PCH Road Trip with Alu Kreuz, USS Stabilizer Bar Set, and Lamb Curry Burritos

**kiznarsh** · 07-09-2012 12:09 AM

My job has certain perks, like being able to take 2 days of vacation to enjoy a 9-day weekend. When a floating holiday and an off-Friday follow July 4th, one must take advantage. Having friends up in San Jose, Berkeley, and San Francisco, I decided to finally do the drive so many have done: LA to SF via PCH. Knowing it was a holiday week, I knew it would be busier than normal so I planned on leaving LA on Sunday the 1st and return Thursday the 5th, both trips lasting 2 days (what's the rush, eh?). But before I embarked on this journey, I had to upgrade my steering and handling...

I'm sure many of you have already done this mod, so hopefully you'll enjoy the pics from the trip. If you haven't, here's another review to push you to the dark side, and by "dark" I mean the side where steering is delightfully crisp and accurate, and body roll disappears like the remorse after hooking up with that gorgeous friend who no longer wants to hang out. Been there? I have.

I'm entering the third month of ownership of Shadow Fox who's already chipped with APR Stage I and sportin' the H&R OE Sport Springs. The installation was done at EuroCode which meant a very short shipping time. I estimated about 11 seconds from the shelves to the garage. After upgrading to stainless steel brake lines, replacing the brake fluid, and stock brake pads with Porterfield R4-S pads (which might be the best pads you've never heard of), it was time to drop the exhaust and start replacing the sway bars.

Front bar installed:

Front billet aluminum end link:

Alu Kreuz installed:

After the work was completed on Monday night and the pads were bed-in (thanks again Dave), I had less than a week to prepare for my trip. During the install with the wheels removed, Julio the Super-Tech noticed I was missing 3 hub rings

. I don't do a whole lot of freeway driving, but I did notice a bit of vibration in the car on a couple occasions. I admittedly never removed the wheels to check for the hub rings as it honestly never occurred to me they'd be missing. Why would the PO drive around like that? And how do you lose 3 of them anyway?

In any case, I ended up ordering them from iForged on Tuesday ($20 for the whole set) and I set up an appointment for an alignment and wheel balancing on Friday. Clearly that would be the most efficient time to install the hub rings. Well Friday morning rolls around and I'm at the shop, patiently sitting in the cold waiting room watching SportsCenter. One of the shop techs enters the room and says something to the manager. While I've mostly forgotten the 3 years' worth of high school Spanish, I had no trouble understanding "tenemos un problema."

"Well sir, your hub rings are too big."

This wasn't entirely surprising since I didn't have the actual wheel model number when I spoke with iForged, but I did send them a picture with the car description. The hub diameter was correct, but the outer diameter to fit inside the wheel was off by roughly 2 mm.

Fortunately iForged is based out of Anaheim, a mere hour drive from where I was. I called them up and they said they have the correct set in stock, but I couldn't afford to wait for them to ship so I decided to be super late to work and I drove over and swapped the hub rings, then went back to the shop, and had them installed free of charge. Score.

Oh and the vibration? What vibration?

I guess I should stop rambling and provide my opinion: after coming to the S4 from a GTI with larger side bolsters in the seats and having the APR rear sway bar, I was unimpressed with the body roll of the S4 and felt loose in the seats (I'm a slender, sexy guy...or so the secretary at work would have you believe

). Suddenly, that's not an issue. The lack of side support has become (somewhat) irrelevant because I no longer slide from side to side. Another instance when I noticed it was while I was driving to Berkeley on the freeway going about 70 mph when all of a sudden, a piece of firewood falls from a truck and lands directly in the path of my right wheel.

It's about 10" long by 4" high and definitely not something you wanna drive over. A quick glance in the mirror showed a clear path on my right and I did a quick right-left maneuver that would put a smile on John Frankenheimer's face (he directed Ronin). The car handled superbly and was well planted...never felt unsafe and I just continued to

.

And now for some random pics from the trip. Sorry for the long post! I get carried away sometimes...

Sunday night was here:

Got to Pismo just in time to capture some sunset and night shots:

People were launching these toys in lieu of actual fireworks:

Monday lunch is where I enjoyed the lamb curry burritos at a place called Robin's in Cambria. The jalapeno-mint chutney was spicy, hence the yogurt to cool things down. And the chopped fruit salad? Well...ya know...vitamins and such.

Ready to pounce:

This is in Pebble Beach along the 17-mile drive. I never got the actual angle I was looking for and the weather didn't cooperate either.

While in SF, I noticed that Jesus is the Man:

On the way back I stopped in Santa Cruz where I stumbled upon this:

Then I stayed in Monterey and took the obligatory "alone in the parking lot" shot:

On the last day of travel, I stopped in Cambria again to dine at the Indigo Moon Cafe. This was recommended by the young lad whom I met at the bar who swore that there's a hot blonde waitress with piercing blue eyes that works at that place. Well I went, and I noticed the hostess was blonde and had blue eyes, but there was no piercing going on so I wasn't sure if she was "the one." Either way, the food was great, and so was the dessert:

It's so hard to stop once you're on a roll, but I had to take at least 1 shot showing the coast...

**ilspazzaneve** · 07-09-2012 06:04 AM

Great write-up, pics, and food review. After spending a week along the coast, I had an opportunity to move near highway 1 about 10 years ago, but it was too big a move from Canada for my newlywed wife. I'm totally jealous you can do this whenever you want.

**helix139** · 07-09-2012 06:05 AM

The car looks great, but where are the pictures of the hot blonde with blue eyes?

**Okan509** · 07-09-2012 06:24 AM

car looks great!

**RavinJetta** · 07-09-2012 08:20 AM

Loved the story and the car looks great as well. I always take 5 when I drive up to the bay area to save time but I really should do the scenic route again soon.

**kiznarsh** · 07-09-2012 08:56 AM

Originally Posted by ilspazzaneve

Great write-up, pics, and food review. After spending a week along the coast, I had an opportunity to move near highway 1 about 10 years ago, but it was too big a move from Canada for my newlywed wife. I'm totally jealous you can do this whenever you want.

Thanks! But see here's the thing, because I can do this whenever, I never did it. I've had my license for about 13 years now and finally got around to it. Granted this isn't something you do on a random Sunday morning, but you could do it on a weekend if you didn't wanna rest at all.

Originally Posted by helix139

The car looks great, but where are the pictures of the hot blonde with blue eyes?

Yeah...well the thing is I never saw a hot blonde, but hey, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I was debating whether or not to tell the hostess (assuming she was "the one") that I came to eat there specifically to get lost in her blue eyes, but I felt a bit disingenuous since I didn't share those same feelings. I decided to make it a game-time decision, but she wasn't at the front when I exited the cafe. Guess it wasn't meant to be...