Thanks guys, appreciate the kind words.
So, yesterday, points events 5 and 6. Typical summer auto x weather, blazing hot and mercilessly sunny. Course layout was a bit faster and more flowing than last time, which I like.
After run 1 in the morning, the Civic SI, an unfamiliar Audi TTS, and I were all within a tenth of each other. Run 2, with some heat in the tires, I dropped over a second, but spun coming across the finish and lost the run due to an off course. There was a 90 degree left just before the timing lights and I just got a touch too greedy on the throttle. Fairly sketchy spot too, lucky that it didn't end badly. Third run was decent, but not quite as quick, and the SI had about 0.3s advantage over me going into the final run of the morning. But, as he and I have both done to each other on numerous occasions the past couple seasons, I pulled out a hero run and took the win.
Dialing back the rear dampers 5 clicks on that last run really seemed to help settle the rear in a few spots on course, so I left them there for the afternoon and came out running consistently quick. But after run 3 I stepped out of the car and found something dripping, right about the same time someone had come over to let me know a call had come in from one of the course workers stating the same thing. FFS, here we go again . I'm earning a rep as the leaky guy and I really don't like it. I was still sitting in first and confident my time would hold, so back to the pits we go to see what's up.
PS fluid this time. One of the fittings in the conglomeration of berkeleyery connecting the pressure hose to the rack had come loose. One of those things that you look and and go "that's a failure waiting to happen" and rarely do they disappoint. Burned my arms pretty good on the headers tightening it back up and topped off with 10w30 to get me home, but at least no tow truck this time.
tough spot to get a pic, but there's a banjo to -6 AN, then a 90 -6, then a 45 -6, then the hose from the pump.
But wait, there's more!
Decided to stop at the beer distributor on the way home and when I came back out the car wouldn't start. Dead battery. Called a buddy to come give me a jump and while sitting there waiting I began pondering the problem. Car started fine all day and clearly it hadn't discharged in the 5 min I was inside the store, so it must be a charging problem, right? Then I had an aha! moment. The low voltage plug on the alternator had caused me issues once before and sits right in the vicinity of that PS hose, so I pop the hood and sure enough the hose had rotated when I tightened it and was stressing the wire going to the alternator. Jiggered around with it a bit and it seemed to be charging OK once we got it jump started.
The culprit (not the large gauge ground wire, small weather pack plug on the alternator, PS line running through the middle of the pic)
So I've made a few resolutions following yesterday:
1) berkeley AN lines and fittings, I need to make a visit to a hose shop
2) If something looks like it's going to fail at some point, it probably is. Redo it now until waiting for the inevitable, which will almost certainly be at a less convenient time and place.
3) I think it's time to start trailering this thing. E36 M3 happens when you're racing, especially in a heavily modified vehicle, and these recent incidents have me hesitant to travel far and it's holding me back from what I want to do with this car. Unfortunately my truck is also an LS swapped Frankenstein GMT400, so how much more reliable is that thing going to be, especially with 5k+ lbs on the bumper? Probably going to dump both that thing and my FRS in favor of a decent pickup, but that's another thread...