Still at DT finalizing the tune. It has not blown up and will not. As I said it is being tuned for safe and reliable power. Don't like my choices. Oh well. It's MY car and MY choices. There is no need to keep the rhetoric going.
Nathan (in a non-creepy and non-stalkerish way) I just drove past your house hoping to see your MINI parked out front. Guess you ended up having a very late night at DT after all. Glad you're finally up and running though! Hopefully I will hear GNAT v2.0 screaming down High Street sometime later this week.
Wow..what a day yesterday. Up at 5 am to head to Detroit at 6 thanks to a very generous Mid-Ohio MINI person that had also scheduled an alignment with Detroit Tuned. A little rain didn't dampen my mood, I've been waiting for this day since I dropped of the MINI almost two months ago. Getting off the highway and about to turn the corner on the last street that would lead us to the shop a loud blue streak goes by. Yep, it's Chad out collecting data for tuning. Looking in the passenger side mirror I see my MINI do a U turn. Are they legal in MI, they are not in OH. Chad follows us to the shop. We were about a 1/2 hour early. I hop out of the MINI that brought us there, talk to Chad for a scant minute to ascertain whats the plan is. After a quick pit stop in the shop I'm strapped in the passenger side of my car for another data logging run. OMG, it's FAST! YIKES it's LOUD! I think I giggled like a schoolgirl a few times too. We get back to the shop and commence the days activities. Two alignments, one for me, one for Metalman. Lots of data logging and adjusting of the ECU. I'm a terrible passenger so I opted out of the data logging drives. Metalman went with Chad...once. Heh - His eyes were big as dinner plates after that. As its wont to do, tuning took some time. In between we went over every bit of the car and discussed what was done, what wasn't done, why, and what is going to need to be watched and worked on soon. There were time and budget constraints here ya know. I'm thinking that luckily for us the MI group was on a drive, this allowed Chad and later Matt to focus fully on our cars without people stopping in. 12 hours, almost to the minute after we arrived it was time to head back home. Filled the tank at the local Sunoco station. I know the gas was fresh, earlier in the day when we passed the station on the way in they were getting fuel. The drive home was uneventful, just as I hoped it would be. Being it was mostly highway and know I needed to keep the RPM's varied I used the iPod full of tunes to guide me. At each song change I'd change gears. 3-4 min of driving in 6th, then 3-4 minutes in 5th, all the way home. The only break in that routine was when a set by The Ramones hit the shuffle. Gear changes came a lot faster then. The exhaust is a real Jekyll & Hyde affair. When cruising in 6th at a decent clip it's down right quiet. Quiet enough that I was able to have a conversation on the phone. But...a shove of the loud pedal is just that. This exhaust screams. Sounds right nice too. The new suspension feels great. Nowhere near as bone jarring as the coil over setup was, then again the coil overs need a full rebuild too, they are leaking. It is still hard to make more judgments about the suspension though. The drive home was mostly highway, it was cool out too, in the 40's and I'm running summer tires. The best curvy bits on the drive home came near the end on some ramps, but it was almost 1am and I was beat. Did not even try to push it, not one little bit. There are still a few little things that need to be attended to this week before leaving for MOTD but all can handled locally. All in all it is like a new but familiar car to me if that makes sense. On the butt dyno scale of Eh to OMG it sure is in the OMG range now. This is the power I was looking for years ago when I started this journey. Then again, it's still in the break in period so there were no WOT runs on the drive home, just a few 3/4 throttle bursts. Thanks to all involved in this little adventure: Chad, Matt and TJ - Detroit Tuned Kellen and Tristan - Craven Speed Jan - Revolution Motor Works Mark and rest of the Mid-Ohio MINI folks Each of you that bought into this by supporting the build with a Rebuilt Tee Shirt All of you that have been following along with this rebuild since the first post, almost 2 months ago to the day. Without this support and encouragement the Rebuild of GNAT would not have been possible. I can't thank you enough.
Excellent account of your day! Glad the smile has returned and Gnat is on the road again. We look forward to seeing and hearing it soon! --- I am here: http://tapatalk.com/map.php?nwhdys Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Awesome Nathan, glad you are back in the drivers seat of GNAT again. See you next Monday at the Dragon. Safe motoring brother!
Moar Gnat being Chadified..... [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hxjoj0ymaG4&hd=1]It lives - YouTube[/ame]
Congrats! All that bad boy needs is a new, recently developed GP style rear wing. :biggrin5: (I just bought one today, saw your post over at MT).
Still shocked by choice of tune when RMW gets your parts. Still glad to see it's back on the road. Nice job Chad on the reconstruction project. Also some nice parts from Jan @RMW. Have fun and break it in right.