Belly pan/tunnel shield

I purchased the "Aluminum Street Shield Tunnel Brace" from ECS Tuning for my 2018 Golf Alltrack.  The biggest reason I purchased it was for aerodynamics.  I have no intentions of being hella-low nor doing any real off-roading where the skid plate would scrape and would protect the car.  It will add some structure rigidity but I doubt I will notice any difference. The unit is stout!  It weighs in at 15lbs!

Installation was pretty straight forward.  I love how the kit doesn't require any drilling, welding, or fabrication.  A provided special bracket gets installed between the front sub-frame and the exhaust hanger for the front of the plate.  The middle of the plate utilizes the bolts for the drive shaft center bearing.  The rear portion of the plate is fastened where there is an OEM chassis brace.  One does need to trim the OEM heat shield a bit so the shield will sit flush against the bearing bracket, not a big deal.

I ran into clearance issues with the OEM chassis brace at the rear.  I was able to pinch the offending OEM brace with a bench vice.  The very front of the the brace bolts to the fore mentioned bracket that is sandwiched between the sub-frame and exhaust hanger  The holes in the plate need to be ovaled like an extra 1/16th of an inch.

I really want to wrap the exhaust system in thermal wrap or get it ceramic coated.   The reason being all the heat in the exhaust system is not in a mostly enclosed chamber and I'd rather not have all that extra heat trapped in the car.

From the front of the car looking back.

from the back of the car looking forward.

Another front of car looking back 

First of many "buy winter tires" rants!

Every year I post up facts and figures and try to persuade people to buy winter tires.  This time, I wrote up a quick and very basic explanation on the differences between Summer, All season, and winter tires. 

Pictured from left to right: All Season, Summer, Winter

It is a complete over-simplification but the two biggest factors in tires come down to tread pattern design and rubber compound.

First the Summer tire (middle).  It has the largest blocks (less void area (the gaps in the tread)) and no sipping (the paper thin cuts in the tread blocks).  This tire is maximized for high speed stability and cornering, the more rubber it has in contact with the road the more traction it has.  The larger the blocks of tread the less squirmy the car feels.  The tread pattern has kind of a swept back pattern to expel water away from the direction of travel and out.  The type of rubber used on this tire is made to stand up to higher temperatures and provide more traction at higher temps.  Conversely this rubber compound turns into the equivalent of hockey pucks below 35 degrees which can make things dangerous when cold.  

Next the winter tire (right).  It has large amount of void area between the blocks of tread, and their is more of them.  These work kinda like shovels or paddles to pull one through the snow and slush.  Look closely at the tread blocks, take notice of all those very thin cuts.  Those are called sipping.  They allow the tread block to flex, bend, and be more pliable on cold, snowy, and icy surfaces.   The rubber compound is specifically designed to remain very soft in cold temperatures.  Conversely, in the hot summer months the tire is way beyond it's design, wears really quickly and feel like driving on marshmallows.  

Lastly, the All-Season tire, or as I call it, the no-season tire.  It is a compromise between summer and winter.  It has some sipping in the tread blocks.  There is balance between tread blocks and void area.  The compound tries it's best to work in both the cold and hot, but falls short.  It is a tire that works great at nothing, but does "ok" at everything.  It is the Swiss army knife of tires. A Swiss Army knife t isn't very good as a screw driver, nor is it very good at cutting a nice juicy steak; but it does do the job.

So does one need multiple sets of tires?  I don't know, does one need 6 pairs of shoes?  I mean you don't wear the same pair of sneakers though the snow, to a wedding, and to play sports ball do you?

Good 3.5 minute video from TireRack https://www.tirerack.com/videos/index.jsp?video=593

Nice little video on racing w/ SCCA at BIR

Dr. Wilke at Edina Plastic Surgery

Crankcase catch cans

Not directly racing related but good to know if you have a direct injection motor or are running crank case catch can.  This article assumes knowledge of how internal combustion motors operate. 

Direct Injection (DI) motors are great, they make more power while using less fuel.  How?  The fuel injector is located in the cylinder head and spray fuel directly into the combustion chamber allowing for a more precise and atomized application of fuel.  In Mulit-Port Injection (MPI) systems the fuel injector is located in the intake manifold behind the intake valve. Both air coming into the motor and fuel both must flow into the cylinder head around the intake valve. 

Now the problem.  DI motors have a horrible habit of having the intake valve getting caked up with nasty carbon deposits, which leads to lower performance because less air can get in, and in some case the valve won't fully close.  Why?  Well motors have a PCV (Positive Crankcase Valve) system, where hot oily vapors from the crank case are sucked back up into the air intake where it can be burnt.  It is much friendlier for the environment to burn this oily vapor vs. just expelling it to the atmosphere.  So MPI motors have the injector spraying fuel directly at the intake valves, it basically washes off the intake valves. Since the fuel injector for DI motors is located in the cylinder head, there is nothing to clean off the intake valves.  Thus over time (as low as 40,000) miles the the intake valves become all caked up with black carbon.  Worse than an old man who eats bacon and hamburgers every day! 

Two things can help make this issue better.  First one is running a quality oil that is made for direct injection motors.  What makes an oil better for DI motors?  The oil has less tendency to evaporate.  Less evaporation means less oil to be sucked into the intake system, thus carbon build up.  Second is install a catch can with baffling.  The catch can goes inline with the tube carries the crank case vapors to the air intake.  The purpose of the catch can is to get those oil vapors to turn into oil droplets, and those oil droplets collect in the bottom of the catch can, so the air the motor is ingesting has less oil to form carbon deposits.

Ok great problem solved!  Right?  Well, unless you live in an area were it gets real cold.  That oily vapor coming out of the crank case into the catch can then into the intake system, it contains a lot of moisture.  That moisture can freeze and restrict the flow out of the crank case.  Worst possible scenario now, is that crank case pressure gets to high, and the vapor finds the next easiest place to escape, which often time is the crank shaft main seal.  If the crankshaft main seal goes, the whole transmission and clutch/flywheel need to come out!  Some people remove their crank case catch can during the winter and return to the stock setup to avoid that issue, but now the problem of carbon build up returns.

My solution!  I purchased a catch can made specifically for my car, that has really short hoses.  Some kits have multiple feet of hose which is just more area for the lines to get frozen and clogged.  Next, I remembered that the Volkswagen MK3 GTI VR6 has these little heating elements in the crank case lines.  I was able to find two of them in my parts pile, with the harnesses, I wired them up to be on with ignition.  Now both crank case vapor going into and out of the catch can must pass through the heating element.