In the dry or in the wet...

I'm finally feeling like how I used to feel when I knew my car well and could drive it as such. It's been a learning curve. Switching the ECU from the 91-92 one of dubious condition to a 94 one from a running car seems to have been a good thing, and I just readjusted the idle and its a little more stable now, albeit a tad high (800 rpm on a manual...).

The clutch pressure plate is also stiff and has a very short period of engagement such that the full range from engaged to disengaged is only about 1/3 of the pedal travel...but I set up the cable so that its in the middle of the range of pedal motion. As such it requires finesse and control - from practice on this car - to shift smoothly at low speeds or high rpms.

The suspension setup is great...on the dry the car hugs corners like mad with no body roll, and only in the wet does the rear tend to come out a bit (well, you can slide it if you do it on purpose) just past midpoint of the curve.

In the wet getting on it from a stop, straight-line, it doesnt get good traction until 3rd gear. In the dry from a rolling start it will chirp the tires shifting into 2nd at about 4500RPM. That happens to be at peak torque on a stock motor - this one hasn't been on a dyno yet, but based on the butt dyno, the torque peak is still around there.

Still havent redlined it. Yesterdfay morning though I revved to 6200RPM or so in 2nd gear, and thats where you can really feel the exhaust freeing up the motor to breathe as it heads to the peak horsepower...

For a while I was annoyed with the way my car drove, but now I realize that I jhust need to drive it more and get used to its quirks - such as when upshifting to 3rd, I have to be at or above 3000RPM or it will be 'wobbly' on accelerating in 3rd; whereas at 2000-2500RPM in 1st, 2nd, 4th and 5th you are just fine.

Anyways had a cool drive home in the thunderstorm and thoroughly enjoyed the little noisy car, so I thought I'd share that with the world.