Track preparations
Work on the car has been nil the past few months. Most people tend to build their cars during winter, but since I came out the gate and immediately started modding the car, I wanted to spend some time enjoying it as is. (And let my wallet recover a bit!)
There are a few minor things I still need to work the kinks out. The radio sits a little too far forward and pushes the dash panel off. I will most likely need to slot the bracket holes a bit in order to get it to sit properly. There are some scratches on my new black shifter plate, and being crazy, I obviously need to replace it. Which actually is okay, as I have finally decided on a shift knob to replace my ugly worn stock one. I've fallen in love with WC Lathe Werks custom shift knobs. And lucky for me, he just released a matching ebrake button and reverse lockout. I did previously swap out my lockout, but I am not as happy with it as I thought I would be. I considered a Raceseng lockout, I really enjoyed how theirs installs with an allen key, but I hated having the logo on it. I like my interior to be as clean and neat, with no logo's or anything too distracting. When installing my new one, I missed the punch a couple times and nicked the new one, leaving me to have to sharpie a small section of it :/ Needless to say, I was ecstatic to learn WC Lathe Werks have opted to use an allen key for the installation. Good thing I already received my tax money! A full titanium set is being made and should hopefully be arriving soon
My goal with this car was to have something that was daily drive-able, but also ready to hit the track/mountain/whatever at a moments notice. I try and plan out my mods in a manner and progression that makes sense. Everything builds on or improves on something. First was the suspension. And although it's not 100% finished, it is good for where I am right now. Eventually I will get adjustable FLCA and RUCA so I can dial in the alignment specs more to my liking. I am running a bit more camber in the rear than I would like, but I need to in order to clear the top of the fender under compression. RUCA would allow me to pull the top of the wheel in just enough to get it past the fender under hard load without having to run -2.5 in the rear. I could always switch to smaller tires, but I love my 265's. Speed Academy posted their track cars alignment specs online and I must say, they are almost identical to what I ran on my 240sx back in the day.
Some people have a weird stigma about giving out alignment specs, like it's some secret weapon or combination of numbers that gives the car godlike handling. I guess I never understood that. Maybe you're compensating for your shortcomings as a driver by not sharing? I'm not saying I'm a great driver or anything, I actually have zero real track experience. All my on-track experience has been for drifting, and it's been years sine i've been on an actual circuit.
Which leads me to now. My goal for 2018 is to attend at least two HPDE events, possibly with an instructor. I've owned the car for about a year now, and have done a good amount of mods to make it more fun than just tracking a stock car. Not that you couldn't track this car in stock form, but I bought it with 40k on the clock, and the stock brakes are already toast, and fade after about 10-15 minutes up in the mountains. For 2018, I plan to upgrade the brakes to something more aggressive that will handle track and mountain abuse, as well as light daily driver duty.
02/11/2018:
Since day one i've hated how soft the clutch feels. Chances are the system was designed with the fact that people will switch to a heavier clutch at some point, and this is true, as I will eventually. However, at the cars current power level, the clutch is fine. The vague pedal feel of the stock slave cylinder led me to have a hard time finding the engagement point. And has many people on this forum know, this leads to unsmooth/jerky gear changes, and a lot of clutch riding.
The great thing about picking up one of these cars after it's been out a while, is that most of the nuances have already been troubleshot and solutions found. There is an awesome thread on here about swapping out the stock 13/16" bore cylinder with another subaru one with a slightly narrower bore of 3/4".
I did what anyone would do: Ask for this part for Christmas so you don't have to pay for it yourself! I also received a Chase Bays SS clutch line and brake line set. Marry Christmas to me!
The install was relatively easy. In fact, whoever decided to put the slave on top of the tranny instead of the side or bottom, they should win an award.
This is really the only picture from the install. I probably could of took more pictures, but I didn't want to get my phone dirty.
I did an oil change to Mobil 1 0w-40 and installed a a Greddy magnetic drain plug, and an HKS magnetic oil filter. I love HKS and the history and heritage behind the company, and my goal is own as many parts as I can from their catalog as possible. They don't seem to make a magnetic drain plug for our cars (probably because their oil filter has one) but I figure you can't be too safe so screw it I bought Greddy one!
Next up is getting the brakes done and hitting the track!
To be continued..