back from print…they’ll be added to the Shop later today for separate purchase as well.

I’ve been making some good progress on various car projects of late. We’ve had a couple good thrash sessions at our pal Tim’s shop, including one last Friday. We installed some FK Konigsport coilovers (same as mine) on Allen’s recently acquired E30 (’89 325i), which went about 100x more smoothly than when we did the install on my car. At least we are getting smarter, I guess!

I’m terrible at documenting progress while actually doing the job, so here’s a pic of Allen’s car on the alignment rack. Also note the shadowline job we did the week before:

I occupied myself with my RS project during down moments of the suspension job. I got both lips on my replacement rear wheels polished, though I still need to hit them with some rouge and compound. So really all that’s left is to break down the two new rears I just polished and sandblast all 4 centers and barrels, then paint. Stoked!

I also found a trick little solution to a small problem I was having. The OEM caps that covered up the strut bearings no longer fit since my coilovers are adjustable dampening. The adjuster is too high and prevents the cap from seating in the bushing. I randomly stumbled across a pic on r3vlimited some time ago of what looked to be an OEM-style bearing cap, but taller. It was red with a Koni logo on it. After a brief phone call with Koni, they sent me two caps free of charge, and they showed up in only 2 days! This is just one of those stupid little things that gives me more enjoyment than it should.

For the grand finale, I was able to finally get my hands on something I’ve been lusting after for about a year now. I’ve had several close encounters with this thing, just to have it pass beyond my reach. An OEM cardinal red carpet. Our friend Alexi up in Rhode Island scored this thing from someone up there for free during a part out. He had an E30 at the time and was going to use it on his car. His plans changed and he got rid of the car, but still had the carpet. I wasn’t quite ready to drive 14 hours for it unless it absolutely came down to it, especially since there’s quite a lot of travel up and down the East Coast every year for VW shows and hanging out. I tried a couple times last summer to have people up in that area grab it and get it as close to MD as they could during their travels, but nothing worked out.

The winter passed, and I didn’t think much of it until I heard from Cory (Nation) Sterling that he was headed up to CT for a show last weekend. Long story short, it ended up making it back down to York in the back of his Corrado after Alexi was nice enough to bring it down to CT and another fella (thanks Connor) got it to Cory.

It looked awesome in pics from last summer, but a little worse for wear in more recent pics. I got it this morning and could see its potential hiding under dust, dirt and thistles. After a good vacuuming and then steam cleaning it turned out really well, it’s in super nice shape! I think a fully black interior with red carpeting will look great. When I finally decide to swap my dash, I’ll throw the new rug in at the same time. Here’s a before and after:

-Ethan