cww516

Well, I finally got around to installing the transmission mount I've had in the garage for... 2 years? Maybe 3? Either way, there's a noticeable reduction in driveline slop (snubbed it out trying to back off the ramps with only the clutch pedal, if that's any indication). Still some there, though, time to go shopping for a front engine mount! As much as that job sucked to do on my back, time to go do it again- the Baja is getting the hand-me-down part, and boy, does it need it... Follow up: sucked to do on the Baja, too.

Not sure if it was used on multiple vehicles, but that looks the same as the one that comes with the STI short-throw (or some appearance package or something, all's I know is I have one and it's OEM).

Holy crap! Good to hear you're mostly intact. Get well soon, and don't spend too much of your recuperation time shopping for car parts...

Naw man, Kwik Trip is where it's at. Dunno if you have Casey's by you or if they didn't make it out past Illinois and Iowa, but it's kinda like one of those. Excellent food for a gas station, and pretty decent by objective non-gas station standards.

Having a catted downpipe will help, but it's definitely still a possibility. Porting the wastegate seems to go a long way toward preventing it, too. That said, my downpipe has been in the box in the garage since I bought it however many years ago that was, so I'm not exactly the voice of experience. I do know first-hand that my butt dyno reads significantly higher at around 20 degrees ambient, and since a) overboost seems to be more likely in cold weather, and b) that's basically any given Tuesday between November and March, there's no shortage of opportunities for problems.

They will if you have Brembo calipers. Not positive about the stock calipers, but I'm pretty sure that won't work.

Inb4 you get enabled into buying the Mustang LED fogs... ...and if that's something you're interested in, GTEASER's your guy. I'm 99% sure he started a thread rather than piggy-backing off of something else.

Whelp, looks like I no longer drive the rarest car in the parking lot. My coworker flew down to Orlando on Friday to pick up his new car, an imported '93 Skyline GTS-T. GT-R front clip, full welded-in cage, aftermarket EMS, single-turbo RB25 swap, Project Mu front calipers- looks like someone put a bunch of money into doing things the right way on this car. The importer's butt dyno read somewhere around 400-450 RWHP, and it sounds like it's a handful even with the boost dialed back to about 7 PSI (down from 25) for the drive home. I have yet to hear it or see it in motion, but hopefully that'll happen soon.

Awesome resource, thanks for compiling it! Just to get out in front of this one- I'll leave this open so people can post other build threads they come across, but those posts will go away as soon as the link is added to the first post. Likewise, anything else that gets posted in here will go bye-bye in the interest of keeping this clean and organized.

None all-around will feel a little darty at speed (ask me how I know), but zero in the back and just the least little bit of phthalo blue toe-in in the front will feel a lot better. One of these days, I'll get around to dialing in a little bit of front toe...

Might need to raise that roofline another 6-8" if they want to shoehorn me in there. Actually, that looks a lot closer to the Toyoscibaru...

fahr_side's build thread (link in his sig) goes into a little more detail about how he wired up his setup, could be worth eyeballing that as well. I'm thinking pretty hard about going this route eventually, regardless of what turbo I decide I want to run (stock vs. upgraded), if I ever decide...

Glad to hear it's not something that put glitter in the oil! I'd take a good look at all of the pulleys under that timing cover, though- I'd imagine that if that bolt went between the belt and a pulley, you'd probably have a real problem on your hands, but it couldn't hurt to look.

Must have missed this earlier- same thing happened to me when I put my rear diff inserts in. The nut isn't seized, it's a deformed-thread locknut, so unless you have a pair of the correct size hex nuts you can twist together, you're probably not going to get the nut off the stud. I just pulled the stud all the way out, put a little dab of red Loctite on the end of it, and spun it back in tight.

Noise, vibration, and harshness. I'll bet the bearing is smoother for a little while, but unless it's press-fit onto the shaft and into the shifter cable eye and kept potted in grease, there's really no way for a ball bearing to be better in that application than a plain bushing. The Perrin piece probably rotates on the shaft on the shift adapter until it gets enough grime in there to seize up, and rotates on the greased-up o-rings from then on, whereas the Kartboy bearing probably seizes up and continues to rotate around the shaft. A ball bearing might be better for a track car in California, but for anywhere else, the Perrin option will probably be your best bet. edit: D'oh!

I had to use a regular hammer to knock out the broken stud, but the reason for using something other than a hammer is that you're reducing the amount of shock side-loading you're applying to the wheel bearings. They can handle a little bit of abuse, but they're not spec'd for that kind of shock load, especially not on a regular basis. A bigger hammer (engineer's hammer or similar) would be better than a claw hammer, since you'd be more likely to knock the stud out clean in one hit rather than banging on it and beating up the bearing.

Seems like all the 4th-gen guys are jumping to the SS, and all the 5th-gen guys are moving to the Stinger. I could probably say something about how that makes it convenient for 4th-gen owners to keep hating on 5th-gen owners because it's the same people in different cars, but I won't. Also, I'm a serious sucker for pretty much anything blue with black accents, and that doesn't disappoint. Neither does the SS, for that matter (gotta be fair and impartial), but I sure wouldn't mind having a C7 'Vette in that color scheme...

I've got a picture somewhere of one of the old white Wix filters with oil running down and dripping off, looks like a hot fudge sundae. The Solo cup method works really well, but usually I either don't have any, or don't think about it until I'm under the car, so I don't do it that often.

Craftsman makes a good one. Red and clear hexagonal grip, flat pointed tip, hammer actuated. Also works well if the dealership decides they really want to crank the filter on tight, just apply it to the side. Move over, Leatherman, the most versatile multitool is a flat-blade Craftsman screwdriver with a lifetime warranty.

Be well aware- in my experience, the drain plug knows it's being replaced, and will likely try to jump out of your hand and do a cannonball into the drain pan so as to splash your face with hot oil. Spiteful little bugger...

You haven't had the struts pulled apart, have you? I had that same binding when I installed the upper spring seat without clocking it correctly.

If you're not going with the BFH removal method, rent one of these bad boys from your auto parts store of choice. Worked really well when I changed all the studs on my Baja, although conveniently enough, the only stud it kept slipping off of was the one that was broken. I think O'Reilly called it a GM tie rod separator or something like that, but the bottom of this one hooks onto the back of the hub flange pretty well. http://i1.adis.ws/i/washford/695494?w=637&h=403

Hmm, had I known this was a thing (I don't do the facebooks), I may have made the trek down. Seems like a pretty good showing! Also, I'm seeing a Six-Star license plate frame on that silver GT- I believe that same shop did the work on SomeZero's car as well, haven't seen him around in a while. Would definitely be interesting to see how their STI 6MT swap compares to BBPeik's, although I'd imagine things have to be pretty similar.

I'd be interested to know what their manufacturing capacity is in other countries- from what I understand, they're going to continue to sell most of those vehicles overseas, so if gas goes up here and people want Fiestas again, Ford could be in a position to just import everything. Depending on the cost of labor where they're importing from, that could end up being a net cost savings, without the backlash from suddenly moving production out of the country and cutting a bunch of jobs.

What the heck, sign me up. It'll be a lot easier to convince myself to go with an 18G, STI cams, and WMI if I have these to install as well, right? Pretty sure that's how that works. PM on the way shortly.