TRD Rear Member Brace Install

August 12, 2005 Handling No comments

OK. I put the car up on ramps and then on jack stands. Which was a PITA because my cheap ass floor jack doesn’t lift that high. That’s always bothered me and I may get a new jack .. but anyway….

RearMemberBrace_setup[1]

getting the bolts out and back in on the passenger side was pretty easy. The driver’s side was a little tougher, but not too bad. I torqued the front bolds while the car was up on stands, and lowered teh car down onto the ramps to torque the rears which was not easy since I had hardly any clearance to move the torque wrench.

RearMemberBrace[1]

I didn’t weigh down the car when torquing the rear bolts. Is that step absolutely necessary? If so, I can loosten them and re-torque with some assistance.  However, after a long time of use, there have been no ill effects.

I used some left over scraps from drawer liners for ...

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Time for some Numbers

April 17, 2005 Motorsport No comments

Upon arriving at my third autocross event, I noticed a guy selling magnetic numbers for a decent price.  And since I had been lucky enough to always get my same number, I decided to purchase a set.  This also makes the whole setup prior to tech inspection go a lot quicker.  Otherwise you need to use up a good amount of 2″ painter’s tape “drawing” the numbers on the side of your car.  This worked OK for my car for a while because it’s white.  But just imagine if you had a blue car.  That didn’t stop some people from putting blue numbers on a blue car though.  Still, I wanted to at least look cool even though my times still had a long way to go to improve.

Basically the numbers are magnetic vinyl that was cut out in the shape of numbers.  They don’t need to be much more than that...

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Second AutoX Event

March 13, 2005 Motorsport No comments

With 1 event under my belt, I was ready for more excitement.  This time, a friend came down and we went to the event together.  This time, it was at Homestead Miami Speedway.  It was on the kart track.  But it was a great venue for autocross.  lots of configuration options to choose from for the course designer and no solid barriers near by.  Those will damage your car if you hit them.  Speaking of crashes, I will say that I have only seen a couple incidents where a car got out of control and was actually damaged.  Anyway, back to the event…

It was a HOT day that Sunday.  The process went very similar to the first event that I attended.  I was still running in DP.  And for my work assignment, I was chasing after cones and picking them up when cars hit them...

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First Autocross

February 26, 2005 Motorsport No comments

Disclosure: I’m writing this post after attending several events, but the post is dated at the time of my first event.  I plan to have some other events and info logged later.  This may be a bit of a series.

I had heard of Autocross (Solo II as it was known by the SCCA) for a while and wanted to try it out.  This was something that I tried to read up on and know all of the process from start to finish before going.  I will give this advice to anyone that is thinking the same thing:  STOP!  Just read the basics of what you need to do for your region/club and go to an event.  You will figure it all out once you’re there and people are generally really helpful.  If you are not sure what autocross is, just google it and you’ll quickly see what it’s about...

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Remove those Pre-Cats!

January 10, 2005 Maintenance, Powertrain No comments

It has been discussed on many forums for several years and all experts agree that you should remove the pre-catalytic converters that are in the Exhaust Manifold.  Here is a brief summary of the problem…  Oil consumption ends up making its way to the honeycomb material of the car and causes it to break up  over time.  Then, some of these solid particles (from the cat) make their way back into the combustion chamber and cause catastrophic engine failure.

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Elusive Part Number for Clips

December 6, 2004 Appearance, Maintenance No comments

Well, I spent quite a bit of time going through the repair manual pdf’s and the 00-02 parts list pdf to try to find some clips that I’ve been missing since I got my car. I finally found some diagrams of where the clips were and went to the dealer to order them.

The part number if the image doesn’t show is:
90467-07055-C0

And it’s for the upper luggage compartment garnish (The plastick piece at the top behind the seats.

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Finally found a use for the stock antenna

August 16, 1009 Misc No comments

It was raining yesterday and our patio has these drain holes that always seem to get stopped up. They’re just holes that go down into the ground. Nothing fancy. But when they aren’t draining properly, I get some standing water that just makes that section of the patio look like crap.

So my wife asked if I had anything long and skinny. After several manhood jokes later and several eye rolls from the wife, I said “I have the perfect thing for this!”. And I went out to the garage to search for that monstrosity that is the Stock Antenna. I handed it to her and she said “Are you sure you don’t need this?”. I said “That is NEVER going back on the car.”

So she used it on the drain hole and it worked fantastic! If anyone has a similar issue and still has the stock antenna, it works great for this...

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