Dropped off my car at TB Auto today, so that my favorite mechanic can do some compression testing on the car. Another theory that the motor is the way it is, is because I might be just running extra rich… could be as simple as a bad o2 sensor or a clogged air filter (that thing is way dirty and old). But I’ll find out later today… hopefully I can drive at the auto-x practice this saturday at Hollywood Park. I really want to try to get this auto-x thing down… it bothers me that I can’t drive through the course without understeering… even if I AM out there fighting my bad suspension the whole time. Oh yeah, got my SSR MK-III wheels from Japan last week. I can’t wait to clean em up and put them on my car. They’ll look great.
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Today… smelled gas while looking under my car. Took the car down from the lift, and couldn’t smell a thing. Pulled off the oil cap and viola. Smelled like gas. Obviously, this isn’t a good thing. It’s supposedly either a piston ring or valve seal. So what to do now? I’m not sure yet… I have 2 choices in mind: get another sr20det. gather parts and rebuild the motor. make it good and strong. OR, I can just gather the parts and have somebody do it for me on my current motor. The 2nd one doesn’t sound fun at all. I would love to rebuild the motor… the heart of my car, with every piece carefully placed by me. But who knows yet. I’m researching still. Also, my thermostat is gone. Greeeeat. Another hard to find part has gone out on my car. What to do, what to do… I’m still figuring that one out too. I know a lot of people run without the thermostat. But I’d like to have it. Last but not least, I’m still researching on coilovers. I’ve found Cusco Comp-2 coilovers for cheap. Thinking about that one… and I hope to get my gracer side steps soon. I haven’t gotten a good hour or 2 of good drift practice in a while… I feel like I haven’t really progressed and its kinda sad. But I have been gripping faster at touge. My brakes glow now. My wheels are all hot when I’m done. My turbo glows too, but I’ve been doing that for a while now. Anyway, I’m having fun with grip, but I still wanna get out there and get better at drifting… the sidebrake technique is still a hard one to get used to.
The funniest thing happened yesterday. A modified Mustang Cobra was playing with me on the streets of Irvine yesterday. And I know I’m not a dragger, but I was feeling a little bit cocky about my car since I just capped a vacuum leak and the car was feeling better. So anyway, I take off on the Cobra big time then we come to a stop light head to head. Then he starts revving his car hard… If you have ever heard a modified cobra rev, it’s pretty intimidating. So I start revving but only to about 2.5-3k rpms, just little ones… the light turns green and I pop the clutch… I watch my rpms as they speed to 7k rpms and… wtf, I’m not moving anywhere! Hahaha, I was sitting there at the light still, doing a fat burnout in front of the guy behind me! Oh well, I guess with an SR, you better have some 235’s in the back if you want to drag race.
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Other than that experience, I installed my Trust boost gauge yesterday. The only thing is that I have to hook up the electricity. I can’t see it at night! But I think I may have a leak somewhere, since I am supposed to boost at about .5 bar, and instead, I’m boosting only to .4 bar… *sigh* another problem to solve.
Wow 2 days in a row that I’ve written a journal entry. Today I found another wound on my sileighty… the lower bar that the bushing end of the tension rod connects to is bent. It’s bent pretty bad, and is mis-aligning my tension rod. That is a possible explanation to my positive camber coming out of my driver’s side wheel. I’m sure that it was due to my first accident on the highway. I shouldn’t have to pay for it. Anyway, now I’m going to have to search the yards for a replacement piece. I’m also considering a Nismo bushing kit that will replace all the bushings in my car. Geez, I need to update this webpage pretty badly.
Okay so I lied. I didn’t go to Speed Trials. BUT I have a good excuse. While working on my car, getting ready for Sunday, I discovered that I had torn up old bushings in my tension rods. Yikes! So I backed out of the event. So this past weekend, I spent $200 to upgrade my brakes… I bought some slotted rotors made by Brembo, and I got some racing compound brake pads made by Hawk. A very good brake bad, btw. I also bought some Potenza RE71’s and put them up front with my Dori’s. That is a great tire. So in the meantime, I am going to do some serious work on my car to get it in a good reliable condition… something that I’ll have more confidence in thrashing on the track and up at touge. I gotta fix my fuel pickup problem, replace my tension rods, upgrade shocks, install stainless brake lines, GET LSD!
I just got back from touge… The first time I’ve been up there since I slammed the sileighty into a canyon wall 2 months ago. I was way anxious about getting back up into winding mountain roads, but I was real nervous at the same time… and that’s how I was driving – fast at times, but also real careful through the turns. Anyway, I decided to take a ride with my friend Mike, a skilled FF driver. I was very impressed. On the way back up to the top, he was complaining the tires weren’t gripping, so he was yanking the sidebrake to get some oversteer. I was very impressed. But the rear tires got too hot, and he got really sideways, and then spun out and hit a wall. Touge is no joke, guys. Even the greatest drivers f*ck up and put their cars into walls. Anyway, everybody is okay. The FF has some damage, but Mike is very lucky to get what he got. It could have been much worse. So what’s new with my car… I took the Silvia grill off. It looks better in my opinion. Also, I installed a hose to get air to my sidemount intercooler (remember, I have a q’s silvia bumper, so there is no hole to vent the sidemount intercooler). I also got a set of decent tires and my passenger side auto seatbelt works now. Other than that, I’m just trying to get ready for Speed Trials this upcoming weekend!
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