Big SoCal Euro Gathering 2011

This was the biggest European car gathering in Southern California and it was held at Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego. It was a pretty good turn out and I had a lot of fun! Here are some of pictures I got driving to the stadium. However, I didn't take as many pictures as I wished when I actually got to the show! But here are some links to some of the videos and pictures that you can see that were taken at the show by others:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ghostchild/sets/72157627356337962/
http://www.canibeat.com/2011/08/big-socal-euro-gathering-2011/
http://www.cargathering.com/2011/08/pics_big_socaleuro_gathering_2011/

Pics taken from the caravan with Amar and Bashar Hirmiz and photo credits to Sebastian:

Refurbishing Calipers

I refurbished the brake calipers in gold, debadged the TT and Quattro emblems on the rear leaving the Audi symbol painted matte black to match the wheels, and painted the rear valence to match the flat black.

Going from this:


To this:


Sorry guys, but I didn't get a chance to document the process of the refresh of the calipers but I basically took the calipers off, sanded them down, taped away parts that I didn't want to paint, and spray-painted away using high-temp paint. I will also be getting my Brembo sticker from Ebay in the mail soon to put the last finishing touches! If you have any questions just leave me a message in the "Comments" at the bottom of this page.

And just a little addition to the brake/wheel setup, I bought these little suckers from Amazon adding a little detail to the car! Nice cheap little bits that add a bit of detail to the car.
 

Refurbishing the Wheels

Refurbishing The Wheels

They went from this:

   

To this:



Since I don't have the money to get my wheels sandblasted and powder coated, I decided that I would give it a shot at refurbishing the wheels myself. I had originally spray painted the wheels using Duplicolor's wheel spray paint with a glossy black and the wheels turned out, eh, just okay. However, it has been a year since then, and since I didn't properly do it the first time, I thought I should do it now. It's even more of an excuse to re-do them because of all the curb damage that I have caused :-x. (You know when you did a crappy job on something and end up just not caring? ..yeah, that's how I felt haha) But now it's a different story..

First thing I went out to get was Rust-Oleum's Auto Stripper.



This helped remove all the brake dust build-up from the inside. I realized later that this part of the job could have been done easier with a power-washer but I didn't have one at the time because my friend made the suggestion after I finished the job.



After that, I sanded down the wheels to a nice smooth surface inside, and out. I taped around the tires so that I wouldn't get any paint on them and then, sprayed away using Rust-Oleum's bed liner spray (made for truck beds for non-slipping).



I decided to go with this paint because I tried to get as close to TEFLON coating as I could without having the headache of having to heat TEFLON onto my wheels to 500+ degrees, having to put the tires off and back on. Plus, it gave me that matte black look that I love and they are easier to clean! They are also made so that it is very hard to chip away, hence the fact that the paint was made for keeping things from not slipping off of its surface. I used about 1 spray can per wheel. So, in conclusion, I bought 4 cans + 2 cans of paint stripper equaling to $50 versus almost $500 as I was quoted by a few places for a sandblasting and powder coating service. Obviously, a powder coat would be the easier, and probably longer lasting way to go, but for now, spray-painting does the job!



Oh and I almost forgot. I had a little friend come and visit me one of the late nights that I stayed up doing this :)

Welcome!

Hi, welcome to my blog site! I made this site so that I have the chance to share the progress of my car and share the activities or events that I will be attending with it.

A little bit of history on the car:

I bought it in 2007 with 115,000 miles. I did some common upgrades right away; H&R Coils, RH Wheels w/adapters, Brembo BBK, and a Borla single exhaust system.

Since then, I installed the Clutch Masters FX100 along with their aluminum flywheel, ECS crankshaft pulley, Modshack VTDA/MoFo, 4bar fpr, Forge 007, and many other little things here and there.

The car now has around 175,000 miles on it and couldn't be happier with the way it runs... although a GT3071R would be a nice upgrade :)

So feel free to browse around!