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I have the tools and patience to do it but not the experience so I'm more than happy to pay a professional. Local gear & axle shop up here that was independently recommended by 3 completely separate sources quoted me $200 to do the install, then bumped it to $250 when I told them I had a solid spacer and shims rather than a factory crush sleeve. For that kind of money I'm more than happy to pay someone else to do it.
I'll probably be into this 4.78 torsen diff for close to $600 when all is said and done. It would have been significantly cheaper if I'd managed to get used gears from the junkyard but I don't regret buying NIB ones from Kia, and I made this about as expensive as possible by buying all new bearings and etc directly from Mazda. You can definitely do this on the cheap, I just didn't.
So it's not $1200 for a highway RPM reduction, it's $450 and potentially less if you can sell the Kia gears you have?
One of the reasons I bother to post all these PNs and notes about dumb stuff like seals and gaskets is to maybe help the next guy out who is on the googlemachine looking for a solution to a problem. I know when I have a question about something, the first thing I do is start searching PNs. I like to think maybe I'm helping someone else out somewhere.
Thanks bby
I'm also appreciating the naming and pics of the tools. No more gasket scraping with razor blades for me.
I'm also appreciating the naming and pics of the tools. No more gasket scraping with razor blades for me.
Very welcome! Always glad to help!
Just be careful with those carbide scrapers, they can get away from you and you'll end up gouging the surface pretty quickly. I've found that angle and pressure are the big determining factors.
Everything is incredibly dusty and gross, and I'm not super impressed with the RB intake. If you look closely at the above image you can see where the aluminum tube is pulling away from the MAF, which of course results in this:
That's super fine dust inside the MAF. Its also present in the intake crossover tube and at the throttle body
We were hammering the car pretty hard over very rough terrain and the RB supplied supports for the MAF and tube were just not up to the task. The bolts went loose with the vibration and the MAF pulled out and broke the seal. The K&N is SHOCKINGLY dirty too, though there is no dust between the filter and MAF inlet inside the aluminum tube so the filter was doing it's job. It would be nice if K&N made a fitted pre-filter for this element but apparently I'm out of luck.
Back to stock airbox for now.
I confirmed the base timing was in fact at 6° BTDC, which is lolz. I went through the documented process to run it up to about 14° and also found the CAS bolt so loose it fell out when I touched it Obviously I corrected that while resetting the timing.
While pressure washing things under the hood I discovered the radiator overflow was VERY full, and there was airspace in the radiator. I resisted the urge to panic and pulled out the HG tester fluid thing and confirmed the air in the system WAS NOT full of combustion byproducts, so the head gasket is probably still fine. I topped off the radiator, again, and realized that the system was pushing air and a little coolant out when hot but not drawing it back in through the cap on cool down, as it should. I put the TSE cap back on the NB and tossed the weird Motorad/Stant cap back on the redneck radiator. I also replaced the tube that runs between the radiator and the reservoir with one that has a more appropriate inside diameter. We'll see if it all works as expected.
Driver side window only goes down about 2" and on a black car in the summer, that'll need to be addressed. Not sure what happened because it was working GREAT, maybe the rough roads popped it out of the track or something.
I need to crawl around the car and do a serious bolt check as I keep finding things that came loose. Unfortunately that'll need to wait until this heat wave chills the **** out.
Nothing like making an expensive K&N filter even more expensive!
If I can figure out a better mount for the Racing Beat intake I'll consider the Outerwears cover, but I think for now I'll be fine with the stock airbox and a good WIX filter.
It's still sitting in my backyard and I still haven't completely unpacked it from the Oregon trip. Maybe if I'm feeling ambitious this weekend I'll roll it over to where I can work on it. Between the smoke from the Dixie fire and the oppressive summer heat I've had very little desire to work on anything.
I actually worked on this piece of trash today! Figured I'd post-***** it up a bit while I'm stuck inside.
I started it up after parking it back in mid June and got to listen to the tappa-tappa-tappa-tappa-tappa-tappa-tappa-tappa-tappa-tappa-tappa-tappa-tappa song of the NA8 people while I tried to figure out why the drivers side window wouldn't go all the way up.
It turns out I cross-threaded one and galled a second of the riv-nuts I put in the door panels in so taking things apart to get into the door was a huge bastard. It turns out the cables on the regulator did that stupid NA thing where they get looped over the glass stop and it prevents you from rolling the window all the way up, but it will go all the way down. No surprise here I guess, I beat on it pretty hard the last time I was out. Rerouting the cable probably fixed it for now.
I also just noticed the screw backing its way out of the gauge cluster
I shut it down and heard a familiar noise.
MOTHER. ******.
Immediate panic set in as I assumed I lost the head gasket again. I pulled out the head gasket test kit and got it set up as before:
I guess its fine?
It got a big surge of air right before I hit record and it didn't IMMEDIATELY turn that sickly yellow green like it did the time the head gasket was roached, so I think we're good. After the hulk rage worked it way out of my system I stopped and thought about it for a bit, then realized the last time I drove it was around town with the shitty FLAPS radiator cap, which is known bad. I did the event in Oregon with the Trackspeed cap that's now in the NB and everything was fine. FLAPS cap, on the other hand, lets hot coolant out and then sucks air back in when things cool down. GARBAGE! Anyway, crisis/part-out/rage quit averted. For now. I need to drive this beast and get some heat in the oil and charge in the battery.
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Obviously I corrected that while resetting the timing.
