06-13-2017, 10:36 AM
TL;DR: Dampers feel good, car feels more powerful, mis-fire after spark plug change.
Martin called me to try to help but he never got back to me after saying he would. I decided to just put one OE washer on each side. Loosen top hat bolts on the chassis and pull the top hat while tightening the bolt back down to the chassis to give a little more room. Still rubs but I don't care much anymore at this point. I'll turn up my music/highway noise is enough to block out any noise. I do not need longer bolts with the setup I have. I tried the 40mm length and they were too long.
These dampers on the other hand I think are made of unicorn stuff. They are indeed magic lol. Softer than OE Bilstein's everywhere except harsh bumps and dips. The dips/bumps aren't even that much worse then the Bilstein's though which is crazy. Running 3 from soft front and 4 from soft in the rear after a few small tuning adjustments after some driving felt good. Each click or two does make a difference in feeling. Sitting about an inch lower rear and 1.15-1.25" lower in the front from fender to center of hub. It's a huge difference of feeling all around. I didn't test any corners but I assume it's going to be reallll nice. So much more planted and no airy/floating feeling. I can't wait to drive on them more and do an autocross on them.
The car for sure has more power as well. It's not a lot at all but you can feel it with the new mid-pipe and header. A lot more so than I felt in my Mazda3 when I swapped exhausts..
Changed spark plugs to NGK (3789) ILTR6A-13G Laser Iridium Spark Plug for my car last night after fine tuning the dampers. The car decided it wanted to run rough after changing them... Yeh. It's for sure a mis-fire. Never experienced it in my life until last night and could tell immediately it was doing it after about a quarter mile of driving. Loss of power/stuttering. While idling it was popping and bad idling. These are the correct ones for my car and I didn't bother to check the gap... So, either the gap is wrong or the coil packs aren't in right. I went to re-seat the coil packs this morning and of course I managed to drop cylinder #3 somewhere in the engine bay that it's gone. Searched for 30 minutes so ordered a new bolt. I've dropped 4 different bolts in the engine bay and have been able to find them right away. This one has just disappeared... I'm guessing it dropped perfectly into a sub frame round hole and is sitting inside a hollow sub frame brace somewhere.
If it still idles bad after re-seating tomorrow night I'm going to turn car on and unplug each coil pack one by one and see if idle changes. If 3 change the idle to worse but one doesn't that's the problem cylinder. I'm hoping it will be that easy to find it. If not uh I'm not sure what to do next besides have to take the plugs out and look at the gap...
The spark plugs in there were indeed OE on 96k miles... Not too terrible looking at all but they recommend changing them at 75k miles.
Martin called me to try to help but he never got back to me after saying he would. I decided to just put one OE washer on each side. Loosen top hat bolts on the chassis and pull the top hat while tightening the bolt back down to the chassis to give a little more room. Still rubs but I don't care much anymore at this point. I'll turn up my music/highway noise is enough to block out any noise. I do not need longer bolts with the setup I have. I tried the 40mm length and they were too long.
These dampers on the other hand I think are made of unicorn stuff. They are indeed magic lol. Softer than OE Bilstein's everywhere except harsh bumps and dips. The dips/bumps aren't even that much worse then the Bilstein's though which is crazy. Running 3 from soft front and 4 from soft in the rear after a few small tuning adjustments after some driving felt good. Each click or two does make a difference in feeling. Sitting about an inch lower rear and 1.15-1.25" lower in the front from fender to center of hub. It's a huge difference of feeling all around. I didn't test any corners but I assume it's going to be reallll nice. So much more planted and no airy/floating feeling. I can't wait to drive on them more and do an autocross on them.
The car for sure has more power as well. It's not a lot at all but you can feel it with the new mid-pipe and header. A lot more so than I felt in my Mazda3 when I swapped exhausts..
Changed spark plugs to NGK (3789) ILTR6A-13G Laser Iridium Spark Plug for my car last night after fine tuning the dampers. The car decided it wanted to run rough after changing them... Yeh. It's for sure a mis-fire. Never experienced it in my life until last night and could tell immediately it was doing it after about a quarter mile of driving. Loss of power/stuttering. While idling it was popping and bad idling. These are the correct ones for my car and I didn't bother to check the gap... So, either the gap is wrong or the coil packs aren't in right. I went to re-seat the coil packs this morning and of course I managed to drop cylinder #3 somewhere in the engine bay that it's gone. Searched for 30 minutes so ordered a new bolt. I've dropped 4 different bolts in the engine bay and have been able to find them right away. This one has just disappeared... I'm guessing it dropped perfectly into a sub frame round hole and is sitting inside a hollow sub frame brace somewhere.
If it still idles bad after re-seating tomorrow night I'm going to turn car on and unplug each coil pack one by one and see if idle changes. If 3 change the idle to worse but one doesn't that's the problem cylinder. I'm hoping it will be that easy to find it. If not uh I'm not sure what to do next besides have to take the plugs out and look at the gap...
The spark plugs in there were indeed OE on 96k miles... Not too terrible looking at all but they recommend changing them at 75k miles.