Project RS

[ScottyB]

believe it or not my car hasn't gotten any new rattles (its always had that damn trunk squeek). its tough on the suspension but i've driven on worse pavement!

what you really battle is the dirt and rock chips. dust gets absolutely everywhere (inside the vents, between knobs and switches, on the headliner) and my rocker panels and wheels are shotgunned despite the bigass mudflaps. that's what would kill me with a new car, it would just feel wrong to cover it in filth when everything's so fresh.

[PDenbigh]

Think I could take the F150 out? :-)

they let this guy out there last time, i guess if you ask nicely they'll let you....

This is going to lead nowhere good.

[ScottyB]

This is going to lead nowhere good.

move along, nothing to see here, particularly at 1:25
[youtube]JuyTfGblFqo[/youtube]

[JPolen01]

dear god that looks fun

[ScottyB]

some really nicely done, fun photos from the event just came up

coming in a little sideways to the hairpin, digging in


i was debating removing my swaybars to increase turn-in but this shot is making me rethink that move. the car is definitely getting weight transfer even though it doesn't feel like it, and i'm going to lose camber and heighten my risk of de-beading a tire if it starts leaning more. likely solution: drive better.


miata is the answer, always


see this shitpiece? it was purchased for $600, split between two teenagers who race it. one of them beat me. i love it.


go ahead and laugh at this barge but don't look at the times. guy took the car his daughter wrecked, taped the door back together, and turned it into a rally car. snows on the front, bald all seasons on the back. destroyed most of the field.


something seems amiss :dunno:


dat stance tho

[ScottyB]

bazinga! snagged a used set of RallyArmor Classic mud flaps locally for a fiver. they're twice the gauge thickness of my current RallyArmor Basics which have been beaten to a pulp over the last 5 years and have curled on the sides from heat and wear. the Classics will do a better job of keeping rocks and shrapnel off my rockers and will hopefully resist curling more since they're tougher.

they look like this, but dirtier.


the blue logo is a nice touch, should go well with the silver and pollen color of my paint

[Senor_Taylor]

Nice! You have more mudflaps than I do!

[ScottyB]

upsee daisy. you should have seen the mudslide i cleaned out from the chassis the day before. could have made myself a few pots out of all the GA clay.

rear strut regrease (via zerk fittings), tire rotation, mud flap install.


figured out why i was having traction issues at the last rallyx. almost shot, on the wear bars on the inside of the tire. i've got a shortlist of 3 or 4 viable replacement allseasons that should work on dirt too.


here's the thickness difference between the Classic flap and Basic flap. the Basics feel like the strength of construction paper in comparison.


out with the old, in with the old! wait :? anyway here's the difference in width and coverage on the front mudflaps. nice bump up in function with the Classics, it will help keep the stone hits to a minimum when the wheels are turned at full lock



turns out subarus are self-healing too...tranny isn't leaking anymore. probably because the seal is warm enough that it stays swollen all the time now. it just means i get to put my clutch job off until the heat down here is unbearable, yay.

so in the meantime my tranny has been a little overfilled since i did that as a precaution due to it leaking all the time and not wanting to top off every other day. figured with the car up on stands, why not get it all kosher now? so i unbolted the drain bolt, took a little gear oil out, crawl back out from the car and check....almost no difference in level. back under the car, drain a little more. almost no difference on the dipstick. ok FINE go back under and in getting the bolt just loose enough for some gear oil to flow out in a controlled fashion, i lose my grip on the drain bolt, start to fumble it and in the meantime gear oil starts POURING OUT NO NO PLEASE STAHP NO WAIT WHERES THE BOLT HOW IS IT COMING OUT THIS FAST SHIT SHIT SHIIIIIIIII and then in a spray of putrid gear oil get the stupid bolt back in. except now the fluid level is almost too low to register on the dipstick. for @!$# sake. and all i have at this hour tonight is about 3 ounces of gear oil leftover in a bottle. FUUUUUUUUUUU.

turns out it was just enough to get me back on "L" on the stick with the car back on level ground, so i can get over to an AdvancedZoneParts in the morning and get a little top off. bah.

[*insertusernamehere*]

warm enough that it stays swollen all the time now.

r/im14andthisisfunny

[Evan]

so in the meantime my tranny has been a little overfilled since i did that as a precaution due to it leaking all the time and not wanting to top off every other day. figured with the car up on stands, why not get it all kosher now? so i unbolted the drain bolt, took a little gear oil out, crawl back out from the car and check....almost no difference in level. back under the car, drain a little more. almost no difference on the dipstick. ok FINE go back under and in getting the bolt just loose enough for some gear oil to flow out in a controlled fashion, i lose my grip on the drain bolt, start to fumble it and in the meantime gear oil starts POURING OUT NO NO PLEASE STAHP NO WAIT WHERES THE BOLT HOW IS IT COMING OUT THIS FAST SHIT SHIT SHIIIIIIIII and then in a spray of putrid gear oil get the stupid bolt back in. except now the fluid level is almost too low to register on the dipstick. for @!$# sake. and all i have at this hour tonight is about 3 ounces of gear oil leftover in a bottle. FUUUUUUUUUUU.

my boss' boss, a wise woman, likes to say "dont let the perfect be the enemy of the good'

that seems to be a good example

[ScottyB]

my boss' boss, a wise woman, likes to say "dont let the perfect be the enemy of the good'

that's a good phrase to put on my tombstone, because i'm too dumb to learn this lesson and it will eventually destroy me

[ScottyB]

well, time for the fun game of "tolerate the noise until its too annoying to handle"!


the Whiteline front offset strut mounts (above) I'm using have had a history of teething issues, ranging from deteriorating rubber to bearings that click. i thought i made it through my experience as a lucky case of everything working OK especially given the rallycross use. turns out; nope! over the last few months, i've started to get some clicking and popping out of the bearing that's held captive in the mount, specifically the driver's side:

[youtube]AI55XzfcKF8[/youtube]
ooooh. no bueno.

thankfully, it tis but a flesh wound and isn't going to blow up or anything...its just a hugely annoying noise and thankfully only happens when the wheel is getting cranked around, like in a parking lot. i wish you could see the faces of all the rich, pretentious housewives in their Navigators and Yukons when i pull up to my son's preschool in my rumbling, poverty-spec econoshitbox, covered with mud, front end sounding like its popping apart every time i turn the wheel, with the brake pads screeching like an old train. so charming, i'm surprised nobody's called child services on me yet.

good news! Whiteline knows its a dumb problem, and i'm under my 3 year warranty period on the part by 4 months so they're sending replacements for free.50. i guess i might be retarded for using the same part again but i'm hoping they've improved the mounts in light of the widespread issues. the bigger thing is that frankly, there just doesn't exist a product that can replace the job that these do. i'm also going to use this opportunity to take advantage of getting my new BFG comp-2 A/S's on in a month or so (currently sitting in the tire dealer's garage) ...at which point i'll get an alignment anyway out of principal, so its a perfect time to tear the suspension apart and get it all lined up again.

[ScottyB]

gave my transmission rabies the other day.


so, the gearbox has been shifting crappier and crappier the last month or two because its overdue for a fluid change. didn't want to dump a lot of $$ on baller fluid, since I intend to rip into the trans sometime in the near future to take care of the input seal when i do the clutch this winter. so i snagged some El Cheapo Autozone GL-5 Synthetic for like $4.99/qt to hold me over for 10-15k miles. all the specs checked out, so i thought i scored with a decent short-interval fluid.

yeah, don't do that. this stuff sucks out loud. no discernable improvement in shifting over the old dirty fluid (never had that happen before) and its foaming like crazy no matter how long i let the car sit, even with fluid level perfectly on the "F" mark. i've never had a transmission fluid do that before, even after flogging it on track. i have a feeling part of the shift quality or lack thereof is due to the fluid foaming up when the gears turn, which means poor lubrication for the synchros and what not since air works less well than actual oil :lol:

anyway, not too worried since i've put less than 100 miles on this run of fluid but for the rest of you, don't make a $20 mistake that could cost you a transmission, because i have no doubt running this stuff long term would be a death sentence for the tranny internals.

picked up some valvoline 75W90 synth and we'll see how that does.

[Senor_Taylor]

At least you have a dipstick for your transmission. Most people wouldn't be able to tell that was happening.

[.RJ]

At least you have drain & fill plugs for your transmission. Most people wouldn't be able to tell that was happening.

FTFY

[ScottyB]

dumped the Autozone garbage, filled up with 3 qts Valvoline 75W90LS synth and .7 qts Pennzoil Synchromesh

first time back out, downshifting 4-3-2


felt soooo niiiiice. did the trick for real. any subaru guys with a 5 speed need to hit this.

[WRXtranceformed]

Nice work! That could have turned out much worse, nothing better than a smooth shifting car

[Mike]

tranny internals.

:evileye:

[ScottyB]

tranny internals.

:evileye:

[SlimKlim]

I have nothing to add, just that that owl picture made my morning. :lol: