Evelyn • My E46 Build Thread

[TMooney]

I'm so glad i was able to get that picture of your dad with you and Austin going around the track! My brain was like "ahhh yes, this is going to probably get Andy in his feels!!!"

[andysapp]

Oh man. You got me alright!! It's taken me many years of therapy to realize that every success I've had in my life has been in pursuit of making my Dad proud. That photo is seriously everything to me!!!

[P.Haire]

Awesome work dude!

[andysapp]

Thanks bud. I wanna go back! Can we go back?!

[andysapp]

I merged the Gridlife Atlanta thread with this one... because that thread shoulda landed here in the FOERST place.

[andysapp]

I decided moderately last-minute to drive at AMP on the 4th... so as soon as I could get home to thrash on the car... I was home thrashing on the car. I wanted to get the passenger-side 6-points installed, and a proper seat bracket to get a seat back on that side of the car.

When I took the passenger seat out for Gridlife I was alarmed at the seat bracket that was in there. This bracket was thrown together with some scrap (not naming any names) and just didn't feel safe to me all these years later. Heck, the submarine belt was just looped around one of the bars. I cringed when I saw it. So I ordered a Planted bracket from Enjuku to do it right. I had to modify it slightly so that I could mount the rear bolts.

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I decided to put one of the old Evo's back in on the passenger side until I can afford a matching Circuit. The fabric had worn through, so I tucked a bit of black stage towel underneath it... and while it ain't perfect... it's a heck of a lot better than it was.

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This car has had ambulance strobes on it since forever ago... and the brain was mounted under the passenger seat right where the 6-point submarine belt needed drilled for. I've felt relatively certain that this thing was the parasitic draw that kills batteries in this car... so I decided to just remove the whole thing. It was not fun trying to snake all this shit back out.

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I also picked up a new driver-side floor panel to replace whatever this one I made back in 2005 is. It's hilariously bad... and I was excited to see it go.

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Because this car still has AC... I had to modify the new panel to fit around the duct work on the floor... which took way longer than it should have. But I'm really happy with the end result.

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Seats and harnesses mounted... floor panel complete. Just in time to load up for load-in.

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The next day I met Austin and his buddy Mike at the Georgia Racing Hall of Fame so that we could roll in and pit together.

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We were just in time to see 'em loading one of Chase Elliott's ol' cars back in the trailer for the day.

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Next day was the 4th and we were ready to go bright and early.

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I did a terrible job of documenting the day... mainly because I was just trying to survive the heat. It was BRUTALLY hot. Like be extra careful hot. I hadn't driven on this track at Atlanta Motorsports Park before... so I tried to take it easy and learn the track the best I could. I figured out pretty immediately that this track is faster'n holy heck and my car was severely underpowered for it. So I basically just picked a few spots on-track that I could tackle and just focused on those. But MAN... I was struggling out there!

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There were a lot of black flagged sessions due to people going off-track. But I managed to get two solid hot-lap sessions where nobody interfered. Because of the size of the track it felt like I was out there by myself. It was enough that I felt okay calling it quits a bit early. I knew with the heat that getting loaded back up was going to take a lot out of me. So I called it a day.

It was great to get a li'l bit of hangtime with Swann... that's twice this year, which is killer!

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All-in-all... it was an incredible day. Although... I did manage to completely throw my back out unloading the floor jack from my truck. So that's a new thing to look forward to drifting at this age.

[TMooney]

It was so good seeing you there man! and even more amazing to see you trying out that track!!!

[andysapp]

It was great seeing you too!! Thank you so much for the photos!!

I wanna see some of your favorite photos of everyone else as well! You should make a thread and post 'em up!!

[ChadMK4]

It looks like you had a great time dispite the heat!
And welcome to the Shitty Back Club!
My back use to crap out about once every couple of years, and then it moved to once a year. Now I have no idea what and when it will start freaking out and I hit the ground. I herniated LL5 when I was 23 right out of the military. Though it fixed itself as far as the heriated disc, but now I get lovely back spasms instead. They ruin any plans you have for a week or so..

[andysapp]

I don't like Shitty Back Club! Thankfully I can tell this is muscular and not disc-related. It took me a week of basically laying in bed morning, noon, and night... but I'm at least able to get back to work. Which is a good thing... because I am NOT good at doing nothing. I still have to be careful about how I move... but hopefully the rest'll heal up soon.