As I left the GTG at 3:30AM (not a typo), Jon and Jeff were still working on a car.  Specifically one car showed up to the GTG with a particularly vexing set of symptoms, and Jeff was making a heroic effort to sort things out.

As for me and my 2003 TDI Wagon, we got a *lot* accomplished at the GTG.  I drove in from Bloomington Indiana, arriving around 1pm.  Plans were for Jon to change the timing belt and upgrade the injectors, then Jeff would do his rocketchip magic.  A couple of weeks prior, Jon had a installed a VR6 clutch, Peloquin LSD, and Dieselqeek's skidplate.

I started to have the "what are your objectives" conversation with Jeff and one of his first questions was "how much are you looking forward to your next turbo?", which was code for what risk-to-reward ratio are you seeking.  I started asking questions about how turbos fail, what causes the stress, etc.  From what I understood from Jon the vnt-17 was more likely  to standup well to a more aggressive tuning.  As Jon was about halfway through changing my timing belt, I asked him if he had a vnt-17 in stock.  He did, and I went for it.  Over the next few hours Jon replaced the timing belt, installed a new turbo, and new injectors.  All went very well except one minor issue, which I'll get to last.

My recollection is that my car was ready for the rocket chip around midnight, however Jeff was still in the middle of exercising the demons from the other last car.  Jeff took a break while programming a new ECU to upgrade me to RC3.  I took my first test drive and came back all smiles.  Simply amazing.

I did have one issue, my anti-shudder valve was no longer working.  The vacuum lines looked ok.  What was really strange was that a few seconds after turning off the key the valve would *partially* engage then quickly return to it's normal "car running" position.  At this point is was after 3am and everyone, including me, was toast.  I went to my hotel.  My lovely wife was kind enough to wake up and let me tell her all about the GTG.

After driving home on Sunday, I read up on the shudder valve and its operation.  I got under the hood and started looking.  It appeared to me that the solenoid might be reversed, so I swapped the vacuum lines and it fixed the problem, but the fix didn't last.  I then noticed that while switching the lines I damaged some vacuum hose.  At this point I'm not sure if I have a vacuum leak and/or the solenoid is bad, or something else.  I could use some experienced help troubleshooting this, but I'd rather find someone a bit closer than Jon to fix this if it's only a leak.  There's a Jeff in Moorseville IN that I may talk to today.  Grateful for any suggestions others may have.

The most surprising effect of my upgrades was the *vastly* improved handling on the highway during heavy rain.  The Peloquin seems to make the frequent hydroplaning of the drive wheels during very heavy rain simply go away.  Very, very nice.