Despite a lack of posting here (Summer will do that to a guy), I have been tinkering with the bug on a weekly basis. One of the main things that bothered me was my lack of working headsets for the intercom. Peltor transit headsets are about $290 a piece, and the quality leaves a lot to be desired. Most rally folks won't loan them to buddies for events when not used, as they are so well known for breaking. The Peltor intercom, however, is relatively cheap and bulletproof. Go figure. I've tested a lot of broken Peltor headsets over the years and when it's not user-error breaking the cables, it's always the microphone that fails.
A few years ago I did make up my own intercom headsets, but I could never get the microphone circuit to work properly. The FMT110 intercom, which I own, requires a dynamic microphone. Even with piggyback circuitry I couldn't get the electret mics I had working. For the most part I didn't worry about it, as my last car wasn't so loud that you needed them to talk to each other. The bug, however, is pretty loud inside. To make matters worse, Mom was coming out to visit last week...so I needed a solution! A pilot friend brought me over a bin of broken airplane headsets, and after a day of breaking, testing and soldering...I combined about 8 different headsets, and some bits from radio-shack to create four good working headsets which are compatible with a Peltor Rally intercom. Success! I picked mom up in the airport, and we spent the week using the bug able to simply talk to each other instead of yelling. Once I dropped her back to the airport (5 days later), I started on the hit list for up coming events.
As you can see, the events are coming up fast...and there isn't much time between them! I'm going to start with a High Performance Driving Event on August 9th. I've done quite a few back east, but due to the length of time and record keeping I'm considered "beginner" status out West, and will need to start fresh again for Track & Lapping events. I still haven't sorted out a good stiff Tarmac setup for the car, but I figure even if I run it as-is, that's going to be more fun then not running the car at all! Following that, it Classic Car Adventure's mixed gravel/pavement event the "Rush to Gold Bridge". Should be a good and dusty time, which I poorly planned when setting the dates. Why did I plan a dirty gravel event that ends just FOUR DAYS before the Great Canadian VW show?! I'm going to have to pull the engine and the interior just to clean it in time. Eek!
The hit lists for the events is starting to pile up too:
But no worries, I'll get it all done!
As a start to chipping things off the list, I tried to take care of the big chips I put in the B-Pillars. The match isn't bad...and I actually think when this is dry it will be passable.
-Dave