Long overdue update:
s*** keeps breaking and it's becoming a pain in the ass keeping up with it lol.
my primary o2 sensor finally died, so I tried to be cheap and replaced it with a Prime Choice Auto ebay brand sensor for like $20 bucks and it ended up failing a month later. After dealing with that I just spent the extra cash and picked up an OEM one.
Found a huge tear in the wastegate line and replaced that
Then after checking my suspension one day I found that the ball joints on the front Moog endlinks had seized. So I replaced them with some stainless hardware and threaded rods from McMasterCarr.
They function like they should. Haven't had any problems driving through the canyons so far.
I've always had a difficult time heel-toeing with the stock p5 pedal setup so on one of my days off I decided to try and make a more functional gas pedal.
First I took an angle grinder and hacked up the scrap aluminum
Then took a file and beveled the edges
After I used the drillpress to drill/countersink some holes. I eyeballed the holes which is why they aren't perfect lol
And the finished product. Turned out kind of ugly, but it definitely makes spirited driving a lot more fun.
Then I went to replace my NGK G-power plugs with some V-power ones only to find that one of the spark plug ports in the head was stripped when i went to torque everything to spec (notcool). At this point I was convinced the head needed to be removed/machined, but after some researching I decided to give this repair kit from pepboys a try:
it worked
snagged a used CR3 motorsports ADP off the facebook group
after the sticker removal and some polish
received the high flow cat (300 cell spun) i ordered. getting it to my house was a real pain in the ass since its apparently illegal to ship to CA directly from the distributor... which is probably why most people i know run catless lol. So i had to ship it to my girlfriend who lives out of state and then have her ship it to me.
Unboxed the cheap harbor freight flux wire welder a week later and went at it. This was my first time welding so it was an interesting but fun learning experience lol.
I had originally planned on swapping the high flow cat with the fake one that the previous owner had welded on, but after taking a few measurements I realized that getting the angle correct for the rest of the piping as well as welding the really thin stainless with the limited harbor freight welder would be much more of a challenge than I could handle, so I just chopped the midpipe and slipped on the cat.
the first weld turned out ugly as s*** haha
the second attempt turned out much better
The megan racing turbo muffler is a little too large for my taste, plus the tip sticks out a bit from the bumper. Not sure if im going to keep it that way. The car is really loud now, so a resonator and new muffler might be something to come in the near future.
I noticed the car pulls much better from the mid to higher rpm range, although the crappy ebay F1 racing clutch slips in 3rd gear. I am now picking up an ACT clutch kit as its replacement.
I still have the unmodified superstock map loaded on the SSAFC. After finals I'll be installing my AEM wideband so I can hopefully get a bit more power out of the car.
I'm hoping to get a decent tax return this year so I can start saving for a forged motor build and LSD.
random photo