I felt like a champ getting the intercooler I think you all recommended to me for $60. I can only imagine how you're feeling now. Commence rocky music.

 

Losing coolant again. Small puddle overnight.

Update to the list:

To-Do:

0. FIND OIL LEAK/BURN (So far so good.)
1. Inconel studs (RX-7 ordered, still need resbond but I think I am going to run without resbond for now because its a biatch to find)
2. Exhaust bracing. (Ordered a 3 inch exhaust clamp)
3. Locking downpipe bolts (Arrived)
4. Seats + Harness
4. Back braces (DIY)
5. Install new springs (550 Front, 350 rear)
6. Oil+water temp guages. (Going with a VEI systems gauge) Ordered
7. Helmet (Going to continue to run my open face helmet and wait for sa-2015)
8. Hardtop (Got one)
9. Put beads on intercooler pipes (Probably DIY: DIY $5 charge pipe bead roller - D-series.org, unless someone local knows somewhere to get it done cheap)
10. Find coolant leak. (risky to put this here but so far I haven't lost any coolant)
11. Find diff leak.
12. Heat Shielding. (master cylinder, brake lines)
13. Tune.
14. Manifold relief cuts
15. Setup oil cooler
∞. Break stuff

 

Also still leaking from the axle seal. One axle is farther out than the other, and I keep pushing it back in. Bad c-clip?

 

From where? If you've done a reroute with a BEGI spacer, keep in mind that it will bend/crack the Kia waterneck bolt flange on the driver's side due to inadequate support of the bolt hole. I've had to replace Kia waternecks several times because of this. I now use light torque on the order of 10ft-lbs. Somebody is selling a new design spacer with full bolt hole support on the site. That would be worth it.

Yes. Axles should stay in place on the diff if the C-clip is doing its job.

 

Pretty sure from a multitude of places on the front of the engine, pretty sure my reroute is good. I used a Jackson racing spacer which has support for the waterneck.

Going to order some c-clips to see if I can fix the leak.

 

Front of the engine? Water pump? All those stupid little lines?

Other than a bent Kia water neck, the only coolant leaks I've ever had would be from those small lines in some inaccessible, hard-to-see location. I always delete those lines.

 

No I have a flipped mixing manifold, and a tee between the mixing manifold and radiator. There are like 6 joints or something there and my undertray is wet there. It seems to only leak when it gets really hot so it's hard to catch with street driving.

Also maybe a leaky radiator. Need to do more sleuthing.

 

Maybe borrow one of those coolant system pressure testers from the Zone?

 

Good idea, I'll see if my local one has one.

Did some welding today. Holy **** I hate my harbor freight welder after using the real deal.

Seat backing plates:





Harness bar plate:





Ended up warping the outer pipe. Nothing a little air dremel can't fix.

 

And some pickup fun on the way to home depot:

 

$10 Coolant System Pressure Tester | DSMtuners

A cheap way to make a tool if you can't rent one. I bought a new radiator cap and used my old one to make one of these. I still couldn't see my leak because it was under the front cover, but it should help with all those fittings.

s10s are boss lol

 

Nice, I need to get rid of my crapbay Radiator cap anyways. What do people suggest for a radiator cap around here?

 

FM has a good high pressure cap. Might be available from other sources for less, idk.

 

Time to search amazon, I hate paying shipping.

 

Glass softop means all adjustability of the back brace gets thrown out the window (haha) mine will be bolted and that passenger will have a pin so the seat can be slid forward.

 

Why? If anything the driver's seat is the one that needs adjustment between driver heights. If you're set on fixing your seat, just fix the passenger one too. You'll almost never move it.

 

Passenger seat is on sliders. Mine is bolted down. There is like almost no room at all for adjustability so being able to slide it forward is just for ease of putting things behind it or getting to the rear bolts. Neither back brace will functionally adjust but the passenger side will allow me to move the seat forward if I need to.

 

Agree. My passenger seat is fixed. I setup my driver's seat so it could have 3 settings, but I've only used the middle setting.

Love welding in shorts and sandals! I'm guilty, but at least I did it while sweating in a 100F+ garage -- sweat is great protection.

 

The bar can't go any farther back than just behind the harness bar. On the other side I will try and weld the outer sleeve more towards the seat and see how much I can get out if it. I'm not too worried as the only person who rides for extended periods of time in that seat is my gf and she is happy with the seat back as far as possible.

Just getting a head start on my flip flip tan

 

Did you end up with the hard core hard top version of the roll bar? Or the soft top only version? How tall are you? I'm trying to decide on which to get.

Looks like the HT version is 3" farther back but 1.25" lower. So the HT sits just behind stock seats (all the way back) and basically just on top of the head rest. Where the soft top only would sit just in front of the head rest but up 1.25". Don't think I can get under the soft top only version. Maybe time for a seat first.