I picked up some springs from Summit Racing. Couldn't complain for the price, and they fit the budget for suspension. I figure since the shocks are not worth much, I'll try my luck with the QA1 springs. More or less used as a test subject than actual racing component.
The QA1's come in silver. Which iornically matches the car.
Comparison between rear shocks. I'm actually going to be running my setup about a 1/4" higher than last year's setup. I'm trying to give the car slightly more travel. The upgraded spring rate should help the rear from bottoming out. The rear rate used to be 250lb/in, now it is 350lb/in. This increase in the spring constant should help quite a bit. The setup yielded about 4.5" measurement from the pinch weld to the ground. It also doesnt help that I ran out of perch on the front to run the front any lower.
Interesting thing I ran into while working on the car. The bolts are FUCKING CLEAN. I am so suprised, after 19 years of abuse, this car still has clean as hell bolts. Its a godsend compared to the old red car. (RIP Winnie). Also in the picture is the anti-seize I'm using for the suspension. I didn't feel I needed to whip out the Nickel based compound and I'm actually quite happy with the LubroMoly brand these days.
After the rear was all said and done. Pretty nice fitment without having to roll the fenders. The car does rub under hard corning though.. I'll have to sort it out when the time comes.
Post install notes: The upperball joint on the passenger side got stuck while trying to take the A-arm apart. I'll have to replace the boot as it ripped when trying to get the balljoint out. The thread pitch for the castle nut is a M12x1.25.
Got my order in from Mazdaspeed as well. It took awhile to get my account approved as I didn't provide sufficient documentation for them to approve my account. A couple of calls and a few days later all was good. I'm actually really glad that the Mazdaspeed department has some of the best customer service reps around. It was a pleasure dealing with them over the phone.
The shifter bushing order as kind of a fluke. I was expecting to recieve the regular plastic peice but instead I get this aluminum one. The finish is not so great but nothing a bit of sanding and polishing can't fix. For those that are wondering why I would even bother sanding such a small peice, I just want to reduce the stress concentrations from the un-champfered edges. It's pretty vital I have this bushing as well as I went to crazy last year and broke a plastic one. That left me stranded just 10minutes from my house and about $110 out of my pocket to pay for the tow.
Also ordered the Mazda Comp motor mounts. The amount of deflection that I found between the new and used motor mounts was fucking HUGE I felt. Its about 2-4mm (the second picture shows it a bit better). Then again what do you really expect, after 19 years these things are bound to wear.
The Mazdaspeed mounts are 75A durometer vs the 55A OEM durometer. This is a slight increase in the rubber hardness, which equates to the spring rate being slightly stiffer. It's definately not a lot but you feel a little more vibration from the engine transmitted to the cockpit. Its not a lot comapred to solid mounts, but definately noticeable. You might wonder why you would even want any vibration transfering through the chassis because if the natural frequency of the chassis meets with the first harmonic vibration, then resonance occurs. Well, to my judgement the only increase in the frequency equation is the spring constant or stiffness of the material. Everything theoretically remains the same (Material, mass, etc.) so there is not a significant movement through the RPM range to really cause a worry of having reasonance occur. I am not a vibration expert though, so I cannot confirm this.
I also ended up patching up my front under tray on the car. I had to have the front pan off while doing the engine mounts so I figured I should patch it up somehow. I ended up stealing an idea off the drift crowd. I drilled some holes and ziptied the crack part together. Holds up nicely though there are some holes now. I may go back and JB weld or fill up the holes with some sort of plastic welding. Again though I'm not super concerned as most of the pressure has elsewear to move before hitting that area.
Spotted this fellow on the side of the road the other day. Seemed lost, poor chap.
I'll be packed with studying for these few upcoming weeks. I'm going to try my best to get into the SFU Mechatronics program so i will do my best to increase my average grade.
Til the next post,
- A
No comments:
Post a Comment