In the Garage

Tonight I went over to Jason's and assembled some trophies for the car show while Jason changed the brake pads on my bug. I'm running EBC Greenstuff pads now, and they seem to have a crisper feel to them and produce much less brake dust. Big thumbs up.

We also replaced my stock diverter valve with a Forge 007 diverter valve. The new valve bumped the boost on the turbo a bit and it is holding boost better. It also has a more solid feel and sound to it when it goes into diverter mode, with a soft little pop coming from the engine compartment. That's pretty good considering VWs use recirculating valves and not blow off valves that vent the charged air to the atmosphere and emit a loud "Pssssssh!" sound.

The final mod was swapping my stock steering wheel for a beautiful contoured one from a VW Golf R32. It took forever to remove my old steering wheel. The procedure for removal simply wasn't working so we had to cut into the steerign wheel to gain access to the springs holding it to the steering column. I'll never be able to reuse the steering wheel but I can at least sell the airbag portion of it. It was worth the sacrifice, however, as the R32 wheel feels so much better. The contoured grip fits perfectly in my hand and it provides a wonderful comfort level. Feels like I'm driving a whole new bug!