It's been a bit, so a quick written update. No photos because it's been rainy and cold here, so not the best conditions for keeping my car clean and pretty.
I have access to a lift and air near my house now to work on the car. I took advantage of this last night and changed my diff fluid over to AMSOil Severe Gear 75W90. While I was at it, I swapped in some Carbotech 1521 brake pads in the front and rear since I won't be going back on track until next year most likely. Last Thursday I had Yokohama AD08Rs installed as well. So, basically I'm on fresh tires, brakes, and fluids for street driving until the next time I get on track probably in February.
While I was at it on the lift I took the opportunity to do a visual inspection of all suspension, chassis, and underbody fasteners and permanently mark them all with torque seal. I also did a physical inspection of some of the components if possible, and I bled my brakes again after installing the new brake pads. I also visually leak checked all my custom work with the oil cooler and transmission cooler. Everything looks really good underneath and I didn't notice any seriously unusual wear. All the bolts were still in the same position on the suspension from when I originally checked and marked them with a sharpie.
In the process though I did get a little overzealous with my impact gun and broke some of the fasteners/captive nuts on the undertray for the transmission tunnel, so I'll need to buy a replacement undertray from Subaru and some replacement fasteners. I may end up just getting the Verus Engineering aero undertray, but I need to verify if it covers the same area or not. I'm pretty sure aluminum will not tear the same way the stupid cardboardesque material that comes from the factory did. I was also inexplicably missing the backing plate off one of the brake pads in the rear when I pulled the old pads out. I also saw that the driver's rear fender liner had been torn around one of the pop clips. I'm unsure how this happened, my guess is I hit a rock or something on the highway that got it, but it looks like the only fix is replacing the fender liner entirely.
At this juncture I don't believe I'll have any other noteworthy updates until some time next year.
Outstanding items to be resolved/parts bought:
* Replacement brake parts (backing plates + tabs) for rear OEM brakes
* Replacement transmission tunnel undertray
* Replacement transmission tunnel undertray fasteners (10mm hex w/ phillips head)
* Replacement fender liner on driver's rear (not sure how this got damaged).
I'm also considering other options for track brake pads for next year, since I intend to drive it even harder. I'm open to suggestions, I'll probably ping @
CSG Mike when the time comes to order some. The Ferodo DS2500 did okay, but on inspection it looks like I had some glazing occurring, and the material at the edges was crumbling. I believe the crumbling is from the j-hooks in the rotors and edge bite, but the glazing indicates that I probably overdrove the temperature capabilities of these pads and I need something that's more of a dedicated track pad.