After an incredibly difficult few months, I set aside 4 days in a row for myself to do nothing but drive the snot out of my car at Summit Point. I did some retail therapy and got a bunch of parts, and planned ahead for some hardcore driving therapy.

Track Day Two: I'm sitting at home waiting on parts to arrive.

Let's recap a few things.

Rule number one of working on a car: Safety first. Obviously.
Rule number two: Don't rush and check what you're doing.
Rule number two, subsection C, paragraph 7: in-lb and ft-lb are very different

Rule 2 and the particular subsection stated above come into play when I was assembling my 2-piece brake rotors. This is actually an easy job. However... Long story short, I was in a big rush, wasn't paying attention, and used the wrong torque wrench to irreparably damage one of the aluminum rotor hats. That was an expensive little lesson, but a few phone calls, a few hundred dollars, and an overnight shipment later, my new hat is here and everything is properly installed.



Next up: VERY thorough inspections of our cars is a good idea. A good month or so ago I took my car to the dealership to figure out what a clicking noise was coming from my right rear wheel. They said everything was fine and it was "normal". Since my car was partially torn apart for the brakes, a bit more disassembly showed that the clicking wasn't quite normal.



Here's a fun one. The missing pad wasn't worn through. It actually fell off about a week ago. No idea how or why.



And last thing off the top of my head (I'm sure there's more lol), the clear coat is coming off my passenger-side brake calipers. Driver's side *seems* to be holding up.





Now that he's a sponsor on here, I can give him the props he deserves. Josh at IAP Racing has been thoroughly going over my car to fix all of this, plus some routine stuff as well. He's the only person I've ever handed my Aston and said "fix it" without having to worry about substandard work, shady charges, or anything else of the sort. He even dropped what he was doing to get my car sorted in time so I could still salvage my track days for Saturday and Sunday. So a HUGE thank you to him for taking care of me.

 

wow! So will you get to do the rest of the track days?

 

best of luck to you! very hard to find a shop you can trust, unfortunately. but glad you have a go to shop

 

I should be all set for tomorrow and Sunday. Everything is here except one package - hopefully it'll arrive soon so I can hop over to the shop and have the job wrapped up.

Thanks Mike, I should be all set. I've known Josh for a while so I knew he'd get everything sorted out. And I'm glad we found everything now rather than drilling into the brakes at 140 mph while barrelling into a hard corner lol

 

I always tighten bolts until the head snaps off, then back off 1/2 turn��

 

At least I can laugh about it The ruined rotor hat is being turned into the Clock of Shame and will be hung in my garage hahaha

And I take comfort in knowing that I've earned all these repairs by driving the everliving crap out of my car. No garage queen rot around here!

 

Nice solution

 

Excellent! You've managed to drive hard enough to make the clear coat peel off the calipers and the pads fall off! But I'm disappointed that the lettering is still white. Please brake harder when you are at the track - this should produce the desired golden hue.

 

I'll do my best lol

Just got home from IAP, and the car feels great. Can't wait to hit Summit tomorrow!

 

Despite the circumstances, I'm glad I was able to go through the car before you made it to the track. The only thing more important than driving fast, being able to talk about it over beers afterwards.

 

Good luck tomorrow Rich, keep the shiny side up.

 

Thanks again for all the work you put into it! Wouldn't have been able to make it to the track without you!

Great success!

Btw, a couple people looked at my car, cocked their heads to the side, and asked, "those aren't the stock brakes are they??"

The 2-piece rotors are completely inconspicuous to most, but car guys fixate on them