Not posted in here for a while, seeing as I haven't done anything up until the last week,
So Rocker cover gaskets needed addressing......urgently, several times I took the car out and thought it was going to catch fire as the oil burning off the drivers exhaust manifold was producing a James Bond esc smoke screen through the bonnet scoop.
Decided I really should get onto this as can't wait until I put another engine in, and seeing as the current engine sounds sweet for a 160k miler, I might, in true British Government style, elevate it's retirement age.
Due to back issues etc etc, I trusted this to my mate to do, over two evenings all done without drama, and was a lot easier than doing a classic, especially as on ramps you could atleast get everything to a comfortable'ish position.
Next job was a front inner drive shaft gaitor. Back to ICP for another quick order, a wrx 2003 to 2007 gaitor was deployed, drive shaft removed, old gaitor removed and...…………….. oh s**t! OK so Subaru had different driveshafts on 2003 year blobs, I suspect by the looks of it, carrying them over from the Bugeye. So new gaitor had three half moons on the inside to help locate and attach, we ground these off, celebrated at our ingenuity and had them refitted. Excellent...……….. until 2 miles up the road when I saw smoke coming from bonnet scoop and could smell burning oil once again.
A quick look underneath and yes, we celebrated way too early and the boot had departed its correct position quite fantastically.
Also while up on the ramps I was reminded about a particular nasty looking crack in the WRX discs, which if you ignore, apparently don't go away!
Car home, time for a rethink.
I decided that the driveshaft was just plain annoying the life out of me, so Rob (Such a nice bloke that he is) donated me two front hubs and driveshafts from his old 2003 STI, I am hoping these might be the stronger fatter shafts as well.
Anyway I am going to strip these down, recondition, add a spot of paint and refit, hopefully they fit my 5 speed Bug box for now, otherwise another upgrade will be coming sooner than the Wife anticipated
Onto the brakes.
So WRX brakes are just plain rubbish, end of discussion, don't try and convince me otherwise, I have owned three cars with them on and quite frankly Fred Flinstone and is Addidas's through the floor could do a better job at stopping the car!
While I would love some sparkly over the top Alcons or AP's, I had to run on a budget. Looking at Brembo's I was thinking that most sets are long in the tooth now, many been helicoiled, others just looking like me, rough with age.
With a few members now running K-Sports and being happy with them, I thought this was a cost effective route, being about £1100, they seem very good value for money. SO I started selling parts off my Clio race car and built a bit of a fund up. In the meantime however, due to inflation and capitalism I discovered that the brakes were now getting on for about £1400, which caused me a bit of an issue un the fact that I was now not quite so eager in buying them and started looking at other options.
After a long look around, I had a couple of beers, looked some more, then thought how much I could sell the wife for, looked at eBay's selling policy, realising that I suppose it is actually technically illegal to sell the Wife, and then remembering that I do indeed Love her and might miss her, I decided to look at Reyland Engineering,
They sell AP callipers suitable for the road, but manage to keep the price down a bit by selling non AP discs with them, after chatting to a few in the know, I discovered the Reyland discs weren't as good, I thought about it for a few nano seconds and reminded myself this is a weekend road car with a planned output of about 400bhp, not 1000!!!! So off I went to steal the Wife's credit card...…...again!!!
Then a lucky stroke of luck this week,, before I ordered indeed brakes, a set of AP's came up second hand for sale, for less than K-Sport money! I await for them to arrive, but I already have the Champagne on ice so that I can rejoice in my excellent money saving decision while not loosing out on the end goal.
So after talking this much drivel, I'll give you an update in a week or so once everything is fitted, I may even add pictures if you up vote me enough!
Now to sneak the Wife's credit card back into her purse! Do all Wife's have a anti bag tamper alert or is it just mine?