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Nah, it looks too much out of proportion with the rest of the car IMO
I just need to build an equally proportional swing away tire carrier bumper for the rear, then I can finally get one of those "It's a Jeep thing, you wouldn't understand" bumper stickers for it.
...I do need to build some way to carry a spare and I was going to build a rear bumper 🤔
I just need to build an equally proportional swing away tire carrier bumper for the rear, then I can finally get one of those "It's a Jeep thing, you wouldn't understand" bumper stickers for it.
...I do need to build some way to carry a spare and I was going to build a rear bumper 🤔
You'll probably need to put the turbo back on in order to keep up with traffic on the freeway once you add that much weight.
I need this for parking in SF! Besides, don't let all these track guys give you ****, they're just scared. Look at that thing, you probably have 100#'s of down force static! Hang a spare way off the rear to balance and you will be lapping those guys WOT the entire time.
And somehow I managed to keep the car out of the lake and didn't hit any of the trees. All in all, a good time.
Well, mostly good. I've got a "popcorn" kind of noise coming from the back end of the car somewhere when accelerating from a stop. It doesn't sound like the diff or even an axle so I need to get under there and do a full bolt & bushing check sooner rather than later.
Iffen ya'll follow me on the Instantgrahms (@somewhat_potato) some of this one will be a repeat.
I got the car up on jackstands last night and pulled the wheels off and started trying to find my popcorn noise.
My long suffering and ever patient wife agreed to jump in and fire it up, then shift up and down through the gears while I crawled around underneath it and pushed on things with the jack.
Was this dangerous? Oh you bet your sweet *** it was dangerous.
Did it help me find the problem? Surely, it did not.
However, after she went inside and the smoke from the clutch cleared, I discovered this:
That, my friends, is an unconstrained polyurethane bushing trying to push its way out of the lower control arm.
The bolt is tight, but the washer is missing. It turns out its like this on both sides.
Looking in my box of old bushings and leftover hardware from the poly bush install, there are no extra washers. I checked the second ES poly bushing kit that I was going to install on the NB and again, no washers. Checking my NB which still has stock bushings, there are no washers in this location from the factory. With the factory bushing the steel core is bonded to the rubber bush which is fully bound in the lower arm "eye" so no washer is required. With the poly, you need something to hold the bush in place.
With a lot of swearing and hammering on things I managed to get everything apart, then found these 4 zinc coated steel washers that were tied up with my DIY bushing puller rig that perfectly match the lower suspension bolt.
Perhaps too perfectly. Hummm....
Cleaned everything up as best as I could, re-greased everything, put it all back together and torqued it to spec. While I had the grease gun out I decided it was a good time to blast my SadFAB poly-bronze retrofit kit with some fresh grease, and do a general bolt check.
I hate grease guns. Also it turns out this "Lock'n'Lube" 90° adapter is an enormous piece of ****.
The "Lock'n'Lube" is quite the conundrum.
As far as I can tell, if provides zero 'feedback' to indicate that its 'clicked' into place, yet it is nearly impossible to remove from the grease nipple. It's ability to tenaciously cling to the nipple like a starving puppy would lead you to believe that its made a good seal, however, it seems that it is physically incapable of getting grease INTO the zerk, and instead, blasts it all over everything else.
What a piece of trash. Another pair of gloves ruined by the "Lock'n'Lube"
While doing my bolt check I discovered some very uneven wear on the brake rotors and pads, so in the theme of inspecting ALLTHETHINGS they came apart as well.
After a protracted battle for control, the calipers came off and I discovered the slider pins were all dry as a bone. What's worse, one of them was rusty. They all got cleaned, de-rusted, polished, greased, and reassembled. After my test drive the "streaks" of rust immediately disappeared off the rotor face so I'm feeling much better about the brake function in the rear.
All maintenance items thus completed, tires went back on and off I went to try to get a spare key cut.
Lo and behold, my "popcorn" noise coming from the rear of the car when leaving form a stop is now completely eliminated. w00t! It's amazing how proper assembly can resolve some of these issues.
posi-cat for providing Monday morning reading material
Hah! Glad I could entertain.
I drove to 3 different places this weekend trying to get a key cut for the NA and nobody had blanks. I'm not talking about the "plug key into machine and hope for the best" kiosks, I mean like old-school hardware stores where a human has to do the work. Sad times. I'll have to poke the 3 previous POs and see if anyone has an extra key lying around. Otherwise it's locksmith time.
Actually I'd forgotten this was for your NA, and I was thinking of my Miata. But looking at the pic, yeah, it looks like the FD and NA key blanks are the same. So sure!
Actually I'd forgotten this was for your NA, and I was thinking of my Miata. But looking at the pic, yeah, it looks like the FD and NA key blanks are the same. So sure!
--Ian
Done! I guess I'll figure out what to do with the other 46 of them later
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Besides, don't let all these track guys give you ****, they're just scared. Look at that thing, you probably have 100#'s of down force static! Hang a spare way off the rear to balance and you will be lapping those guys WOT the entire time.
