^ I've never done any of that. I drain the coolant from the radiator only with the radiator drain plug, then pull the hoses off. No need to remove anything but the snorkel, and thats only 2 (12mm?) nuts. I've never swapped a thermostat but I didn't realize there was more to it. Maybe I'm not the best person to offer advice on that subject then, woops!

Thats right to me lol. Thermostats are really easy, just make sure you have a good gasket. And I like to use a sealer, some people don't. Then once you fill everything back up with coolant, just take off the cap on the top of the radiator. Fill it, turn the car over... watch bubbles come out, fill it up more, and just repeat until you don't have any more bubbles and coolant starts to overflow = Good To Go

Hoh thanks. I'll do that when I get back to Cali. The hoses should be at my house Friday!

Btw! I just noticed! I am going to be in Colorado Springs :lol:

So I got back from Colorado and got blue Samco hoses installed. I need to take a picture of these. Who knew that hoses could look sexy? It just looks horrid with the unpolished radiator because of coolant splash...

To-do list:
Brake master cylinder and lines (pedal is somewhat spongy, the brake fluid is eating the lines)
Fuel filter and lines (no wonder my fuel economy won't go over 16-- I hear some NA owners get 18+, but I guess it could just be the richness)
Belts, all of them, not sure if I really need to get new pulleys also
Heater hoses (I think I'll pick up water hoses later)
Brake calipers (looks like I'll have to get the rears rebuilt, so far it seems that these are no longer made by anyone and I don't need a big brake kit)
Oil pan replacement or reseal
Outer tie rod ends
Lower ball joint (Mazdatrix only has these attached to the control arms, I haven't seen anything elsewhere but if a total replacement is a good idea, I might as well also put that part in my reasons-to-be-poor list)

Fun stuff:
Seats, steering wheel, better looking wheels, better tires

for the brakes... are you sure you need a master cylinder? Is it leaking? You could just try stainless lines and fresh fluid

^80% sure the master cylinder is leaking super slowly, not too sure how to test that but I'll try the new fluid like you suggested and see about those better lines :nod:

Also attached a shoddy picture of the new hoses (please ignore red engine bay which will one day match the outside white). I took the car down to Evasive Motorsports in La Puente. Cooling panel is in the mail, never tried sanding or poking new holes to adjust fitment of anything before so I'm looking forward to how this will pan out. I still don't have an undertray though since I haven't gone to any pick-a-parts yet if I could be so lucky :suspect:

Corksport cooling panel came in yesterday. I'll have to sand about 1/8 to 1/4 inch from the bottom to clear the bumper and sand 1/8's here and there but the biggest area of change will be for the hood release. I'm trying to figure out when I need to schedule this for myself-- any ideas on how long something like this takes?

awesome to see a female doing work on her own car!!!:nod::icon_tup::icon_tup::icon_tup:

^I only do what I have tools for... :blush:

So the cooling panel (sort of) went ok. I'm just going to ziptie the bottom corner since it won't sit flush with the body. That was a couple of weeks ago...

I left the FC at Neptune Speed over the weekend and I have to really commend Yoshiya for his super friendliness, JDM charm, and taking care of random stuff that I didn't know to ask for. I felt obliged to bow my head when we shook hands and introduced ourselves :lol: (Thanks Kent for referring me here!)

Compression is good, 7.5 in the front and 7.8 in the rear, well supposedly that's kind of in the middle area. New belts and new exhaust gasket (towards manifold) since I was stinking up my mom's garage... And honestly, I picked up the FC and it felt totally different. I had my suspicions of lost HP for a while and I was right-- now some of that power is back in the car it seems. (haven't dyno'd to find out what it is after the repairs) Anyway, now the exhaust gets poppy when I downshift anytime over 4000 :D My throttle is actually proper and not laggy, the idle is finally stable, even slightly higher by about 100, my cold starts no longer do the start and then stop issue-- freaking AWESOME.

I just have to fix my oil pan leak... and whatever random thing that will likely pop up soon.

In other news, Drifting Pretty is going to be at Willow Springs for Just Drift this Saturday. I will be there! But not drifting... I haven't any extra tires. It'll be fun times anyway!

yah! :icon_tup:

moar progress ftw!

I think I have a cooling undertray, if you still need it. I will check tomorrow.

Yes, I do, thank you. Would like to know about shipping cost first though.... and if it's for S4/S5, not sure if there's a minor fitment difference anywhere.

Shouldn't be any difference, I'm using an S4 one on my S5 :)

Yea it's for an S4, I gotta make sure it's not broken or missing any parts first though. I forgot to check on friday. I will check tomorrow, I don't think shipping would be much it's pretty light, but I will get a quote if you shoot me your zip code. You can PM it to me if you want.

It came off my 87 that got wrecked.

Thank you! +1 for maintaining coolness!

Well it's complete except for this part that goes around the sway bar I believe, looks like it got cracked in the accident. If you are still interested I'll work on a quote for the shipping
https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net..._3120380_n.jpg

Yes, I would appreciate it! Thank you.

I'm sorry I have been super busy and I'm lagging. I will get a shipping quote for you this week! If I haven't got back to you by Wednesday shoot me a PM and yell at me.

Will be taking the car to Neptune Speed sometime soon for miscellaneous items-- need it soon because I have registered for autox novice school at El Toro for July 16 and 17 :jump:

Also have some miscellaneous stuff to buy this year:
Car cover/bra thing (for the cones...)
Mother's Powerball or other effective lens cleaner
Wheels, still can't decide. BBS RS or Axis Klassics? Or something else altogether? I am opposed to rolling the fenders-- if it needs to be done, it's got to be damn well professional looking (if I can get this before Mazfest and SS14, I will be in very good spirits)
Steering wheel set up -- thinking Momo hub, NRG 2.0, a Momo steering wheel that I have yet to decide on that feels right and is not deep dish
Whatever breaks in the process... possibly another tps
OTC (preferably) jack + stands
Better tool set than what I have

I have a front bra for an S5 I think it's all there. It's black. I'll look into it if you are interested.

Get Xerapol for polishing lenses, its a plastic/acryl polish stuff.

Did my S4 tails with it and they look like new again.

Could slap the PO for using car polish wax on the tails ...



Steven

i think finshline would like it.

yup! :)

but i think sarah deserves it more than me. =P

Sarah,,you mentioned a ball joint incorporated into the lower arm.(post #54)
That is S5.
IF you can get S4 lower control arms they have the Replaceable ball joint.(separate from the control arm) and the arms are interchangeable.

Can Also get you control arms, or any suspension part for that matter, from an S4

^ Thanks, haven't been on the forum for a while but I got someone local for some parts right now.

Got an oil leak fixed, it came from the oil pan gasket. Engine mounts replaced-- I can now heel and toe through successive gears (not always but it's definitely significantly better than from before the mounts were replaced). I suspect that the worn mounts possibly affected vibration with the transmission as well (tranny mounts are also about 3000 miles new) so either shifting is smoother now or I just positively improved :lol:

Autox novice school July 16-17-- super stoked for this. Maybe a half day of autox on July 23 and then hang with the Drifting Pretty girls that evening for a short karting race.

Trying to get wheels! Not sure what I want! BBS verts or the bigger Axis replicas...

Good replacement rims are FD rims as they are light as heck (vert rims are good too just not big or wide enough)

OR

Some Team Dynamics competition wheels: Super light, super strong, made for the track.
http://www.teamdynamicsracing.com/co...ion_wheels.htm

Not FC related but I have some videos of karting at Fast Lap Mira Loma: http://sarahbantay.wordpress.com/201...g-at-fast-lap/

Ok, so here's actual FC stuff. http://sarahbantay.wordpress.com/201...e-school-2011/ I'm trying to up my site visits so I'd just appreciate if you guys watched it on my site instead of youtube....

<iframe width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Po5RQCmsTXc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

I went to CSCC novice school on July 16-17 and had a damn good time. This was my last run (hit a cone, but it's cool...)

Some photos...
http://i1233.photobucket.com/albums/.../onthelift.jpg

http://i1233.photobucket.com/albums/...ata-bright.jpg

Nice vid.

Nice vid! How does it compare to the ride I gave you in mine?

Excellent first steps :)

Thanks guys!

Johnson-- I'm wanting turbo is all I have to say...

that was a nice time, but dam that a-x course is huge compared to the cramped courses we have in norcal

The courses we have here at the Auto Club speedway in Fontana are much tighter than that course. I can't imagine hitting the top of 2nd gear with an 8k redline like she did!

Great lines though Sarah! That was with the GF210 / AGX combo, right? If so, what settings do you have the front and rear on? My old settings left the car handling perfectly neutral, I loved it.

Isn't that a Auto-X school though. So prob loosened up a little to aid learning. Looks like great fun!!

I've bounced off of 2nd a few times on the seemingly shorter courses. It varies depending on who's designing it - a miata guy would design a tight and technical course, a corvette guy would design one that has high speed sweepers, slaloms, and transitions, plus areas that really test your braking skills :)

The Miata/str/csp/st/etc guys don't really like the higher speed ones since they really peg the limiters - or shift into 3rd lol

What happened that weekend actually was that Top Gear USA rented the lot that SCCA usually picks up (usually you turn right at the entrance), so the lot that they had to work with was a long strip rather than something wide. Interesting stuff (there was an odyssey on their side that was tearing it up, soooo hilarious to watch when I wasn't picking up cones or driving-- I think it was an odyssey anyway)

Thanks! I tried... One of the instructors recommended I go 3 in the front and 7 in the rear and mannnnn did it make the car grip way better. I kept oversteering on exit before I did that (also added maybe 5 psi to tires). I highly suspect that the settings you had it on, which I kept, did not go well with my steel T2 hood.

And yes, redlining was very much happened that whole weekend :icon_tup:

Yeah, it was definitely a high speed course. I dunno if anyone noticed, but the buzzer was actually from my oil reading "low" because of the cornering G. I wasn't going fast enough to hit redline but my instructor did going into both of the brake-to-enter turn arounds. I would say that I was consistently around 6000-7000, could feel the vdi working, wasn't really scrutinizing the tach much.

Do you think my car is classed CSP at this point?? The polyurethane bushings, the struts/springs, and (oddly) my short shifter push me way out of stock :(

Whatever works! I loved my settings when I was screwing around on the street, but I'm glad you found that adjusting them helped so much!

You're definitely classed CSP, simply because of the aftermarket springs you're running. The shocks are allowed at stock.

It kinda sucks for our old cars because our stock springs are so saggy and soft after 25 years that we NEED aftermarket springs, but that pushes us out of class :\

Bahhh oh well... I'll just aim to get as good as I can get with what I got. It's a blast either way :nod:

Great video, Auto X is so much fun and a great way to learn the limits and capabilities of your car. I think it should be mandatory!

^ This!

SCCA wrote an article on the transition between solo2 and road racing and vice versa. Interesting observations were shown about drivers having a hard time going from road race to autox but NOT the other way around, so I'm hoping this is the ideal place to start and hone basics. But that's also why I try pursuing karting at Jim Hall, talk about basics, holy crap it's awesome.

I have yet to find this article online but the print edition of their magazine, sitting in my hand at this moment quotes this:

"Certainly by learning the car control skills at that lower speed, all of those same skills carried over in the high speed stuff. It cheated the learning curve, because you could go and toss the car different ways in an autocross and the worst thing that would happen, as a rule, is you would pick up a cone. So autocrossing was paramount to having those bases covered before you go road racing at a track where those speeds are a lot higher and the penalty for a mistake is much more expensive," says Peter Cunningham.

Food for thought. Everyone keeps talking about the basics and making sure that you can get back to them anytime, no matter how long you've been doing this, so yeah, trying to maintain focus is a serious challenge.

Yeah obviously you're not trying to win any championships in an FC in CSP where NA and NB Miatas dominate, but its great to learn the basics. Racing CSP is the first time I've done in a full 360 in my car, hahaha that was a fun time.

I've never done auto-x. I went straight to road racing (HPDE). I think for me auto-x would be harder, but because of the way the "track" looks. All I would see is cones everywhere, I'd get confused and not know where to go. I'm sure I'd end up plowing into them.

Dude! When I spin out in autox, I try so hard to catch it but fail lol. It's awesome when I see other drivers do it. That type of joy is something else.

Yeah the first time I did it (and still right now), I was like omg where the hell do I go?? Even with an instructor providing help, it was always challenging. The habit to look ahead really gets drummed in.

Looking ahead isn't the problem, seeing 800 cones makes me go "derp!?"

Look into HPDE events in your area. Money well spent. Especially letting your instructor take you out in your own car. That experience changed me and now I am hooked.

I'm kinda po'ed at autox events here, they put my n/a vert in SSM (3rd autox ive entered..) Signed up for CSP, but since i don't have cats and have a lighter (ever so slightly lighter) mazdatrix steel flywheel they put me up against a Porsche 914 on hooisers and $80,000 into it. :scratch: um yeah...
:(

Whenever I auto x I just do it for fun. I don't really care what class I'm in, I just want to drive!

Damn really? That sucks...

I know... But it's when you get that itch to win!! I'm sure lim_fc3c in the previous reply knows what I mean