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.

Crazy Times

Wow, it's been that long since I've updated here, but things were just that crazy. The valet job was consuming all of my time, working 6 and 7 days a week, 8, 9 and 10 hour shifts. Basically I had 3 days off in 2 months time, not fun. I've actually been off for the last week on a medical leave since I was just exhausted and in pain; my body didn't get any time to rest, that I still have to squeeze in the other things I needed to do too.

On the long weekend I went away with CDN-NTC club to Minden for camping and off-roading. It was exactly what I needed; great times! The truck got a few upgrades, including a 2" body lift, a PML (poor mans lift - cranked torsion bars and rear shackles) and 32"x11.5 Goodyear MT/R with Kevlar sidewalls. It performed exceptionally well. I've also received my Grassroots4x4 steering upgrade last week, so that still needs to get installed. I've also got Shrockwork sliders ordered, should arrive in another 4-6 weeks.

This past weekend I installed the PAC steering wheel control unit to allow my factory steering wheel controls to work with my Pioneer 980BT head unit. It was much simpler than expected, and works great too. I also hard wired my CB since having it on ignition is inconvenient, and I mounted heated seat switches from a Pathfinder I got a while back and put them in the center shifter trim, looks great. I also found out that my local car/home audio place, Base Electronics, can get the heated seat pads! They just never got into it because of the time involved, it's not worth it because of how time consuming that it would be, and in turn, how expensive it would be for the customer. I think I may be doing this next, and hopefully quite soon, especially since my truck won't (or shouldn't be able to) fit in the garage anymore from the lift. I'll have to see what the cost of the pads are.

On a personal note, the job hunt continues, but I'm going through the process of applying to the Air Force; I just need to drop off my transcripts, but that doesn't start until January.