What did you do to your car today?

[Kiwi-Corolla]

Fitted the facelift tail lights/garnish to the GF's Sprinter. Wiring was completely different to the pre-facelift ones to that killed a bit of time. Also fitted the SE-G badge (was missing when we bought it), swapped the original tape player with a JVC bluetooth headunit, polished the headlights and a bunch of other small things.

[loudstealthGT-Four]

Went up to Queenstown last weekend for QCC gravel sprint, first gravel event and found that driving on gravel is far different from driving on Grass. Was a really good day and managed 6th in 4WD class and 11th overall, which wasn't bad as I was one of only a couple people on road tyres as apposed to most other who were prepared with Rally tyres.



there was another ST185 competing on the day so had something to compare too, got him by 2 seconds!



And here's a vid of my quickest run

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67caqMwk ... q7mWzxsiWw


Have also picked up a new car as a daily so won't be driving the GT-Four as much. Should be able to get a few things done during the winter (getting full body repaint and making up a full 3' stainless exhaust to replace the rubbish one on thats on it ATM).

Will post up some pics of the new daily when I get a chance

[siren676]

String aligned my car as ive got a drift event on monday and no alignment places near home are open over easter

[iOnic]

Oil change


Fixed all the daytime running lights (some stopped working because of a damaged ballast when I blew an engine mount a couple months ago). Also rewired to fade on/off


Changing the ballast has somehow stopped the knock counts I've been chasing for a little while now too. I was starting to worry that I had a case of zoom-zoom-boom.

[Bling]

I put the petrol equivalent of that oil in the rav not long ago. Is diesel a better option? Found it odd that the diesel one is semi, the petrol one is full synthetic, but the same weights.

[Mal.com]

I changed the spark plugs and lift bolts on the 2zz. Bit of wear on the intake(right) bolt, the car has done 75,000km.
Didn't realize how small the bolts were until I saw them in person. Will do an oil change tomorrow hopefully.

[iOnic]

I put the petrol equivalent of that oil in the rav not long ago. Is diesel a better option? Found it odd that the diesel one is semi, the petrol one is full synthetic, but the same weights.

It's my pick because it specifically has better resistance to fuel dilution. When I got it, it had 3500km old Mobil 1 that had been broken down by petrol contamination. The one sample of this stuff I got tested last service (5000km) still passed the same tests.

Not sure if its a direct injection problem or specifically an MPS problem (they all do it) but it works for me. Plus side my turbo isnt smokey now.

[Boosted_162]

Secretly Chris just has the worlds first diesel MPS

I fitted a band expander today. Also tried to install USB but the unit won't accept it

[rollaholic]

kinda cool to hear people picking oils for specific reasons.

whats an oil test cost anyway?

or did you have some hook up

[iOnic]

Nah no hookup. I sent the sample to a place in Sydney and as a one off customer it cost $60 to do a full test. Their pricing varies from like $40 to $80 from memory depending on what you want to test for. Would have been cheaper locally but I don't know anywhere that does it.

I only did the first sample before buying to establish the condition of the engine internally/check for metal in the oil. Not keen on rattly big ends shortly after shelling out pretty big $$$. All they found was that the oil wasn't coping with fuel dilution and was losing some important properties several thousand kms before the service was due. So they recommended that I either use the same oil and half the interval to 2500kms ($&#$% that) or find a better oil/additive and thats where the research started. I wouldn't do a test every service unless something has changed but once a year seems doable just to catch stuff early

[B1NZ]

Went up to Queenstown last weekend for QCC gravel sprint, first gravel event and found that driving on gravel is far different from driving on Grass. Was a really good day and managed 6th in 4WD class and 11th overall, which wasn't bad as I was one of only a couple people on road tyres as apposed to most other who were prepared with Rally tyres.

Well Done, Some pretty good driving and commitment there for road tyres, Do you have the 4 pot front brakes on the gt4's? I know the 205's did, The most spendy bit I have found with my new rally project is having to buy special 15 inch wheels to fit over the STi 4 pot brakes so I can run gravel tyres.

Also do you find the gt4 is very understeery? I have heard they are pigs on loose surfaces?

If you watch Rally Otago this year you will see my old black AE92 FXGT running that I sold recently

[loudstealthGT-Four]

Went up to Queenstown last weekend for QCC gravel sprint, first gravel event and found that driving on gravel is far different from driving on Grass. Was a really good day and managed 6th in 4WD class and 11th overall, which wasn't bad as I was one of only a couple people on road tyres as apposed to most other who were prepared with Rally tyres.

Well Done, Some pretty good driving and commitment there for road tyres, Do you have the 4 pot front brakes on the gt4's? I know the 205's did, The most spendy bit I have found with my new rally project is having to buy special 15 inch wheels to fit over the STi 4 pot brakes so I can run gravel tyres.

Also do you find the gt4 is very understeery? I have heard they are pigs on loose surfaces?

If you watch Rally Otago this year you will see my old black AE92 FXGT running that I sold recently

Just the standard 2pots, had a factory set of 15's in the garage I could have fitted a set of rally tires too but had a few things to sort to get the car ready, and was a last minute decision to take my car up. So ended up running the 17's (also managed to put a dent in one of the outer lips on one rim)

In terms of understeer, it was quite bad but also had alot of oversteer, im going to say that most of the understeer/oversteer issuses were attributed to the driver and would take a few more gravel events to learn abit more about the handling.

They are very bad for understeer on seal though, but there are ways to sort that.

Here's a vid of my final run, was more aggressive on this run, a little too aggressive......
http://youtu.be/nr8Y3l-DW8k

Will keep my eyes out for the AE92

[siren676]

Went sideways

[Bling]

Great photo hahaha

[fj40cruzapete]

the car in the background didnt look to flash

[siren676]

the car in the background didnt look to flash

Ah that one, someone had a Mark ii chaser missile there. Still ran very well with a shooshed back end

[Stott69]

Loving the googly eyes!

[siren676]

so did everyone when i put the lights up, forgot that i had left them on from the last time i drove it and wondered why people started laughing

[tiny2009]

With oils for Mazda I used some stuff I got from the local dealer. Being made for Mazda I assumed it was good enough (may have set myself up for a flaming here).

Over the last week and a bit I gave both cars a decent clean. Started with the wife's car as that's always a good place to practice
Clay bar, compound then that purple tech wax gel, used Meguires products - not the best on the market but some of the better stuff at SCA. The biggest improvement was the Mazda, I don't think that's seen wax for a while. I wasn't going to bother with the Lexus but couldn't handle the Mazda being more shiny... results below.

[Adoom]

The clutch in the daily...weekly... only for groceries ae100 has been on its last legs for ages. I can't be arsed changing it myself, and have been quoted ~$600 to get my mechanic to do it. But I have too many other things that need paying for...
The pedal is right on the floor to disengage, but recently.... okay, for quite some time, the clutch has been re-engaging while holding the pedal down for extended periods. So I finally got around to flushing the clutch fluid.
OMG, it was filthy black...
I went through most of a 500ml bottle before I was happy that I had flushed it enough.
Still needs a new clutch though.
And shocks... Anyone got any okay used ones for not much? Wgtn.