Sick build man, I always love reading your updates here.

 

Looking good. I've snapped the arm that connects the rod to the actuator. FWIW the copper "high temp" anti-seize works well as a lubricant...if you can get the arms out to apply it.

 

my old stock T2 seats didn't even weigh 25 lbs..

the hole in the front cover is fine, they machine out the oil pan bolts all the way through.

 

The stock GTUs seats I took out of the car weighed 35lbs with tracks.

But mostly I needed new seats because the factory seats were broken and have zero lateral support.

 

'scribed

 

Nice build man. I hope to have mine moving like this in the coming days.
Keep it up!

 

No new pics doesn't mean no new work. I picked up a new toy this weekend that has made all the suspension rebuild a ton easier.



The car needs all new wheel bearings on top of the DTSS eliminator bushings and new rear control arm bushings (stock rubber). Figured this would pay for itself quickly.

Thanks to TeamRX8 I have started laying the groundwork for a durable and quiet (enough) exhaust system. It isn't going to be cheap but then again, none of this build has been cheap yet.

 

Playing with my new toy. The car needs wheel bearings all around, or at least they have more play than I'd like. Might as well do it while everything is disassembled.



I'm getting lazier in my cleaning. My rear hubs are still dirty but clean enough for something that's just going to be covered in grime after the first couple events anyway. If Mazdacomp would get off their butts and send me my new rear bearings I could get these back in the car. I went with MMR's rear DTSS eliminator bushings and pressed those in already.



MMR also hooked me up with some new UHMW subframe bushings. the subframe didn't take too much cleaning to look decent.



I'm going with their individual camber adjusters. Normally pillowballs are illegal in STS, but the stock linkage is a pillowball so it's okay here. I'll be using these with new stock rubber control arm bushings. The bushings that were in the control arms looked and felt alright, but they're cheap so I decided to replace them.



More pics soon...

 

If you figure out a way to keep the front wheel bearings tight for more than a few events, let me know. Great job so far as always.

 

So.... I'm just going to drop my car off at your house I need to do my bushings and DTSS Eliminators too. That press looks pretty sweet

 

Hey, for what it's worth on the seats, the ST* rule on weight is 25lbs for the seat + everything that connects it to the car: http://cms.scca.com/documents/Solo_R...Solo_Rules.pdf

This opens up pretty much all of the fixed back seats as well, since most mounting rails are ~12lbs and the seats are 13-17lbs depending on who makes them. Reclining seats are generally 26lbs or more before the 12+lbs of mounting brackets. I've heard from a few people though that it's fine to weld on some extra weights to the bracket to meet the minimum weights

Reading through the STS rules, it looks like you can't use highflow cats, which is a bummer, but you may have more flexibility than you think:

This thread has been a great read though. I've been very seriously considering picking up a <$1k GXL or GTU (if I get lucky) and tinkering with it like crazy and this has reaffirmed my belief that it would be a fun and worthwhile project. Keep updating for those of us playing (and pricing ) from home!

 

Yep. My Sparcos are 22lbs without rails, and 31lbs with rails. Not light, but legal. And comfy.

Highflow cats are legal. The last section of wording states "this does allow high performance replacements."

The old STS cat rule was that the cats had to be stock. No longer.

 

Ooh, which Sparcos? I know TeamRX8 has been looking for a pair of lighter reclining seats as well.


Cool about the highflow cats... when it was in the PDF the last little bit of that line was on the next page and I must never have read it

 

Typo on my part. I went with Corbeaus. The A4 model. Pretty comfy and fits in the car easily.

 

Yank your hubs out and bring them over and we can take care of your bearings and eliminators in about twenty minutes.

 

Ah ok, Corbeau claims they're 26lbs, did you weigh yours? It would be cool to hear their official numbers are all a little heavier than reality :

 

Yeah, total weight was right around 32lbs each with the brackets installed.

 

Awesome, my cars about to go into the paint shop, but after that I'm replacing my diff, so I'll be having fun back there anyway. I'll let you know when I have them pulled.

maybe I'll order some new wheel bearings too so I can do some preventative maintenance.

 

Alright... quick update. My new rear control arm bushings came in, so I pressed those in and went to re-install the subframe and diff. The diff got new competition bushings from Mazdacomp (not too exciting, didn't take any pics of those) and is back in the car. The subframe went in without too much of a fight, of course the control arms had to be re-attached first.



New brake rotors? No, shockingly... I measured them and they were almost new in terms of thickness! Nice surprise. They were a bit glazed, and there was a bit of surface rust on the hats, so I hit them with some 80 grit paper on a disc spun by my electric drill, shot them with a coat of high temp primer and a few coats of high temp paint. Why bother? Because I hate rusty discs and the friction surface needed a nice cross-hatch to bed in the new brake pads. Plus, it was quick and easy.



Biggest news is that the engine is in! Well, actually it's been in for about a week now, but it's closer to being able to start and run than it had been. I'm only missing one o-ring (for the filler neck... I knew I shouldn't have removed that) and I can probably track one down here somewhere, I just can't find my o-ring box. Anyway, it sure looks a lot nicer than the old hulk that came out of here a couple of months ago. Has it been that long?





I plugged in the battery and bumped the starter and sure enough, everything electrical is happy and functional. As tempting as it would be to fire the motor once I get that o-ring and fill it with coolant, I'll probably wait. The car isn't going to be driving anywhere for at least another few weeks, and there's no sense burning off that nice gooey assembly lube just to have the car sit. The suspense *is* killing me though.

Now... if that box from Ground Control would just hurry up and get here...

 

Very nice!!!

 

Personally I wouldn't wait to start the motor. Just in case you find something wrong, you'd want to have enough time to fix it.

I once had a side seal get stuck on a fresh rebuild. (It was probably my fault for keeping the side seal-to-corner seal gap as close to the minimum as possible.) Long story short, the seal snapped and the engine had to be pulled again.

I know you're doing a great job with this build, but I'd hate to see something unforeseen mess up your schedule. Plus, hearing the motor run will do wonders for project enthusiasm! LOL!
-Jeff

 

that damn neck with the o-ring. i just filled in the trench where the o-ring went with silicon and epoxied it shut and screwed her in place. doesn't leak a drop.

 

Does it seem like I'm sort on project enthusiasm??

I may indeed start it. I found my o-ring box and managed to find a "close enough" fit at least for now. Of course, that was after I pulled all the front suspension parts off, so the car is sitting on four jackstands in my garage.

Only thing is, the exhaust is nothing more than an RB street header. That's it. Once the suspension is on the car I'll be trailering it down to Piper to get the exhaust work done. It's sure to stink up my garage and **** off my very, very tolerant neighbors if I fire up a 1308cc weed whacker in my garage. But fun.... yes, it would be very fun.

Hmmm... decisions, decisions...

 

wow; great work. Looking good!

 

do it!!