California to Colorado, then Montana & Possibly Canada. Hoping to take the GTI TDI

[Frankencar]

California to Colorado, then Montana & Possibly Canada. Hoping to take the GTI TDI

Well, it's time for another road trip! We have 2 weddings to attend, and some sights to see along the way. We will be leaving our home in Winters, CA this Saturday July 21st 2012 for what will probably be over 5,000 miles of driving, but first - I need to get the GTI finished!

I got the front suspension in and plan to do the rear tomorrow night after work. I'm still waiting on the last parts to come from the CNC mill before I can bolti t all together. Here is the suspension thread:

http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=357793

Then we will be ready to go by Saturday morning at 7:00 AM. Our first stop will be Lake Alpine for a wedding this Saturday, then we hope to make it to Wendover NV that night. Sunday should be a quick visit to the Bonneville salt flats, followed by a night in Grand Junction CO. We plan to go to the top of Mt. Evans on Monday as it's the tallest motorable point in North America, and that would just be fun. Tuesday will probably be a drive to the top of Pike's Peak, and the rest of the week will be visiting family & friends. Friday is the second wedding, and Sunday we will leave for Green River Wyoming. After that the schedule is a little open. Yellowstone and Glacier NP's are on the list and we are open to suggestion on what to see. If we have the extra day - we will probably take the route from glacier through Canada to washington and home, if not we will head south. Here is the planned route:

At 60 or so MPG the GTI will be a bit cheaper to take than the Beetle, and I hate stopping for fuel. Though the beetle can go places the GTI can't.
Here is the epic road trip thread from last year in my wife's New Beetle:

http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=332047

 

[john.jackson9213]

Great pictures from last years trip!!

You really should add Grand Tetons National Park to the trip. Very Few additional miles and better photo ops than Yellowstone. Promise, you will not regret it!! Tetons means breasts in French. Look at those mountains and you will see why they are Grand!

Looking forward to more great pictures.

 

[Frankencar]

Will do. and headed home with these now, looks like I get to put the GTI rear end together tomorrow.

 

[Frankencar]

All bolted up, so I should have the rear axle installed tonight in time for departure tomorrow morning!

Check the suspension thread for all the pics.

 

[Thommy D]

Stop D looks to be along I-80. If you want to see some caves, drop south to Highway 6, Baker, Nevada. Google Lehman Caves, Great Basin National Park. Well worth it, IMHO. For that matter, I'd try even to hit Bryce and Zion Canyons.......

 

[Frankencar]

Stop D looks to be along I-80. If you want to see some caves, drop south to Highway 6, Baker, Nevada. Google Lehman Caves, Great Basin National Park. Well worth it, IMHO. For that matter, I'd try even to hit Bryce and Zion Canyons.......

If we are feeling really ambitious today we might hit up the caves. Here is our current status:

Finished up the rear suspension install on the GTI late Friday night with all the custom adapters and freshly powdercoated everything - Thread here:
http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=357793

Saturday morning early we got up and packed the car while I finished up assembling the last details. The car was assembled and packed by 7:00 AM. We left the house with 234,650 miles on the odometer. Our first stop was my parent's house to feed the cat, then off to Stockton to fuel up, and then to Lake alpine off HWY 4 to attend my Brother's wedding. After the Wedding, we drove to Carson City and Sparks NV to check each PickNPull for a 5x100 MKIII donut - no luck. the rest of the night was spent racing across Nevada to where we are now, the Day's Inn in Wendover Ut. I must say - the fresh & somewhat experimental rear suspension complimented the new front nicely & we arrived here early this morning. The 700 mile shakedown run went well.

Here is the GTI outside our hotel room in Wendover right now:

 

[47coeman]

Following you as you travel, car looks great and be safe.

 

[Frankencar]

Just arrived in Grand Junction CO. Didn't make it to the caves though , spent too much time on the salt.

I think this pic explains it best:

And here are some more:

Me:

My Wife:

The sticky wet salt:

We also met this cool guy from Holland:

 

[Frankencar]

Check out the flying mountain behind this truck...

And we saw this driving in Utah:

And finally checked in - nice place!

 

[Frankencar]

Oh! Almost forgot to mention MPG!

Achieved our worst FE since TDI install... Though I'm not at all disappointed; the car exceeded my expectations after what I did to it. We filled up in Stockton, CA and drove it like we were in the World Rally Championship in order to make it to my Brothers wedding on time. This included many very high speed passing maneuvers and heavy use of the brakes heading up HWY4 to Lake Alpine. Then we drove over the mountain to Carson City and in a hurry. When we found out there were no rooms left in Winnemucca or Elko - we raced to Wendover at quite high speed - kept it over the posted 75MPH limit the whole way. We filled it up in Wendover, NV yesterday after 606 miles and it was 52.1 MPG.

Driving a little less impatiently now, but I'm sure our trek up to the top of Mt. Evans today will not be good to MPG.

 

[dieselpower04]

Wow love your car!!

 

[47coeman]

@ 75-90mph- 52 mpg there would be no complaints in my corral, where you might see a big down turn is across Wyoming some parts are 8k high on 80 and the turbo kicks in but it drinks the fuel to make the machine move forward, have a great day and looking for your report at the end of the day.

 

[47coeman]

70-90 and still 52 mpg no complaints in my corral. looking forward to the nightly report, have a great day exploring...

 

[Thommy D]

Let me guess, judging by the lack of salt spray, you never hit 30 mph (not insulting)? That saltrgets EVERYWHERE. An old trick to getting it off is to park your car over a garden sprinkler for 10 minutes of so for a few days. Blasting it off with a pressure washer only pushes it to other places.....

 

[Frankencar]

Only got it up to 100, drove it in heavy rain on Mt. Evans today, pics to come later. Currently in Castle Rock with friends.

 

[tdi drew]

Mt Evans is a cool spot, sucks it was raining on you guys

I second the suggestion to check out Tetons....also Crater lake is not far off your route in Oregon on the way home...not sure if you have been there before? There is also Mt Rainier and/or Mt St Helens over that way

 

[Frankencar]

Mt Evans is a cool spot, sucks it was raining on you guys

I second the suggestion to check out Tetons....also Crater lake is not far off your route in Oregon on the way home...not sure if you have been there before? There is also Mt Rainier and/or Mt St Helens over that way

The massive thunderstorm just added to the experience. Here are some pictures from the highest motorable place in North America (14,264 ft):

 

[Thommy D]

Only got it up to 100.

Nice. They should be getting ready for Speed Week

 

[Frankencar]

Just got down off the mountain. Had a blast driving up Pike's Peak with PRA4WX. Weather was real nice at first, then turned very quickly. Here are some pics:

 

[Frankencar]

Nice. They should be getting ready for Speed Week

Yeah, would like to go to that someday... until then it's just a cool place to play on my way through.

Quick Video:

http://youtu.be/TSRQchCNHT8

 

[PRA4WX]

Everyone say it together: "WE WANT GOPRO OF THE GTI TDI CLIMBING PIKES PEAK!"
;-)

 

[Frankencar]

Everyone say it together: "WE WANT GOPRO OF THE GTI TDI CLIMBING PIKES PEAK!"
;-)

OK, here you go. Sure was a blast!

VW MKII GTI TDI swap with a BV43 Turbo driving up Pike's Peak behind a Corrado TDI swap with GTB2260VK Turbo - YouTube Video



...

 

[Swaledale_Dubz]

Now that makes my roadtrips look abit like a boring trip to the supermarket haha

 

[Frankencar]

Now that makes my roadtrips look abit like a boring trip to the supermarket haha

LOL...

Wedding was nice last night, packing up and heading to Wyoming today.

 

[Frankencar]

Just arrived in Rock Springs, WY. Had a nice drive and took a slightly scenic route.

 

[Frankencar]

In Kalispell Montana. The drive up last night from Yellowstone was very risky, many deer on the road. Thank God for those freak headlights. Yellowstone was quite incredible, photos are loading now, so I should be able to post them soon. We plan to visit Glacier NP for the next few days before heading home. Oh, Fuel economy has improved too.

 

[Frankencar]

OK, as promised - here are the pics from Yellowstone:

 

[Frankencar]

And on the way out of Yellowstone, headed for Glacier NP:

 

[Frankencar]

And we did a day in Glacier NP yesterday. It was incredible! My wife has now officially seen a bear in the wild (well, 4), and I have seen a Mountain goat.

A kind fellow traveler took this pic for us:

And there were waterfalls everywhere!

 

[Frankencar]