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Got the Paco seat lowering kit in. It's a little annoying, but not hard. Seat position is good! Kind of reminds me of doing a foamectomy except I got better leg room. Before, my left knee kept hitting the blank accessory panel. Now there's about 2" clearance.
I bit the bullet on the brake project. I ordered 2 piece 11" wilwood front rotors that save 9 lbs rotating mass, and the FM LBBK front calipers that save 11 lbs unsprung mass. I ordered up a set of front g-loc GS-1 pads too. The rear brakes are just too hard to justify. $$$/lb is poor, and there is a big loss of functionality with the ebrake.
Part swapping on this car has netted some good gains while keeping it 100% streetable. The only weight gain has been ~4 lbs in sway bars.
Once my tires come in, the weight reduction will be:
15 lbs sprung mass
11 lbs unsprung mass
35 lbs unsprung rotating mass
The 195/50/16 ECS are out of stock presumably for the entire summer, so I decided to get 205/45/16 ECS. Each tire is .8 lbs heavier than the 195/50, but they're .4 inches wider. They are significantly shorter than OEM though: to compensate for the 1" tire diameter drop, I ordered up a set of progress springs. These aren't really much of a rate bump (156->185/100->115), but they should help with the 4x4 look caused by the short tires. I had a little dialogue with Andy Hollis on mnet, and it turns out he's running the same wheel/tire size combo, and the change in final drive ratio makes for a nice little acceleration bump. I have next week off, so all this should make for a fun little project.
I made the wheel switch. I dropped in a set of progress springs and put in the 16" wheels. The progress springs add 4.8 lbs to the car. Still fiddling with alignment. I gotta get alignment settled before I move on to the brakes.
Rotors and calipers are in. It really feels good in terms of weight loss- like going from steel toed boots to running shoes. Pedal feel is a bit mushy though. I bled all four corners with a power bleeder, but it might need a second round here after a bit of driving.
2nd bleed was the ticket. Everything feels pretty damn good now. The factory brake fluid was actually pretty gross. There's a bit of chatter feedback in the brake pedal, and I'm curious whether it's just wearing in, or if this is how it's gonna be now. I'm pretty happy with this setup. I've got to scrub the new tire crap off before I give it the beans, but it already feels way better than stock.
They're G-loc GS-1 street pads. This is the first time I've used them, but I think they are supposed to be extra easy to bed. I just haven't even really warmed them up yet.
Lowering springs on stock shocks is just too deep in the land of bump stops. I'm having a set of coilovers built around 6kg/4kg springs. I'll run them with the front roadster sport bar on half hard/med setting, and the OE rear bar. I've been tinkering with the FCM calculator. Here's how the OEM configuration compares to my current and future setups. Don't worry, I'm not getting a FCM suspension. Just using this handy calculator.
Not much to declare here. 1st oil change. Running the coilovers described above. Continuing to pull weight. I'm about 80 lbs down from stock with factory seats, top and stereo. I mounted up a set of pirelli sottozero 3 tires on the OE 17" boat anchors for snow tires, and I'll probably make the switch this weekend. Running the GWR street alignment. With roll stiffness roughly doubled, I haven't bashed off the bumps yet. I also added a couple JBR parts that are nicely made and worth the money: the diff mount and the short shifter.
Here's what my coilovers look like on paper. Almost as comfortable as stock. This is my first set of adjustables, so I'm bumbling through it a bit. I've found this setup is susceptible to some resonant weirdness at low speeds, and I've had to be specific about the settings to get it to play nice. PM if you want details.
Going with an ecu tune. I'm on a fab9/VT N1 map now, getting ready for an ethanol map that should put me at about 200whp. Installed a full GWR exhaust. The SQHV muffler is good at controlling drone & rasp. The car is sitting at just about 2250 lbs.
06-19-2019, 11:50 PM
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