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subframe collars
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Wednesday, February 25, 2004
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Today I put the subframe bushing collars in the S13. That made ALL the difference in the world! All that severe left-right bump deflection is gone and the whole thing feels much more stable. All it took is a 17mm socket, 12 mm socket, a large screwdriver, a jack, 2 jackstands, and about 1 hour. Awesome. Big thanks (again) to Gabe at TechnoToyTuning for the subframe collars.
I'm now writing up an article for the installs page on driftproject. |
- posted by //Ender-DI @ 11:33 PM
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silence of the cats
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Tuesday, February 24, 2004
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Hahah... got my car back from Le-Toy Motorsport yesterday. They said that since my NOX emissions were really high, my catalytic converter was probably burned up and needed repacement. I had always wondering why my exhaust sounded a lot lower and echoey than a stock exhaust note. I had just figured that the cat had been gutted. Well, the guy put the car up on the lift to replace the cat and... hey! No cat! And no resonator/pre-silencer either! someone just welded in a new chunk of straight pipe. So now I have a new catalytic converter and no resonator. Too bad I missed the DMV appointment.
It acutally sounds pretty cool and now I'm smog legal to boot. I should be getting my smog certificate today. Billy apparently woke up stupid that morning and thought it was a test only... even though I told him repeatedly that I had a DMV appointment THAT DAY to get the car's tags... which required what? The smog certificate! Ehh... oh well... I have to reschedule the appointment anyway. The original appointment was only a few minutes after I dropped the car off that morning so I would have missed it anyway. |
- posted by //Ender-DI @ 8:09 AM
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dealer part only
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Saturday, February 21, 2004
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Yesterday, I took the S13 down to a good tuning shop called Le-Toy Motorsport. The specialize in Lexus and Toyota (thus the name), but are just good all around tuners too. As well as having a smog test and tune facility too. Well, I knew that I needed to get the car smogged and that the check engine light had been on since the night I took ownership of the car. So I brought it into them and a tech named Billy was assigned to me.
Billy turned out to be really cool and we talked and BS'd most of the time he was working on my car. Turns out the check engine light was on because of a faulty EGR Switching Solenoid. He finds the solenoid and one of the three hose attachments are broken off.
Turns out the solenoid is a dealer-only item. It's $106 and needs to be ordered. My DMV appointment is Monday. I tell Billy to sit tight. I drove over to the Pick A Part junkyard and found a solenoid. There's a chick that works there that always hooks me up with parts and usually lets me in free. She wasn't at the gate, so I paid to get in that day. I find the part and take it up to the register. Turns out she's working the register that day. I show her the solenoid and she says, "That's a filter, RIGHT?? Filters are $2. Otherwise it's $15." Filter it is. Total cost at the junkyard? $3.86.
I took the part back to Billy and he starts looking at the hose diagram... then at my car... and says, "whoa." "Whoa" is usually a BAD thing to hear from doctors, dentists, or mechanics. We start going over the diagram and see that whoever had the car last must have just hooked up vaccuum lines wherever they fit. Only about half of the hoses were in the right place - and there are a LOT of hoses in that engine. So he said, "this is what we're going to do!" and started ripping out EVERY vaccuum line and replaced them all.
He put the car on the dyno, put the smog probe up the tail pipe and everything was clean as a whistle... except the NOX readings. They were basically as high as they would be if I were running without a catalytic converter! I told him that I wondered if the cat had been gutted since the exhaust note sounds weird. Kind of echoey, hollow and low. Well, by this point, it was already after closing time so we decided to do the catalytic converter first thing on Monday morning. I can't remember what time my DMV appointment is on Monday, but either way, I have to get the cat done. |
- posted by //Ender-DI @ 5:32 PM
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love the car
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Sunday, February 15, 2004
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If you can't beeeeee... with the one you love... love the one you're with.
In this case, it was with my car. And I gave it some love. Yesterday was Valentine's Day and I spent the entire day putting in new KYB GR-2 shocks and some cheapo SpringTech lowering springs. It brought the car down about 1.9 inches and made it look SO much better. They're a little softer than I'd like, but the handling is a lot better. It could use some sway bars next. Hopefully next weekend I'll put in the T3 subframe bushing collars.
I'll have a photo gallery and how-to write up in the installs section later. It was a pretty straight forward install and fun was had by all. |
- posted by //Ender-DI @ 3:26 PM
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