I was in Charleston, South Carolina on business this week (which, I must say is a nice place to be in December when there is a foot of snow on the ground at home.) While there, I stopped by MINI of Charleston which is the home of the Spec B Championship winning MINI of Brad …
I decided to take the MINI to work this morning to see if everything was back in order after recently replacing the motor mount. The engine seemed to be running a little rough, but I just figured the new motor mount was a little more firm than the old one. I got off the highway …
Read more “Codes P1688 and P0107, WTF? Replacing Broken MINI Crank Damper”
GeorgeCo spent the past weekend at the track in both the GeorgeCo MINI powered by Beano and the GeorgeCo Porsche. Why the switch? GeorgeCo ran all day Friday in the MINI until the tires were shot. Light rain in the morning made the first session loads of fun. It dried out later in the morning …
Labor Day weekend brought what is likely to be the last Indycar Baltimore Grand Prix to the streets of Baltimore. For the past 3 years it has been an enjoyable way to spend the last long weekend of the summer season. The city never really embraced the event, however, and didn’t do much to improve …
We installed (and removed) the DAS Sport Roll hoop. Click here to see the complete installation process. Once you figure it out, installation takes less than 45 minutes, less if you have a helper. You loose the rear seats for passenger seating, but no one wants to sit back there anyway. You also get a …
Front Sway-bar Replacement: The R53 subframe design is a wonderful example of compact packaging. Unfortunately the tight confines of the front end makes replacing the front sway-bar a time-consuming activity. It is not particularly difficult, just time-consuming, especially if you don’t have access to a lift. The process outlined below will allow you to drop …
Passengers in the GeorgeCo MINI often complain that they are just but one pothole away from losing a filling. With the stiffer lowering springs and beefy swaybars fore and aft, the effective spring rate was probably in the neighborhood of 450 lbs. By way of comparison, the stock spring rate is somewhere around 200-220 lbs. …
In between early Spring snow squalls, GeorgeCo found some time to go to the track with the local Audi club. They needed someone to instruct on the skid pad, and GeorgeCo always needs more track time. Win-win. With temperatures in the 40s and the GeorgeCo Porsche still wearing all-season Conti tires, we weren’t out to …
With any luck, winter is slowly winding down here in the Mid-Atlantic. Time to catch up on progress with the GeorgeCo 911. We have been concentrating on easy, single-day projects that can be done in the semi-heated GeorgeCo garage. Today we update the pedals. Sport Pedals serve two functions. From an aesthetic perspective, they just …
Continuing our theme of making up for delayed maintenance tasks, today we tackle cleaning the throttle body. A dirty throttle body may affect throttle response and decrease gas mileage. For all 996s built after the 2000 model year with “e-gas” (throttle by wire) this task should take 30 minutes or less. For earlier cars with …