nazgul350r's Garage

Bought some third generation RX-7 wheels with decent 225/50/16 tires mounted on them for $300. These are a 16x8 +50 wheel that weights about 15 pounds. I plan on running these tires till they are worn out and replace them with a stick auto-x tire. At that time I will also get some longer wearing street tires for the stock Racinghart wheels. To get them to fit and have the right stance I put 5mm front and a 3mm rear spacer on the wheels also. 

Added my brothers new car with a couple pictures of his and a couple of what he is thinking to do with it. 

I replaced the brakes last month and I have finally posted them up.  I went with EBC dimpled and slotted rotors with Greenstuff pads along with some Stainless Steel Braided Lines to top it all off.  And to make bleeding the brakes a one man job I also installed Rusell speed bleeders.

My brother has moved onto a more exclusive car, Galant VR-4.  Bought it from my friend of mine that just got done with a engine rebuild.  My brother had toyed with the idea of an engine swap for the RS but in the end decided that he was better off going with something else.  His thinking is that he could go faster with less money in the DSM world.

Once he has pictures of the car I will post them up. 

 I found were the dealership messed up.  They put the MAF on backwards.  How hard is it to have the arrow point in the direction of the airflow? 

The only reason that I found the MAF on the wrong way was that the T connector to the boost gauge had broke.  When fixing that I happened to look at the backside if the MAF and saw and arrow pointing the wrong direction.

It started out at the beginning of December when my wife smelt something funny coming from the car.  Neither one of us could see any visible signs of where this smell was coming from either.  A couple of weeks go by when I go to work on a weekend and start playing around in the car.  I get on it real hard coming directly to work’s parking lot when I could finally see some smoke coming from the engine.  It was dark so I could still not make out where it was coming from.  I called up the dealer and made an appt. because I still have a little warranty left on the car.  The night before the appt. I tried to reinstall the factory intake but had lost one if the parts to put it together in the last move.  But while I had the car up I was able to see oil from the feed line and a large leak from the return line.  The next morning I take the car to the dealer; they call me and tell me the oil is coming from the valve cover.  Gotta love the stealerships.  I tell them to put the car on the lift and actually look at the car.  Should I be getting paid for my time now?  They see the leak and order all the parts, including the new turbo.  I take it in the week before Christmas to have the work done.  Later in the afternoon they call me to tell me that they did not have the turbo you have to order that separate.  They then put me up in the Kia list below.  A week and a half goes by when they final get the turbo, by this time I had already racked up about 500 miles on the rental.  Then Christmas is upon us, I call to let them know that I will be out of town until the third of January.  Not a whole lot they can do but say see you later.  After some 1700 miles in two weeks the rental company gets their Kia back and I get a car the still is not running right.  If I hit the gas more than just a little it hits the fuel cut.  So I take the car back to them and they are trying to blame the problem on the intake.  I take the car home to decide what I am going to do because they seem to think that the ECU is the problem. to be continued

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   I understand what all the fuss is about in regards to the V-8's and all of their displacement



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   I recently took a ride with a co-worker in his supercharged Firehawk.  Back   when he purchased the car is was running 405Whp, some 100k miles ago.  All I can say is that is why they make big engines.  I had a grin from ear to ear.  I drove my friends AWD Talon when it was running 300Whp and this Firehawk was much more fun.  Instant acceleration.



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   But a car like that will never suit the way I like to drive, no I don't drive Ms. Daisy around, I like the twisties.  The only cars that do this well are the light ones, example Lotus Elise and to an extent the new ZO6 (barely weights more than my protégé).  It’s a shame the new cars keep getting heavier than lighter.

I got the brackets installed on the car.  The car is a tad more toward the neutral side. I'll have to wait till the next auto-x that I attended to really see the difference.  This car has more grip than I am willing to push on the streets.  There is a creaking that I need to track down now though, I think it's a matter of when I put the bushings on I may have wiped too much grease on the bay when sliding them into place.

I was going to get some parts for the car when I am pulling away from traffic the light when my car gets really loud.  My first thought was that the air filter fell off the intake but it wasn’t the right noise.  I pull over at the fast food joint and look around in the engine to see were the noise if coming from and it’s under the car.  I am on my way over to Mazda to get the oil changed so I have them take a look and it’s the weld after the first cat that gave way.  I’m thinking couldn’t have been a worse time, just moved into the new apartment and buying things for it.  However in my first experience as the owner of a car with a warranty they are going to cover it, boy do I feel lucky.  I am going to call them to find out what they plan on doing as it was closing time and Mazda HQ had not gotten back to them yet.

 Today I received the used brackets today from a member on msprotege.com.  These puppies are built, there is no way there are going to break.  Couldn’t wait to install them either, you know how new toys are?  The install went without a problem.  Took me about any hour to install them, read no jack stands, just wiggling under the car to take off the old and put on the “new”.  I am going to drive it around tomorrow then make sure everything is tight, and then on Friday I am driving 350 miles down to Florida.  I will give a report after the weekend on how these things are working out for me.