tuner4life 0 Report post Posted August 23, 2019 @Gordo Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
LUMBERZACK 0 Report post Posted August 26, 2019 Went drifting again. This time they opened a different track that they haven't ran in years. Unfortunately got about 3 laps in before I heard a pop coming from my footwell. When I was no longer able to shift into gear, I knew something was borked. I came to a stop and started the car in first to get back to pits. Inspected some shit and found that my clutch pedal bracket gave up on life. Not wanting to miss out on the event, my buddy drove me to his house where we quickly braced it and welded it back together. After that the pedal worked great! I think bracing it took out a bit of flex that the bracket had before because I have a bit more clutch travel now. I probably got another 8-10 laps out of the night. I kinda missed out on the peak time of the night, but hey, I'm glad I was able to continue driving and drive home. Some kid asked for a ridealong at the end of the night and he got a video of my last run. Not too bad, a little more handbrake use than I would've liked, but I've never driven this track before and the first corner was very blind; I could never gauge when to initiate.. Video: Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
LUMBERZACK 0 Report post Posted August 26, 2019 Also, I can't pass up a good picture. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
LUMBERZACK 0 Report post Posted September 9, 2019 A few months ago I picked up a 25mm swaybar that I was told was a front sway bar for an MX83. Come to find out, it is a rear sway bar and it was something @brian probably ordered during an alcohol-driven online shopping spree many moons ago. Being a rear bar that is thicker than the OEM front bar, I knew I wasn't going to install it without beefing up the front bar first. (big bar rear + small bar front = no grip in the rear) I set out to find a company willing to make a custom sway bar for the Cressida and came across Mako in Australia. They'll make any size and color bar you want for a price. I ordered a 27mm front bar for my car and patiently waited. Tony at Mako periodically followed up with me giving me updates and was helpful and responsive. 10/10 customer service. After it took 10 weeks to make, I finally received my custom sway bar from Australia. It arrived with brackets, bushings and grease. After install, I think the wait was worth it considering this was one of the very few direct bolt on parts that did not require me taking out a grinder, cutting wheel, or welder. I am pleased with the fitment and quality so far. I don't really have a good install picture, so take this. I still have to have custom brackets made for the rear bar to be mounted to. First impressions of the front bar are positive. Much less body roll already. I'm excited to report my findings after running both bars and taking it to a track event. Stay tuned. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
BoristheCat 0 Report post Posted September 9, 2019 Oooohh, I'm interested in that front bar. Since you did all the legwork, maybe they still have a jig laying around that they made your bar with, or at least hopefully they kept their measurements and stuff. I want one! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
tuner4life 0 Report post Posted September 9, 2019 Dang.. I hope that custom project wasn't too expensive! I've been using a FC RX7 front bar on some home-brew brackets in the back of the Cressida for years and it's been great. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
LUMBERZACK 0 Report post Posted September 9, 2019 Jason, I've been using a $20 turbo SW20 18mm front bar in the rear for a while. I came up on this custom 25mm rear bar for free lol. For the front bar, after converting Australia's worthless currency to our clearly more superior dollar, it was ~$325 iirc. Not the cheapest sway bar, but for a custom direct fit piece, I'm not disappointed. Casey, yeah man Mako readily offers Cressida front and rear bar custom options. Shouldn't be much trouble aside from the production time wait. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
BoristheCat 0 Report post Posted September 9, 2019 Whelp there goes my paycheck. I'll get mine on order lol Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
LUMBERZACK 0 Report post Posted September 9, 2019 Hell yeah! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Gordo 0 Report post Posted September 10, 2019 Looks like the down under members have been holding out on us, or just couldn't see what was under their own noses. Good find. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Bill 0 Report post Posted September 11, 2019 Jesus, that old rear sway bar is still around that Brian had made. damn. Good going with finding a way to get a front to match. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
battleaxe 0 Report post Posted September 14, 2019 how big is the oem front sway to this new one? if you want a laugh, type in 500cdn dollars and see how worthless our money is to the US dollar. i wanna have a good cry after that Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
LUMBERZACK 0 Report post Posted September 16, 2019 Without actually measuring, the front bar seems to be a 21-22mm bar since it is still thinner than my 25mm rear bar. Yeah idk what Canada is doing with their dollar, but hey at least you have affordable healthcare, amirite? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
battleaxe 0 Report post Posted September 17, 2019 no idea how our dollar gets affected by anything, never took economics lol blanket healthcare. no family doctors out in bc, all walk in clinics, typical wait time is 1-3hrs to get basic walk in stuff done, but that is covered by our medical service plan we all pay into, albeit a flawed plan. surgery can be months and months away on the regular, private options have started to pop up as an alternative but arent covered by our health services and would be out of pocket. definitely better than still having to wait and then re mortgage your house. our houses out here are 400k+ (condo/townhouse) some houses, typically in the 700+ range though pending area. but thats all besides the point because in manitoba houses are in the 1-200k range too oh well Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Gordo 0 Report post Posted September 17, 2019 Back when O-bubba came up with his bull shit health care plan (which doubled my health care costs), one of the arguments to it was the fact that people come to the US from Canada, just to get around the crappy system up there. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
NAC 0 Report post Posted September 18, 2019 Yea, that's an unlikely scenario Gordon. Mostly Canadians flying to India or heading to Mexico if unsatisfied (not common at all). I'm just glad I'm going to have full coverage from my employers when I move down to the States. Your system seems sketchy AF. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
LUMBERZACK 0 Report post Posted July 11, 2020 Sorry for the 10 month hiatus, but I have good reason for my absence. Looking back at what I have done since my last update, I'm pretty proud of what I've accomplished on not just my car, but on myself in general. I guess I will begin the updates chronologically starting back in Aug. 2019 I received some fender markers from my friend in Australia. due to their age, the fiber optics that are used to illuminate the fender markers are very dim, so I gutted them and updated the markers with 5mm LED diodes. I used "yellow" LEDs in attempt to match my fog lights. This is the marker with LEDs and resistor installed. I made some templates to use for cutting the holes in my fender for the markers to clip into. Turned out very well. I'm not surprised. They turned out to be a bit more orange than I planned, but I don't mind it honestly. It gives me vibes from the old school cars with fender turn indicators. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
LUMBERZACK 0 Report post Posted July 11, 2020 As some of you may know, Ganador never made X8 mirrors. Some people have had good success with retrofitting S13 Ganadors, but with the price of Ganadors exceeding $800, I was not interested. After discussing interest in Ganadors with my friend in Japan, he messaged me and said there was a set of Ganadors that had a similar shape base plate to X8. Me being willing to process and modify the mirrors to fit, I happily sent him $300 to ship me the mirrors. they came with the desired Blue convex lenses as well. They were originally the "carbon" finish mirrors, but as you can see, the hydrodip is long gone. No loss as I would be paint matching them. I was very surprised and pleased to find they were very close to fitting as is. None of the hardware lined up, but the overall shape was workable. Originally I had planned to modify the mirrors with fiberglass, but much to my surprise, Ganador mirror bases are cast aluminum, so my plan totally flipped. We are going to modify these with welding. As you can tell between OEM (left) and modified (right), there was significant shaping and changes that took place. It took about 20 shop hours minimum to weld and shape both mirrors into symmetrical units. I'm super happy with how they turned out and I have to credit all the work to Marc with @buildradstuff . He always comes through with beautiful metal artwork when I bring him these projects. Paint After over 2 years of daily driving the Cressida and more than 20K miles, there was a lot of rock chips on the bumper, so I had it repainted as well in preparation for an upcoming drift event I was very excited for. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
LUMBERZACK 0 Report post Posted July 11, 2020 Side note: My friend in Japan attended the annual x81 "departure meeting" where many of Japan's remaining x81 enthusiasts gather near the base of mount Fuji. This year a magazine about the meet was published and he sent me a copy. There is also a section in the magazine that includes a picture of every car in attendance. There are about 10 pages worth of cars that attended. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
LUMBERZACK 0 Report post Posted July 11, 2020 I know this isn't a Subaru group, but this is my thread. Deal with it and let me learn ya. After 165k miles on the original engine of my STi, I was finally feeling symptoms of a tired motor with low compression in cylinder 2. Was at like 60psi... lol. I have connections in the Subaru world, so I had my friend at the dealer snag me an OEM short block for a 2019 STi type RA along with many other maintenance goodies. Fucking yeeeted that shit I got my heads reconditioned Long block assembled. Fully dressed. First start was successful and I am still currently in the process of breaking it in. I don't drive it very often so it may be a while. Haha. Then, the TRD Camry started hitting dealerships. I was very interested in purchasing one for my lady to commute with to replace our 2017 Camry. So I was working very closely with a dealership I like and they kept my notified when they had a TRD Camry being shipped to the dealership. Well the day it got unloaded of the truck, I went to the dealership to buy it and it got purchased from under my feet. After the dealer trying to sell me on a Camry XSE, I drove home with this 2020 TRD Avalon sitting on their showroom floor with 12 miles on it. I'm in love with this car. It is so good. So, the TRD doesn't have much more performance upgrades done to it to make it faster. It's more of an aesthetics package and that's totally cool with me. My lady is not a fast driver, I just want something cool and luxurious to drive around town in and this car totally checks those boxes and more. Also, it's an XX chassis, so that means it's double the X-chassis and double the cool right? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
LUMBERZACK 0 Report post Posted July 11, 2020 Back to Cressida shit, in preparation for the Showdown II drift event in Tucson, I decided to try and work on some cooling modifications. Starting with an external oil cooler. I went with a 36 row Setrab with Driftmotion's billet relocation kit and a Mocal 185 degree thermostat. I began mocking up the position of the oil cooler in front of the radiator and mocked up some ducting with cardboard to be executed with aluminum. I didn't get fancy with the oil cooler placement as I was under a time constraint with the event quickly approaching. I also designed a bracket to support my intercooler and brace the oil cooler. Turned out very solid. Then I started running the lines and intstalling the oil cooler. I'm pretty pumped with where I was able to relocate the oil filter to. This should definitely help keep oil changes easy and clean. It looks tight in the picture, but I can remove the oil filter without interfering with the subframe. I guess I don't have a picture of how the ducting turned out, so here's a picture of my templates. lol Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
LUMBERZACK 0 Report post Posted July 11, 2020 Ready for the drift event. New oil cooler setup, new mirrors, fresh painted bumper and I lowered it a little. Can you spot Matt Panic Moose Burgers Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
LUMBERZACK 0 Report post Posted July 11, 2020 As much as I tried to make 17's work, I was never truly happy with how my car looked. I caved in and went with 18's. She's close boys YUHHH DAS ET MAYNE Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
LUMBERZACK 0 Report post Posted July 11, 2020 Random shit: I bought a house for all my toys. Engine bay is clean I bought a spin turn knob from SerialNine. Even though I had a drift knob, I like the way this one matches my interior better. I worked on getting my sim rig built. Do you recognize the seat? Check out the built in e-brake! and cup holder Does anyone on here use Assetto Corsa? It has helped my confidence and skill drifting exponentially. Especially since I can practice more technical maneuvers without fear of crashing my real car. The simulator translates very well into muscle memory that applies when drifting for real. It was a great investment. The End for Now. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
