andrewhake

Thanks! Yeah I have already had the taste of braking with a square wheel setup and it is amazing. My plan for moving to a square setup will probably involve getting downforce fenders as well and I will try to find a nice 9.5" wheel maybe. Ideally the CE28N 9.5 +47 if I can find a set or something similar. Plus the usual rear tab relocation and all of that. No big hurry to do that though I am having so much fun with the car as is.

I have always said power stuff will be more towards the end of stage II but I am definitely getting the itch to pick up a throttle body, header, and exhaust to go along with my intake and pop everything on and have Jei at BlackTrax create a nice tune for me with the FlashPro.

s1mba

How are you liking the 550lb/in springs for daily driving? I picked up a set of Challenge Comp+ coilovers with 700lb/in springs and debating whether or not to swap them out for a softer spring rate. I also have a full set of 550lb/in Hyperco springs.

andrewhake

I was wrong about the adjustment process on the rears. You don't actually need to remove the spare tire to adjust. It is very easy to reach into the top of the shock tower with one finger and make the adjustment for the passenger side after removing the 3 little clips and the spare tire panel. The drivers side is actually quicker than I thought as well now that I have some more practice quickly removing the left side trunk panel. You just remove two little clips and then pull the bottom of the panel out while pushing the top part down and it easily folds out of the way. Then you just reach under the fuel filler and make the adjustment. With a little more practice it is very quick and easy.

andrewhake

It is in no way a compromise for daily driving with these dampers. I think you will probably be fine with 700lb/in but since you already have the springs I would probably try the 550 first and then try 700. Better to work your way up I think. Also could depend on your ride height. With 700 you could go a bit lower and still avoid rubbing issues maybe. Depending your your wheel choice I would figure the fender liner tabs into part of the process of installing suspension. With my setup just trolling around town and to work there are never be any rubbing issues. Just in tighter corners were a bit more lock is being used and the car really dives in there is a bit of rubbing on the tabs. With 700lb springs I would obviously get less of this but then I may be compromising the car in other areas. Like high speed corners with bumps, bumpy braking zones, as well as daily driving. 550 seems like a good balance for street and track though so far at my ride height.

I am going to a friend's shop tomorrow night to get some help folding up the fender liner tabs a bit so I will post up after doing that and testing it out to make sure the issue is taken care of.

sillyboybmxer

Are you planning on a brake up grade soon? I see with the amount of pads you have used you could have had one by now and maybe only went through half the pads you have

andrewhake

Upgrade to big brake kit requires different wheels, which in many ways requires serious fender work or wider fenders. Take a look at the rest of my part usage and my brake pad usage isn't so dramatic. I have only driven my car about 21,000 miles since I have had it, and I am on my 4th set of RE-11's. I actually still have a nice collection of pads that are at about 50-60% also. I have actually only completely finished 4 sets of pads not including the included OEM pads that I quickly changed out. 3 sets of front HC+800, 1 set of front Club Racers, 1 set of rear HC+800, and I have partially gone through various front and rear pads that I still have ready to go when needed. There were a few cases where I swapped on new pads since I was going to multiple track events in a short amount of time and didn't have time to deal with it in between.

I am planning on doing ducting though once APR releases their nice carbon backing plates. And when I move to a square setup I am planning on upgrading to Spoon calipers or a BBK but I think my brakes are fine with 225 tires up front.

s1mba

Thanks for the info I have a pretty aggressive wheel fitment in the rear so I was thinking about going with the 700 but I think I might as well try the 550 first and play around with the ride height.

darkfalcon

I hope to catch a ride soon...I'm interested to know how a true coilover setup has it's advantages over the stock and CR setup.

WhyW

Hey Andrew!

Have you kept up on your maintenance spreadsheet? I was perusing your thread tonight and I saw that you were keeping a spreadsheet, which I think is a cool tool to track maintenance/performance, intervals, gas mileage, etc etc.

I ask because I keep a sheet myself of everything I have done and when certain items are due with suggested maintenance intervals, and then I have a separate sheet of everything I want to do (mods, etc). I also track my gas mileage per tank and for the life of the car. I'm noticing that my calculation is different from what my maintenance app on my phone says, which averages each tank, then does an average of the averages. That's not entirely accurate because you can have a 2 gallon fill up where you were super gentle and got 36mpg and then a 12 gallon fill up where you got 10 mpg and it would average it and say you got 23 mpg when in actuality you got 13.7 mpg. Whoa, sorry for running off topic!

Anyway, I would be interested to see if you've been keeping up with your spreadsheet!

andrewhake

Yep! I just use it to track maintenance and intervals and things though. So I can keep track of how much life I get out of a part and keep track of when I need to replace parts and so on. I have never been too worried about gas mileage so I don't keep track of that. I have been meaning to put together a nice setup sheet though. So I can keep track of suspension setup changes and take down notes as I make changes. I am type that tries to avoid false positives so as usual I will be taking it pretty slow as I try different things out and really try to slowly refine my knowledge of the car and do the same with my driving style.