Tires and Wheels mounted !
It's been a long weekend. Re-organized the motorcycle shop and started to get my outside office back in order (it's only been 24 months.. but that's another sorted tail). Wife is still recovering from some surgery so I'm getting in project work where I can. Yesterday I managed to get the tires mounted on the wheels (Thanks Discount Tire for mounted them and getting the direction CORRECT even without the car there). They look pretty sweet an the best part is I saved weight:
NEW: Konig Helium 15x6.5 + 205/50R15 Hankook Z212 =
28 lbs.OLD: Mazda 14x5.5 + 195/60R14 Falkek Azenis Sport =
31.5 lbs.Today will be spent scrubbing them in and finding some good starting tire pressures. Members of Miata.net suggested starting around 32/31 and adjusting as needed. Time to go PLAY!!
Reorganized shop. That was a lot of work yesterday and it's maybe 1/2 way done. Going out there is still a little freaky. It was so much work in the
heat (OK, for here it was HOT!) it's just a blur. A little bit like an out-of-body short reorg experience. I'm liking it though! I just hope all 4 sleds fit in there come Aug 22nd!
Striped! - local sign shop does good
Been thinking about getting this done for quite some time and finally took the plunge. The cost of the automotive vinyl was not much at all (about $45.00). Taking the time off work to do it would have been expesnive so I just paid them to do the whole thing.
In then it was under $200 for the vinyl, install plus 2 sets of magnetic door numbers for autocrossing (no pics of the numbers right now). So, aside from the fact it's sorty funny to some for racing stripes to be put on a little Miata (well I do race it after all) I think it's sorta neat.
My daughter (age 6) exclaimed "Wow Daddy! That's cool!" as we arrived at the sign shop to pick it up. The wife.. she just laughed and shook her head. Mission accomplished!
Now it's off to the tire shop to get the tires and wheels mounted up.
UPS - not sucking quite so much (New Hankooks here!)
I was just about to call Discount Tire Direct and find out if they could give me a tracking number and tell me who they shipped the tires with this morning when my dog goes berzerk (WTH?). It's UPS with.. TIRES! Shock of shocks (did some driver read me rantings). Well there they were and now I have them (see picture).
Now what I find interesting is that I did not see the valve stems taped to the tires so I asked if there was more stuff. He started digging and said. "Hey, you have another huge package in here (burried at the bottom of the truck). Hm. I don't recall ordering anything else big. We finally dig it out and it's a new top for my BBQ that I ordered bout 4 months ago and had long forogotten about (that sort of stuff happens in my brain - if you wait long enough I'll probably forget I bought something from you..).
At any rate it looks like it's been in the bottom of the truck for month (look at this pic of the thing!).
Well.. regardless, new tires are here and it's time to get the wheels out of the boxes and get things ready to be mounted. Now I just need to find a tire shop that won't try to screw me for not buying the tires or wheels from them. Watch for that post in the next couple of days.
New tires selected - Hankook Ventus Z212
WAYNE, NEW JERSEY (April 12, 2005)— Hankook Tire`s Ventus R-S2 Z212 Z-Rated Ultra-High Performance Street Tire has taken sanctioned racing to new levels of performance.
At the SCCA National Tour April 9-10 at Gwinnet County Fairgrounds in Atlanta with just two cars competing on the Ventus R-S2 Z212, all eyes were on drivers Tom Hoppe of Marietta, GA in STX and Andy Hollis of Austin, TX in STS. Hollis had the fastest run in the class on Saturday and backed it up Sunday to win by a total of 0.353 seconds.
In the highly competitive STX class, Hoppe had a commanding lead of 0.646 seconds after day one, and extended it to a tremendous 1.410 seconds on Sunday. His teammate Michael Sinn of Youngsville, NC finished sixth.
These classes require cars to compete on street legal tires having a minimum U.T.Q.G. of 140. Dominated in the past by the Falken Azenis Sport, the auspicious debut of the Ventus R-S2 Z212 marks the beginning of a change..
My current plans are to finish out the life of the Azenis Sports on the 14" wheels while scrubbing in the Hankooks on the street. Most of the comments I have read indicated that they need a little time to come into thier own and I don't want to be breaking them in during competion. Besides the Azenis are still working just fine for me right now.
Reorganized shop. That was a lot of work yesterday and it's maybe 1/2 way done. Going out there is still a little freaky. It was so much work in the heat (OK, for here it was HOT!) it's just a blur. A little bit like an out-of-body short reorg experience. I'm liking it though! I just hope all 4 sleds fit in there come Aug 22nd!
