Posts from ‘Cars’
Stuff Happens
So a lot of things have happened in the past few months and I’ve been too busy to update.
So on dec 4th i was hit by a girl in a honda accord who was trying to switch lanes and didnt bother to check her blind spot. The result is that my front lip is pretty much destroyed, the bumper took some damage as well as the fender. Im considering upgrading to an aftermarket bumper depending on the insurance situation.
Recently my stock radiator also took a dump, and cracked and sprayed coolant all over my engine bay. So I’ve changed out stock plastic tank radiator for a high performance 2 core aluminum version made by Ron Davis, while i was at it, i also changed out the hoses and replaced them with silicon counter parts made by Samco. While all the cooling parts were out i almost made it an opportunity to install my Mazmart thermostat.
In the near future, i signed up for a group buy for 2 piece Girodisk rotors, they are fully floating 2 piece design with directional vanes, along with new Carbotech pads i think they would make a pretty nice brake upgrade, and good for weight reduction too.
Finally got the car back into shape and hit up 2 track days almost consecutively. Buttonwillow CW13 and Autoclub Speedway Roval for mazfest. My times improved drastically with the new tires, and a little bit of more driving experience i’d like to think, i managed to knock down 9 seconds from my previous best laps on both of the tracks. Landing me a 2:17 on buttonwillow and a 2:09 on autoclub speedway (yes i know i can still use more work). The RS3s were great, intially they felt a little bit sloppy because of the softer sidewalls, but as they heated they gripped exceptionally. Also raising the car a little bit from its previous height helped the bumpstops to engage less often and made the car more predicatable going from neutral to slight oversteer at track out.
The radiator broke, probably due to tracking the car at high ambient temps, and also the high mileage of the car (over 100k miles, bye bye warranties). The plan is to replace it with a mazdaspeed competition radiator and replace all the stock rubber hoses with SAMCO silicon pieces. Also a new set of brake rotors and brake pads are in the near future.
some random photos
so been inactive for a while, i finally fixed my underbody damage. The shop did a pretty decent job even matching up the orange peel to stock, although they installed my aero flares a little too low, going back to get it fixed soon.
Recently i had to replace my battery and tires, so i got a braille 15lb battery to replace my red-top, and ordered a set of RS-3s. Since i was going to take the tires off anyways, thought i’d give my rims a refresher and get rid of that tired time attack look (its way played out).
Big thanks to Matt at VMR (http://www.velocitymotoring.com) for hooking up the powder coating!
If form follows function, then this would be perfect for the performance machine in post zombie apocalypse
