What did you do to your 5th gen today?? -V4

[dgoodhue]

The passenger side cam gears do not turn by themselves.

[Infosecdad]

1 hour ago, Falcor said:

I think I'll be doing my own timing belt in a month or two. I know the lockdown kit is for the driver's side. What keeps the other side from turning? I've never done a timing belt, so sorry for the noob question. Still need to gather everything up.

Like dgoodhue said, the passenger side doesn't move because they aren't under tension when the belt is removed. The driver's side is under tension, that why the lockdown kit is very helpful.

[tdelker]

The passenger side has the valves closed when the timing marks are aligned, so there is nothing pushing them. On the driver's side the valves are partially open so the spring wants to push the cams around.

Read the long timing belt thread, good stuff in there.

A few quick notes:

 

1) Removing the cam pulley to get to the seal is *very* challenging. 1000 ftlb electric impact failed for me. My suggestion - only do it if they are leaking. If they are, be prepared to drill the head off or use an extractor that fits on the outside of the head.

2) Water pump isn't necessary to change and can lead to more problems so I would leave it.

3) gates N kits are the 'good' bearings. On amazon and or rock auto for best price.

4) Get the factory service manual and follow the steps. They are good.

5) Some of the lines on the belt are on a 'tooth' and some are on a 'valley'. This is by design. The factory service manual will call out how many teeth or 1/2 teeth between lines. Count to be sure. They you can just line up the belt lines with the cam lines and not worry too much about the time cover lines.

6) Have a way to bleed the tensioner identified. I held it in my vice and used a c-clamp with a razor blade between the shaft and the c-clamp to keep it from spinning with the c-clamp.

7) The bottom roller goes on last. 100% make sure it is lined up with the hole. If you try to leverage it on with the bolt you will cross thread in the aluminum and have a challenge on your hands. I had my son come out and I got the roller lined up and he started the bolt.

8. Don't stress too much about rotating the cams. When the crank is lined up at 'TDC' all 4 cylinders are in mid-stroke, so you won't hit a piston by opening the valves. You just don't want to have both exhaust and intake fully open or they *might* hit. So as long as you are only moving one at a time, you won't cause damage.

Edited August 25, 2022 by tdelker

[Humble Rumble]

Did a big thing Tuesday night. Installed the full braking system from STI Type RA #262/500. Silver Brembo 6pot/2pot, OEM Type RA pads, OEM Type RA drilled rotors re-drilled for 5x100 (I had Ultima Race Works do re-drilling for me, same shop that did my corner balancing and dyno runs). These are essentially identical to the 18+ STI 6pot/2pot but came silver from the factory. I got an absolutely ridiculous deal on this entire setup, it has roughly 31k miles on it, everything is in incredible condition, the pads and rotors still have tons of life left on them (which is why I opted for re-drilling them), and the setup came 100% fully complete: every single piece of hardware needed was included and all of it appeared to be very nearly brand new if not completely new. It even came with the brake lines but I didn't need them since I already have Goodridge lines. 

Believe it or not, this swap was one of the easiest, most hassle-free projects/upgrades I've ever done on this car. Literally everything is 100% direct bolt-up, with the only caveats being that you either need to trim your OEM dustshields back a bit, or take them off and replace them with the STI specific dustshields (which involves removing the wheel hubs), and of course 5x100 rotors in the correct size. I opted for re-drilling  the OEM Type RA rotors and trimming my stock dustshields, and running them down until the rotors need to be replaced. After that, my plan is to replace the rotors with 18+ STI-specific Girodisc 2-piece rotors, and I'll swap to the STI dustshields when doing those rotors (mostly because my car is a 130k mile Chicago car and my hubs have NEVER been off, so I'm positive that is going to be a headache inducing, multi-day task to get them removed). As for the trimming of the OEM dustshields, the rears need essentially the entire circumference outer lip trimmed off for the rotors to fit, and a bit of material removed near both caliper mounting points for the caliper to fit. The fronts need very little if anything removed at all. We trimmed a bit near the mounting points again for clearance sake, but if your dust shield is a bit too close for your tastes, you can just bend it back away from the rotor and clear fine.

Small note: the STI uses the identical e-brake size to the 5th gen, so you don't have to mess with the e-brake in any capacity for this swap. Hats of the rotors are identical diameters and the e-brake functions exactly as it did before. 

Final notes: after driving them for a bit, as expected, they're absolutely incredible compared to the OEM brakes. Of course, they bite and stop like a brick wall compared to the originals, but what I didn't expect was how completely linear they are with the pedal feedback. The pressure applied to the rotor feels directly proportional to the pressure applied to the pedal, which feels fantastic to drive. So far, I have had no issues with running the factory master cylinder, going to give it a bit longer to see if I need to swap to the STI one, but I suspect I'll be fine.

Also, as far as pads, my preferred track pad brand Carbotech does in fact make both fronts and backs for the 18+ STI rotors, so I have a set of XP10 pads all around delivering today so that I'm covered to knock out 1 or 2 more track days this year.

Honestly, this pretty much finishes my car for the year. I've done an absolutely insane transformation since getting my car back in November, and pretty much checked off just about every single thing I wanted to do this year. Brembos were not initially in my plans, but when this set came up at the price they did, I knew that I would never again find a factory silver set, that is this complete, in this good of condition, that is out-of-the-box runnable, for the price I got it for, ever again. So I jumped on it, and man am I glad I did.

 

[FLlegacy]

On 8/24/2022 at 8:56 PM, Falcor said:

I think I'll be doing my own timing belt in a month or two. I know the lockdown kit is for the driver's side. What keeps the other side from turning? I've never done a timing belt, so sorry for the noob question. Still need to gather everything up.

That side the valves are all closed so there is no tension on the cams they stay exactly where they are. One thing I had trouble with was the belt guides, I loosened them up and as I got the belt lined up on each exhaust cam I tightened the guide all the way up to keep the belt in place.

Also, I didn't install the pulleys until I had the belt lined up with the cams and i had the guides tightened up so the belt would stay on without jumping a tooth.

It took a while to get it all lined up, but it fired right up when I got it all buttoned back up.

[tdelker]

Just make sure to adjust the guides after using them to hold the belt (I'm sure that was implied!). They should have a tool in the timing belt kit. Gates had a big 'caution' as they had seen some failures recently.

Manuals will have a guide over the crank gear but autos won't have that guide. They all will have guides in the 4 corners.

[FLlegacy]

17 hours ago, tdelker said:

Just make sure to adjust the guides after using them to hold the belt (I'm sure that was implied!). They should have a tool in the timing belt kit. Gates had a big 'caution' as they had seen some failures recently.

Manuals will have a guide over the crank gear but autos won't have that guide. They all will have guides in the 4 corners.

The spec I believe is 1mm +/- .5mm. I flattened a piece of cardboard and used that.

[Falcor]

Paid it off today.

[ToolTime]

Got a Cobb tuner and installed the OTS Stage 1 93 v400 map. Holly shit this is what I've been missing? I've had a 06 LGT and a 08 GTI and I've never had them tuned. I never realized the difference would be that staggering. Full throttle and boost on demand in any gear any time.

 

Needless to say I have a permanent grin on my face for the foreseeable future

[Zee199969]

23 hours ago, ToolTime said:

Got a Cobb tuner and installed the OTS Stage 1 93 v400 map. Holly shit this is what I've been missing? I've had a 06 LGT and a 08 GTI and I've never had them tuned. I never realized the difference would be that staggering. Full throttle and boost on demand in any gear any time.

 

Needless to say I have a permanent grin on my face for the foreseeable future

It really is awesome how just a quick tune can change the car. I'd recommend a protune if possible, but for now enjoy!

[ToolTime]

On 9/7/2022 at 9:13 PM, Zee199969 said:

It really is awesome how just a quick tune can change the car. I'd recommend a protune if possible, but for now enjoy!

it's great, best upgrade to any car by far.

I tried the 91 map just for fun and it definitely wasn't as nice and responsive (on 93 oct fuel). Back to the 93 but I'm sticking with a Low Wastegate option to help with overboosting just in case. The car has 110k on it and I'm trying to have responsible fun.

When I get the downpipe to match my q300 I'll probably go for a protune. Living in Philly there are some good shops within driving distance. But if anyone has any recommendations I'm happy to hear about them

On a side note I changed from a Bosch dot 5.1 fluid in the clutch to ATE Type 200 dot 4. I found the feel of the 5.1 was too soft, even though it has a longer life span I don't think it's great for these cars. I'll be flushing the brakes tomorrow as well. There is a little black in the clutch fluid and I think a seal is breaking down. I just changed the fluid a few months ago and it's already dirty. There was a lot of black buildup inside my clutch damper as well when I took it off. My mechanic and I pulled it apart to have a look.
I've had some issues with getting the clutch to feel like it has a reliable grabbing point and I hope I've solved it.

 

I suspect there is also a vacuum leak somewhere. When coming to a stop and shifting into Neutral the car will dip to 500-600 rpm and rough idle for a second before bumping up to 700 rpm and being stable. Same happens when I start it cold. The PCV is new but the connector below it that attaches to the block looks like it's leaking. I have a new one but those hose clamps are such a PITA. I also noticed my brakes are rock hard in the morning. When I pump them once or twice while the car is running my AFR Correction will spike to 15-20%. Sometimes it maxes out and does the stumbling. Brake booster leak?

[motorbreath]

14 hours ago, ToolTime said:

When I get the downpipe to match my q300 I'll probably go for a protune. Living in Philly there are some good shops within driving distance. But if anyone has any recommendations I'm happy to hear about them

I just finished an open-source e-tune with Shinji Tuned, I have the Invidia catted j-pipe/down-pipe and Q300 cat-back exhaust. I also swapped in a lightly used stock turbo, aftermarket 3-port BCS, along with an aftermarket TMIC. I do not think there is much more top-end power, but my butt dyno feels a ton more mid-range. Attached is a plot of the boost pressure (psi) versus RPM for a 3rd gear WOT run (3k to redline). It is not from the final version of the tune, but the second to last one.

Unfortunately I did not do any logging with the stock setup, but at 110k miles on the engine/turbo with a glitching wastegate actuator, that probably would not have been reflective of stock performance.

Also, note that this tune is for 91 octane (AKI or  (R+M)/2), getting 93 is not so easy in my area.

[FLlegacy]

17 hours ago, ToolTime said:

it's great, best upgrade to any car by far.

I tried the 91 map just for fun and it definitely wasn't as nice and responsive (on 93 oct fuel). Back to the 93 but I'm sticking with a Low Wastegate option to help with overboosting just in case. The car has 110k on it and I'm trying to have responsible fun.

When I get the downpipe to match my q300 I'll probably go for a protune. Living in Philly there are some good shops within driving distance. But if anyone has any recommendations I'm happy to hear about them

On a side note I changed from a Bosch dot 5.1 fluid in the clutch to ATE Type 200 dot 4. I found the feel of the 5.1 was too soft, even though it has a longer life span I don't think it's great for these cars. I'll be flushing the brakes tomorrow as well. There is a little black in the clutch fluid and I think a seal is breaking down. I just changed the fluid a few months ago and it's already dirty. There was a lot of black buildup inside my clutch damper as well when I took it off. My mechanic and I pulled it apart to have a look.
I've had some issues with getting the clutch to feel like it has a reliable grabbing point and I hope I've solved it.

 

I suspect there is also a vacuum leak somewhere. When coming to a stop and shifting into Neutral the car will dip to 500-600 rpm and rough idle for a second before bumping up to 700 rpm and being stable. Same happens when I start it cold. The PCV is new but the connector below it that attaches to the block looks like it's leaking. I have a new one but those hose clamps are such a PITA. I also noticed my brakes are rock hard in the morning. When I pump them once or twice while the car is running my AFR Correction will spike to 15-20%. Sometimes it maxes out and does the stumbling. Brake booster leak?

The hose clamps have a special tool to remove/install them its available on amazon fairly cheap.

 

https://www.amazon.com/Pliers-Clic-R-Mercedes-Collar-Repair/dp/B07F8W7QNM/ref=asc_df_B07F8W7QNM/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=310828259700&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=16663866057527646614&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9012169&hvtargid=pla-570939762903&psc=1&tag=&ref=&adgrpid=65583250281&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvadid=310828259700&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=16663866057527646614&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9012169&hvtargid=pla-570939762903

[Falcor]

I just checked and the closest 93 octane to Pittsburg (south east KS) is 30 min away. 

[motorbreath]

20 hours ago, Falcor said:

I just checked and the closest 93 octane to Pittsburg (south east KS) is 30 min away. 

Yeah, not many newer engines actually need 93. I think direct injection has reduced issues with knock compared to port injection.

I have 93 available down the street, but whenever I leave the city where I live I have a hard time finding it, so I'm sticking with a 91 octane tune.

[ToolTime]

On 9/11/2022 at 4:22 PM, FLlegacy said:

The hose clamps have a special tool to remove/install them its available on amazon fairly cheap.

 

https://www.amazon.com/Pliers-Clic-R-Mercedes-Collar-Repair/dp/B07F8W7QNM/ref=asc_df_B07F8W7QNM/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=310828259700&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=16663866057527646614&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9012169&hvtargid=pla-570939762903&psc=1&tag=&ref=&adgrpid=65583250281&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvadid=310828259700&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=16663866057527646614&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9012169&hvtargid=pla-570939762903

I ordered them! Thanks, I've been using a pair or wire snips with moderate success but I hate these things enough to buy those pliers.

On 9/17/2022 at 12:38 PM, Falcor said:

I just checked and the closest 93 octane to Pittsburg (south east KS) is 30 min away. 

Luckily down the east coast I can reliably find 93, and I sometimes keep a bottle of octane booster just in case of questionable gas.

 

I bought some BBS lugnuts, black. My oem ones were looking beat up and it was hard to find a nice alternative that weren't super expensive. But hey they were $40 and are black powder-coated stainless, look great. Flushed the brakes with some ATE Type 200, rotated the tires, installed my Kartboy Front endlinks and got an inspection. Turns out my front sway bar is bent (yay) and my control arm bushings are spent Had to cut the old endlink off with a grinder because they were so rusted.
Anyone have any control arm suggestions? OEM?

[Loya1ty]

On 8/9/2022 at 10:06 AM, Loya1ty said:

I'm just gonna assume head gaskets lol Want to sell the car anyway, so thinking I'll have my fun pulling the engine and cleaning things up myself and parting ways with it soon after.

Had some time the other weekend to diagnose a little further. Turns out the coolant was just a little dirty, so no oil there. Had the codes pulled and ended up being the Body Valve on the CVT. Exact code i think was either high or low voltage on the solenoid. Decided I don't have time/patience to mess with CVT fluid procedures and dropped it off at the dealer yesterday. Sucks to spend 1800 on this car but it is what it is. Still undecided to continue commuting it or selling it. Might hit up KBB/Carmax and such to get a feel. If I keep riding it, I might just end up gifting it to my sister in the future who has 4 kids lol 1 driving and 1 soon to be.

[DrD123]

On 9/17/2022 at 10:38 AM, Falcor said:

I just checked and the closest 93 octane to Pittsburg (south east KS) is 30 min away. 

Lucky!  They don't even have 93 in NM that I have found (on a trip down to Carlsbad, I couldn't even get 91 - only 90 at the time!) - in Albuquerque, 91 is the highest you can find unless you get some race gas at 100+ and mix...  did that once on my old WRX (very noticeable difference) but haven't on the LGT - the local station that had Trick race gas (107, I think) is long gone...

(main reason they don't have it here is the elevation - I live at about 6k ft. above sea level...)

[Humble Rumble]

The last thing I shared in this thread was the Brembo swap, so needless to say, have a fair amount to share. I'll try to keep it brief and to as few posts as the site will let me.

1. Tinted the Ganador turn signals yellow to match my headlights. Nice little touch, love how they came out, still need to wire the signals for power lol. 

2. Rear bumper was replaced with brand new OEM through insurance. Car was hit in my own driveway, cosmetic damage to the bumper only thankfully. 

3. Gialla Sportivo lip finally painted after 5 years of ownership. 

4. Launched the 2nd large drop of my sticker shop Cool Select Auto Works (http://coolselectauto.works), and fully re-did my rear window stickers after many years. Sad to see some of my old favorites go, but love how the rear window turned out with the color scheme and now my car works as a rolling catalogue. 

5. Participated in my first full track day of the year. Drove a new track: Blackhawk Farms. Had a great time, got a cool video I'll post later, and learned that I definitely need an ATF cooler for the future. 

6. Set of Prova Rain Guards finally sourced after 5+ years of searching. Obtained via the assistance of Jesse Streeter Corp since MJB auto-bidding is no longer available. 7th or 8th set in the states, 9/10 condition. 

7. Brand new bumper (very stressfully) cut to accommodate installation of the Gialla rear lip. 

8. Gialla Sportivo lip finally installed. The paint match is a little off so I'm going to have it redone, but I *LOVE* how it looks. Honestly like it fully colored too instead of with the middle blacked out. Going to likely get some Chargespeed reflectors for the holes. Also drove to my favorite secret photo spot and got a couple glam shots. 

9. Checked off the final item on my checklist for the year: set of SPL Billet Rear Control Arms. Best control arms on the market for this chassis. Full billet body, teflon-lined FK Heim joints, full titanium hardware. Didn't expect to buy these this year but found an open box sale for several hundred off retail, so snagged them. 

10. Left side SPL arm installed. The old Whiteline arms fought like a mfer, and took us two nights and a combination of sawzall and angle grinder to literally cut and peel the inner bushing and sleeve like an onion to get the seized POS out. 

11. Day 3: Right side SPL arm installed. Bit quicker than the other side, but still, F*** Whiteline's poor quality materials and construction. Fine for literally ONLY adding camber, and never having a hope of adjusting them again in the future. Never understood why the don't put the SPL logo on both sides of these. Alignment scheduled this afternoon (9/26).

12. Prova Rain Guards fully installed. Took me 3 full days to get the 10-year old existing 3M tape removed so I could add fresh. Love how they look, and happy to have this grail item checked off. 

 

Edited September 26, 2022 by Humble Rumble

[Humble Rumble]

Picked up a brand new, 12-row, 2-pass, U-flow Setrab ProLine COM cooler for stupidly cheap recently from my local shop (they mis-ordered, had no other use for it, gave it to me at a steal). This is normally a $500+ cooler and I only paid $100. Turns out it's just about damn perfect size for the lower grille opening. I'm going to be running it as an in-line ATF cooler after the radiator-integrated ATF cooler and before the fluid return to the transmission.

It fits almost perfectly with only some very minor modification. I needed to notch the bottom metal just a but for the sides of the cooler to set back to the desired location, and re-located my ambient air temp sensor to a different spot. I also swapped the two bottom bolts on the middle brace to Allen bolts from hex head bolts so that the heads were lower clearance and allowed the cooler to sit exactly where I wanted it to. 

Mounted the cooler directly to the bottom side of the crash bar with nutserts, and actually was able to perfectly reuse the two hex bolts I swapped out from behind the cooler to attach it lol. I did need to trim the bottom faring around the cooler obviously, but the way everything lines up, the faring leads RIGHT up to the bottom edge of the cooler, so no rows of the cooler are obstructed by the faring. Fits perfectly. Even better still: *NO* bumper modification needed at all with this size and layout cooler, and the placement i opted for. The bumper bucktooth clears the cooler perfectly and everything fits back together as if it was meant to be there. I could cut the bucktooth out, but this is a pretty high capacity cooler for the application, so I honestly think it will still do more than enough cooling with that small section blocked.

I realized I didn't have a line union I needed to complete the plumbing, so I just capped the cooler holes back up for now and have the needed fittings delivering this afternoon to hopefully finish this up and get it running. 

As for the fittings I still needed, I'm using 2x -6AN hose barbs, one in the return line from the cooler and one in the return line to the transmission, joined together with a -6AN male-to-male union. This setup also allows me to very, very easily replace the union with a sensor port in the future when I want to set up a trans temp gauge. 

  

[Scubaboo]

Here comes Humble with another batch of mods that would be an entire build for some of us lol!

Thats a pretty huge trans cooler, but fit the lower bumper really well.  You mentioned you saw during the trackday you saw you really needed a trans cooler, how so?

[Humble Rumble]

2 minutes ago, Scubaboo said:

Here comes Humble with another batch of mods that would be an entire build for some of us lol!

Thats a pretty huge trans cooler, but fit the lower bumper really well.  You mentioned you saw during the trackday you saw you really needed a trans cooler, how so?

Are you guys getting sick of my mods?  I got a goal and I want to get there lmao. Only got so long on this earth. 

About 10-12 minutes into each track session, my "AT OIL TEMP" light would come on, and I'd have to do a cool down lap for it to go back off. Without the car or my Btssm setup having a way to monitor trans temps, that was my only indiciation, but I've also never once seen that happen before while on track. Only other time I saw that come on was with a sustained top speed run, and it came on with a bunch of other lights that one by one went back off as I slowed down.

Granted, this was my first track day with the new radiator setup, and also my first time at the specific track I was running, but I want to be able to go the entire session with no concerns. It's a possibility that the transmission portion of the new radiator is potentially not as efficient as stock for cooling ATF in track conditions, but it's kicking ass on the coolant temps so even if that is the case, I still consider it worthwhile. Coolant temps stayed below 210F the entire track day. Got a 2-day track event coming up this weekend, so we'll see how it does there. Hoping for no issues. 

[Scooby Fan]

No way we are sick of your  mods....you are just doing the stuff we all dream about doing but never get around to. I used to do this kind of stuff but with early British sports cars in the 60's and 70's....now I am just happy to have a nice car with a few "Personal Mods" to make it a bit nicer to drive and feel like it  is mine. 

Sometimes I read your posts and it reminds me of "Frederick" who was very active on here as he built a Leggy 3.6R into a viable race car..... Apparently a friend of his asked him..... "So, how much has it cost your to make your car undriveable?" 

Keep at it....it is fun reading for the rest of us.

1962 TR-3b.....bunch of serious mods on this one....you can just see the oil cooler above the license plate inside the grill. Consistent winner in Autocross, Slalom and Gymkhana events during the 70's........that was back in the day when I was a lot younger and still had hair.  

Edited October 10, 2022 by Scooby Fan

[Scubaboo]

1 hour ago, Humble Rumble said:

Are you guys getting sick of my mods?  I got a goal and I want to get there lmao. Only got so long on this earth. 

About 10-12 minutes into each track session, my "AT OIL TEMP" light would come on, and I'd have to do a cool down lap for it to go back off. Without the car or my Btssm setup having a way to monitor trans temps, that was my only indiciation, but I've also never once seen that happen before while on track. Only other time I saw that come on was with a sustained top speed run, and it came on with a bunch of other lights that one by one went back off as I slowed down.

Granted, this was my first track day with the new radiator setup, and also my first time at the specific track I was running, but I want to be able to go the entire session with no concerns. It's a possibility that the transmission portion of the new radiator is potentially not as efficient as stock for cooling ATF in track conditions, but it's kicking ass on the coolant temps so even if that is the case, I still consider it worthwhile. Coolant temps stayed below 210F the entire track day. Got a 2-day track event coming up this weekend, so we'll see how it does there. Hoping for no issues. 

No, not at all!  Always cool to see what other people are doing with these cars we have.  Not many of us out there lol!

Besides that, its doubly cool how you've really put effort in finding out and sharing the details of the platform and what is out there for it, thanks for that!

Oh yeah, an AT Temp warning would have me looking for a cooler too.  If you are tracking I would suggest having gauges or btsm online to monitor.  I remember hexmods talking about the 5eat cooling here and that config may result in overcooling the fluid? IIRC he suggests a thermostat controlled layout for this.

Another thing good may be putting in synthetic fluid?  Amsoil seems to be popular with the 4th gen modded 5EAT GT crowd, and I have Redline in my own 5EAT GT with no issues so far (knock on wood).

One more mod I remember is hardened center diff stick bearings.  I remember a poster in the forum fabbing some up for his 4th gen and Hexmods eventually offering it also.

Anyway I hope the cooler fixes your trackday issues, good luck!

[Humble Rumble]

13 hours ago, Scubaboo said:

No, not at all!  Always cool to see what other people are doing with these cars we have.  Not many of us out there lol!

Besides that, its doubly cool how you've really put effort in finding out and sharing the details of the platform and what is out there for it, thanks for that!

Oh yeah, an AT Temp warning would have me looking for a cooler too.  If you are tracking I would suggest having gauges or btsm online to monitor.  I remember hexmods talking about the 5eat cooling here and that config may result in overcooling the fluid? IIRC he suggests a thermostat controlled layout for this.

Another thing good may be putting in synthetic fluid?  Amsoil seems to be popular with the 4th gen modded 5EAT GT crowd, and I have Redline in my own 5EAT GT with no issues so far (knock on wood).

One more mod I remember is hardened center diff stick bearings.  I remember a poster in the forum fabbing some up for his 4th gen and Hexmods eventually offering it also.

Anyway I hope the cooler fixes your trackday issues, good luck!

I'm already running Btssm on a tablet, but unfortunately that only has the capability to display oil and coolant temps, not trans, so I'm planning on running a gauge in the future. Thermostat is a good idea too, and the layout I'm going with should let me be able to add that as well. 

As for fluid, I've been running Amsoil Signature Series ATF since my first fluid change in 2018. Only fluid I'll run until something comes along that is categorically better in every way. And I have also done the Prothane press-in bushing inserts on the rear diff mount and the middle carrier mount, but I want to swap out the carrier mount for a proper stiffened one like Kein next year. Also want to do my subframe bushings and the Prova inserts next year as well, should make the car feel brand new.