Save Dunnville, Fort Erie (Auto) Race Track, Centrafuse & Pesky Knock Sensor.

Well, although it's apparently been known for a bit now, but it's news to me, it seems that the Dunnville Autodrome is being forced to shut down. Apparently the problem is with noise generated by it's use, which is ironic for the fact that it's at an airport. That location is host to many lapping and drift days, racing schools, press events and even uses for tests in the car review show "Motoring". I was fortunate enough to be invited to a Mazda press event a few years ago to showcase their performance cars and their MazdaSpeed upgrades. I've been looking forward to heading back to that track; it's a technical short track that's quite fun. If you wish you know more about it's closure, you can see the press release here and you can sign the online petition at http://www.nyspeed.com/savedunnville/index.php.

On a possibly related note, and a positive one, is that they're going through with building a race track in Fort Erie! It plans to open for 2011, so I've got some time to get a new car and race ready, but I'm definitely excited to have a race track only 20min from my doorstep! You can see the track at it's official site, http://www.cdnmotorspeedway.com/. It's going to have all kind of facilities for racing as well:

• Canada’s first and only professional class 1 mile oval course


• 2.6 mile FIA Certified road course which exits and enters through tunnels…never seen before in North America


• Drifting Circuit, Moto Cross Tracks & Test track & Driver Club Circuits
  
• The most popular forms of racing on a single site: Open Wheel, Stock Car, Mixed Configuration, Motorcycle, Drifting, Moto Cross / Off Road, Electric Vehicle Racing and much much more…..

The Xterra's PC got reformatted today. Installed a version of XP Lite and I decided to move away from RoadRunner and give Centrafuse a try. So far it's only installed, I still need to install some hardware drivers to get the system running so that I can use it, but so far I think I'm going to prefer Centrafuse. My only gripe at the moment is that XP Lite doesn't have the Hibernate option, so I'll have to look more into that when I get a chance.

Also with the Xterra, I found that my sub wiring was wrong. I wired it according to Mitchell OnDemand's diagram, but the polarity for the one set of output running to the sub listed for the "3.3" is actually wrong, and on my truck it's the same as they have for the "2.4", so I'll be making note of that in my instructions when I get a chance.

One last thing, and ya I've been busy with the Xterra, but I've been having issues with it retarding the timing again, so I've actually unbolted the knock sensor, wrapped it in foam and taped it to part of the harness so that it would be extremely desensitised, and it's still managing to act up. Mind you, not nearly as much as before I did the plugs, and there's little different between not and how it was acting post-new-plugs, but just to say that it's still doing it, but I do suspect it's somewhat related to the weather, mostly warmer days. When I get the chance, and when the weather cooperates, I'm going to replace the knock sensor with a 560K (560'000) ohm resistor and go from there.

And to finish, on a personal note, I'll be starting to work as an installer at Base Electronics come Monday. I'll be helping them out until the (hopefully) air force position goes through and I would start basic training in January. I was planing on taking a leave of absence from the valet job for that since I don't know how long I will actually be needed there, but that seems to be a bit of a hassle, and I was asked to just work one day a week to keep that going, so I may just do that and see how it goes. The irony is that on my first day back from my medical leave, and I wake up at 4am from pain in my right arm; I got buritis in my right elbow....I swear that job doesn't agree with me.