Project GTV6 updates-suspension,brakes and tires

[John_Torello@domain.elided]

This weekend was a busy one--and a great Alfa weekend overall. Friday and
Saturday I was at Lime Rock for the Jaguar Club/VSCCA meet, and Sunday got to
attend Italian Car Day at MOT in Brookline, MA.
First the GTV6. My original hope to have the GTV6 completed (AR Ricambi
supersport suspension, 3.0l engine, headers, roll cage, repaint and a bunch of
other stuff) was a bit ambitious for 4 weeks. So, I picked up the car from the
shop Friday morning and drove directly to Lime Rock with the suspension
installed, along with a set of drilled rotors I had laying around.
I hadn't been  on the track for 2 seasons, so I am a bit rusty. I wasn't exactly
driving at a blazing pace, but three good things to report regarding products.
The suspension worked great--this was no surprise since I have driven another
GTV6 regularly with this setup. I drove about 3 hours back home and the
supersport suspension wasn't that bad on the street either. We still need to get
the front "dialed in" and probably will take down the front end a bit more.
Secondly tires. The Kumho Ecsta's (competition tires) were great.  Extremely
sticky. I've driven on A008's, A032's, Comp TA R1's and these are every bit as
good, if not better. Almost had a chance to test them in the rain, but it was
almost hurricane conditions late in the afternoon, along with high winds and
plenty of lightening, so everyone called it a day.
Third brakes. The porterfield R4S's were also great. No brake fade all afternoon
either day. A first.
Because this was a combo event with the VSCCA, we had the added bonus of being
able to watch vintage races at the end of each afternoon. There were at least 6
or 7 Spiders running. All did well. One unfortunate incident in the early
rain(pre hurricane) involved 2 Alfa Spiders. One was heavily damaged in the
front, but looked repairable--the other had some damage to the side but went on
to race on Saturday.
Sunday I headed out to Italian Car Day at M.O.T. with the '63 Spider.  Great day
overall despite some rain on the way. Took the hardtop with the hope of gaining
some brownie points, but there were too many really nice cars in my class. Lots
of nice cars as usual. Not as many Alfas as I  remembered in the past. However,
the ones that were there were very nice. A spectacular '52? 1900 CSS got some
well deserved attention.
The GTV6 goes back to the shop sometime in the near future for the rest of the
work. I'm STILL waiting for the removable steering wheel hub, so no news to
report on that. I had a company out in California make me some custom "Martini
Racing" stripes for the car, but I haven't received them yet, so I don't know
how they look. I'll post the results of the quality and basic fit when I receive
them.
Sorry for using so much bandwidth on this one
-JT
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