Former Dale Bates IM with Audi 1.8T

I was at a car show with Dale when he first got I it, beautiful car,,,not good pics of it, looks better in person

Looks like it needs a little love already.   It's Amazing how people spend lots of money & don't care their stuff.  

Much better pics from the build. 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/65579473@N08/albums/72157650184843071 

Marty Grzynkowicz posted:

Looks like it needs a little love already.   It's Amazing how people spend lots of money & don't care their stuff.  

...or the opposite. You take care your stuff, spend lots of money only to have other people tear it up.

Wow - 5 valves per cylinder!  Fortunately no adjustment required.  Very nice car!  I've recently seen air cooled IMs in about same price range so not bad priced for watercooled fully optioned car.

Rusty S posted:

Marty Grzynkowicz posted:

Looks like it needs a little love already.   It's Amazing how people spend lots of money & don't care their stuff.  

...or the opposite. You take care your stuff, spend lots of money only to have other people tear it up.

So true.

looks like stone grey but its a VW "mousse brown"? interior is "tomato soup" off the top of my head., its an IM leather color

I think I drove that car, or one that was almost identical.  Henry let me take one of his new cars out for a drive while mine was being restored.  Same color and engine, so I bet it was Dale's car.

Went like a scalded cat, but I didn't think the Audi engine and VW gearbox was the best combo. 

anybody heard from from dale or whats he into now carwise.

barncobob posted:

anybody heard from from dale or whats he into now carwise.

I can answer that.

Dale retired, lost quite a bit of weight, and got into kayaking along with his lovely wife a few years back. He bought a very nice, clean (and stock) Karmann Ghia from Joel Schlotz. I'm unsure of how often it gets out.

I know he really misses "Blackie", still one of the most photogenic cars ever.

Dale was a pillar of 2015's now legendary Tour d'Hoe, choreographing Saturday's drive around the lake.

He and his sweet, red Ghia are featured prominently in the Musbjim feature-length film that was nominated for six Oscars last year:

Link to high-res video

You links aren't working Mitch.

Robert M posted:

You links aren't working Mitch.

Fixed, I think.

Dale Bates is Batman.

Looks like its a 2009 just like mine.  About the same mileage.  Does anyone know the hp of a 1.8T?  As I remember I think they came in 150hp and 180hp versions.  I've got the naturally aspirated 2.0 VW/Audi with a hot cam pushing about 140hp.  Always wondering how I can get a bit more power from my car.  Not sure a 1.8T transplant is the answer.  It is nice to see these cars holding their value.  Nice for the folks who already have one that is.

The photo I have saved as my "inspiration car" was of a black Speedster with towel rack bumpers that Dale owned --- did he trade that for a mouse grey IM?

&PHIL Audi an VW putted the 1.8 T into many different cars A3  A4 S3 TT A6 with many different hp 150, 160, 165, 180, 210 and 225hp (in the TTquattro) with an usual chip tuning you can bring the 150 hp version up to 230 hp. The 150 to 180 hp versions are same in harware, the 210 & 225 versions had many changes like othe turbo, other crank a.s.o

cheers from Ingolstadt

I think the IM 1.8T's were the 180HP version and a few were 200hp.

I'm assuming Henry has gone exclusively to subaru power for watercooled cars.  Bet he could dig up a 1.8T for me.  200hp would be sweet.  Would need to swap out for a 3.44 R&P or maybe a 915 or 901 5-speed.  Still 3 years away from that.  Yup my daughter just finished her first year of med school.  Something to look forward to.  My car is still pretty cool just the way it is.

Most of my driving into and around town is a 50 mph zone. My new Soob engine and the 3.44  end is a nice combo for me. Loaf along at 2,400 rpm and life is good. Want to go faster ? ...put the foot down...want more faster , put the foot down further.  Look down at the speedo and all of a sudden you pull the foot up. 70 or so comes up quickly and so smoothly you don't notice it. 

I put a hundred test miles on it today in the above conditions and stopped at a local watering hole for a chat. Came out and no start....no nothing. Looked at the battery and and quickly saw that the clamp that connects the large ground wire to the battery post had itself broken in two. I left the hood up and went in back in for another and make some plans and a burly tow truck driver came in to offer help. He liked the car....drove me up the road to CTC about five miles away where I bought a new connector and ( stupid me ) had to buy a wrench to connect the stuff because my tools were back at home. 

I asked him how much for that favour and he said $10 but I had to take his business card with me. I asked for two and gave him $20. By that time the Cubanita twins had arrived so I stayed a little while later to take the edge off an otherwise  stressful test drive......and got home in time.

"By that time the Cubanita twins had arrived so I stayed a little while later to take the edge off an otherwise  stressful test drive......and got home in time."

...and Francine was none the wiser...

Coffee. How did man or woman ever figure that out from a bean? Why not a pinto bean or green bean or any other kind of bean? Somehow someone said, "Lets strain hot water through a ground up coffee bean and drink it."

This makes me feel that there couldn't possibly be anything left undiscovered out there.

Phil, the car I drove, with the 1.8 turbo, had lots of power.  It was noticeably faster than my 2110.

I think I can understand the discovery of brewed coffee, Rusty.

Driven by hunger and physical deprivation, there are almost no limits to the creative resourcefulness of the human mind or to our abilities to piece together complex solutions to difficult problems.

What does leave me completely baffled though, is Caramel Waffle Cone Crème Frappuccino.

Sacto Mitch posted:

 What does leave me completely baffled though, is Caramel Waffle Cone Crème Frappuccino. 

That's what I mean by nothing left undiscovered...

Rusty S posted:

Sacto Mitch posted:

 What does leave me completely baffled though, is Caramel Waffle Cone Crème Frappuccino. 

That's what I mean by nothing left undiscovered...

I have a 14 year old daughter, and highly aware of the many varieties of "coffee" there are.  Cotton Candy Frappuccino anyone...

It's amazing the age at which kids these days start drinking coffee.  For my generation, it was much after high school that you started the habit.

Now, I see first year high schoolers heading to school with a drink in hand.  The coffee industry certainly has done a good job of marketing their product.

Starbucks has created a dehydrated generation prone to early kidney failure. 

Growing up I thought coffee was a beverage only adults drank. I have never had a cup of coffee nor do I plan to.

And at $5 a drink some broke a$$ parents. 

I grew up in a home where all vegetables came out of the freezer in little plastic bags labeled 'Birds Eye'. My parents drank instant Maxwell House. When they let me have some, I couldn't figure out why anyone would drink coffee.

It wasn't until years later that I discovered that isn't actually coffee. It was around the same time I was finding out that Budweiser isn't actually beer.

I guess Rusty's right in a way. Given the number of ways it's possible to screw up coffee, it's amazing anyone persevered long enough to get it right.

Finally, someone showed me it's possible to brew a great cup of coffee at home. I ended up marrying that someone. I guess I'll never know how much the coffee influenced my decision to do so.

Rusty S posted:

Starbucks has created a dehydrated generation prone to early kidney failure. 

Followed in 2nd place, obesity, from too much sugar, in faux coffee drinks.

I started drinking coffee when the computer company I worked for started providing free coffee to the engineering groups.  Only then did I discover that I could write a $#|+ load more code once properly caffeinated.  Some of actually ran.

Then, I switched companies (twice) and ended up in a group heavily populated by Israelis and Europeans.  To them, American coffee just plain sucked so.......Engineering there began providing free Turkish and Italian coffee, along with Italian Capuccino machines, with monthly shipments of 15 pounds of Yaucano coffee from our manufacturing site in Puerto Rico (it came in with shipments of computer boards - Must have driven the customs guys at Boston's airport nuts!).  Yaucano is heavenly stuff and light years ahead of Bustello, any day.  All this time I was drinking my coffee black, no sugar.

THEN, we all decided that we needed more "kick" (mind you, I was putting down over 15 cups per day, easily) so we tossed the automated Capuccino machines and installed Italian Expresso machines that were capable of brewing doubles, triples and quads and got beans from Ethiopia and Jamaica.  Now, I was putting down 10-15 of THOSE per day (usually doubles, black - no sugar) and wondering why the hell I could only get 2-3 hours of sleep at night, but GOD!  Was that stuff GREAT!

Then, for a lot of reasons, I contracted stress-induced, Ulcerative Colitis and one of my several doctors told me, quite matter-of-factly;  " Cut out the friggin coffee or you're gonna die".   He was not smiling when he said this.  He had also delayed his retirement for two months to get me back on my feet, so I tended to listen to him.  Quit coffee cold turkey the next day and started taking green tea, 3-4 cups per day.  Never got the shakes or headaches from coffee withdrawal, but had enormous sugar cravings for over a year - go figure.  Had to avoid "Cinabon" kiosks whenever we went to the mall, but it finally got better.  Still taking 2 cups of green tea per day and the only coffee I get is in a few energy bars I eat when on long bike rides.

Life is good......

Speaking of coffee. Dale Bates rarely drinks the stuff - he's a diet Pepsi guy. He did have a cup in Carmel this past weekend.

He never drinks it when he's Batman.

Hi, my name is Stan, and I'm a coffee junkie.

Right now I've got an espresso maker sitting beside me on the desk. My opinion of what constitutes "good" is much more Eurasian than the standard hipster "blond-roast" nonsense. I really like nice Arabica beans, roasted black until they taste like a campfire: smoky, rich, and full-bodied. I've arrived at espresso or a thick pour-over being my favorite method. I've tried them all: presses of various nationalities, Turkish method, etc. I think the Europeans got it right.

I started drinking coffee when I was a pre-schooler, and went "black" in high-school. In my line of work, there is always a pot of coffee somewhere, and it was always free. I've drunk hundreds of gallons of bad Maxwell House that had been sitting on a Bunn burner all day: coffee with an oil film on the top that I've skimmed off with a paper-towel (or not) before drinking. In my 30s, I drank several pots a day, year round, and worked 100 hrs a week or so (on one thing or another). I rode my bike a few thousand miles a year, and played basketball with kids half my age. But when I turned 45, I crashed pretty hard.

I'm on BP, cholesterol, thyroid, and blood sugar medication. I shoot a half CC of testosterone once a week, and take adrenal support capsules. My endocrine system is a complete mess. It might be the pesticides, or something in the background. But, it might be the thousands of gallons of coffee I drank the first 50 years of my life.

My Dr. has also threatened me, and I'm down to one strong cup (which is really a double or so) a day, always black, she'd like that to end. But I can't do green tea, and I've really tried (nothing but for 4 months). I do OK on my one cup, but I'll "splurge" on vacation (I really like to feel good when I'm paying to feel good), or if I'm really dragging. It's not good, but neither is feeling like garbage.

It's a bad habit, but it's the one I'm stuck with. TMI, I'm aware, but like most things: moderation seems to be the key (at least before you do real damage to yourself). Like Gordon, I got a LOT done on coffee for 20+ years, right up until I was unable to do much of anything at all.

Forewarned is forearmed.

Coffee in moderation actually has health benefits.  The trick, like anything else is to buy a quality fresh arabica bean and grind it so it does not oxidize.  Good coffee is not cheap, try Trader Joes if you have one near you.  We buy from a small place in FL that imports from a family roaster in Italy.  I prefer one small espresso over gallons of American coffee.  Sandy is another story, she is like Stan and has a coffee or espresso machine in every room.  

Marty Grzynkowicz posted:

Coffee in moderation actually has health benefits.  The trick, like anything else is to buy a quality fresh arabica bean and grind it so it does not oxidize.  Good coffee is not cheap, try Trader Joes if you have one near you.  We buy from a small place in FL that imports from a family roaster in Italy.  I prefer one small espresso over gallons of American coffee.  Sandy is another story, she is like Stan and has a coffee or espresso machine in every room.  

Mr. Grzyndzvosklygvrzwvzwtcv,

You know me pretty well, right? You understand that when I like something, I pretty much go around the bend to wherever it leads, whether it's the popular thing or not. I started out drinking gallons of "American" coffee, but once I had a few nickels to rub together, I started moving up the food chain. I liked bad coffee, and unfortunately, I really like good coffee.

You know what I find? "Specialty roasters" in this country really don't like coffee, at least the kind of coffee they were originally trying to emulate. European/Euroasian coffee is dark roasted. I've tried it all, and hard as it seems to believe: there's no shortage of "specialty roasters" here in this little corn-town wanting to sell me beans from some war-torn 3rd world place.

I've stood at the counter of Intelligentsia, et al and waited while people who pretended to like coffee ordered candy in a cup. I've been lectured by the pretentious 30 year old with a his girlfriend's leggings, a cowboy shirt, a Taliban beard, a 3/8 washer in his earlobe, a stocking cap in July, Buddy Holly's glasses (clear lenses), and a couple of sleeve tattoos (which is the price of admission to the "youth is wasted on the young" club) lecture me about how "over-roasting ruins the flavor of the bean".

It makes me want to ask, "have you ever been to Florence, son? Tell your boss that they 'over-roast' in the birthplaces of good coffee the world over", but I'm just a bald, thick-fingered cretin from a town with 2000 souls who cares not a whit about what's hip in the coffee scene. Which is to say, "nobody". 

Cool or not, dark coffee is all that. I get good beans, or what I like anyhow. I've not taken to roasting it myself, but guarantee I will before it's all said and done-- especially since domestic coffee roasting has taken over by pretentious morons, who like all Americans who came of age since WW2, believe that they invented coffee.

People who want tea should just buy tea.

As I mentioned up above, I was lucky (and I mean that) to become part of a very international Engineering group - Biggest bunch of truly Geeky people I've ever worked with.  Our folks came from over 80 countries - Heck, we could do customer tours through Engineering in over 60 languages!  Our tours, both Engineering and Manufacturing, in Massachusetts or Cork, Ireland, became legendary in the industry.  

I think, because of our diversity, that our coffee drinking was very positively influenced by everyone.  We got beans from Eastern Europe, The Caribbean (specifically chosen by our folks from Trinidad), from Thailand (chosen by our "Thai Guys" and Vietnamese), from South America (chosen by the Brazilians) - you get the idea.  Bring in whatever you like or get sent to you from home and we'll try it.  Because of that, the quality level was extraordinary and turned us all off to "American" coffee except that most of us drank Dunkin Donuts coffee or maybe the occasional Starbucks (but not their Cappuccinos or expressos ) when we were desperate, like at conferences and trade shows.  

Oh!  We also had one of our expresso machines as part of Trade Show Crate #1 ("Open me FIRST") for when Engineers supported a show and we were building/knocking down the show display.  Smartest thing we ever did.....OK, so including a small Microwave was cool, too, and finding that the padded cubby for a Dec Alpha mini-server could also fit a VW transaxle for shipment from Irvine back home - THAT was very cool.  But that's another story...

Because of the diversity, our "Engineering Holiday Party", held in mid January when everyone was encouraged to bring in their favorite dish from their home country, was standing room only - we had to start turning away people from outside of Engineering.  The annual competition between the Trinidadians and the India contingent for the spiciest curried dish was memorable, as was a Goulash dish from Slovenia.  I was in a HEATED competition for three years with several other Engineers over the best Chili.  That was back when I still ate Beef.  Finally, I won in the fourth year with a Pork-based Chili recipe with my secret ingredient:  2/3'rds of a cup of Bushmills Honey-infused Irish Whiskey.  Absolute, hands-down winner.

Yup, we were a pretty Geeky bunch.........

I drink a lot of coffee and I pee a lot too.   I wonder if there's a connection....