so the bilstein sleeves came in today from summit racing, i was pretty excited to try them on. For the longest time i was trying to source some cheaper alternatives, these sleeves came out to be around 290 for the set, almost the same as springs! But then i decided what the heck i might as well get the bilstein sleeves to match with the shocks, since they're designed for bilstein shocks there shouldn't be a problem right.




Turns out that i was wrong. They look nice and stealthy with the glossy black, and fit around the shock body with a pretty tight tolerance. Then i found this problem with the front shocks. The sleeves are 7inches long, and the groove for the sleeve mount on the front shocks are cut only around 5 inches from the top. so it looked like this.



theres about 2 inches of overlap with the shaft.



now i could either cut the sleeve, or maybe even re cut the groove in the shock body. But since lionzoo has a pretty good setup that came from fatcat, i ended up returning the bilsteins to summit.

My new tein coilover springs should be coming in anytime now,

updates coming soon with new springs and perches

 

dam that sucks oh well s**t happens

 

when me and coldf1ame went to Streets of Willow last year

 

dammit i kinda miss that lip

 

just wanted to post some recent interior changes,

Autoexe buckskin steering wrap, black interior panels



and a takata 6pt harness

 

***** sick

 

nice! I kinda want the buckskin wrap...

 

I like your pinstripe, its subtle but ties together the Timeattack look into the interior,,,

 

thanks, i made the mistake of trying to paint the accents with spray paint, now they're getting scratches everywhere.

@silvere8 that buckskin wrap is definately worth it but a PITA to put in. I had to do it twice and the 2nd time i took the steering wheel off the car, and its still not perfect.

 

yeah they look a little foggy,,,

 

Also I am wondering how do you keep the buckskin clean? Do you have to wipe it down everytime after you drive it?

 

i havent yet, but im looking into various suede cleaner sprays, tho i think best would be if you had driving gloves,

i've had it for about 2 monthes now, so far its pretty good, i've been pretty careful about keeping my hands clean

 

what about a scotch gaurd or something simular used on microfiber furnitre?

 

went out to mt. waterman a week ago and thought i'd snap a pic



new coilovers should be ready soon, hopefully i can raise the car a little bit

 

nice shot...any editing on that shot?

 

yeahh, just a little bit of tweaks in lightroom, natural lighting almost always needs to be edited

 

is that MS shift ****?

 

did a canyon drive with lionzoo and xyounx











@lks817, thats a shiftknob made by razo

 

If you dont mind me asking, is there a reason you chose the Bilstein shocks? I am looking to get a nice set of shocks and springs and have done some good reading on the koni yellows w/ tein springs. Just looking to see why people chose the setups that they have in current builds. Thanks

 

Because Bilstein makes great products.

 

roger that, ... do you prefer the ride over koni yellows ?

 

its because I'm going to be running 400/280lb springs on the coil overs and it was easier to re-valve the bilsteins than koni's, plus my friend already had specs on the valving to be done whereas the koni's we'd have to do more tests

 

Lookin good!

 

so the last part of my coilover finally arrived and i can put it all together, heres it lying in parts all on my shoe rack



the shocks are bilstein HDs revalved by fatcat motorsports to support 400/280lb springs, fatcat also supplied new bumpstops, softer on the front and hopefully will eliminate some understeer at limit issues. Springs are tapered springs made by tein, these eliminate the need to use a custom upper mount and will instead use stock mounts.



tein tender springs on lionzoo's custom perch adapters (we dub his products LZspec), the coilover sleeves are sourced from an oval track site but fit bilsteins (they look exactly like bilstein sleeves sold on summitracing). If i were to do this again, i would use pss9 coilovers as a base, eliminating the need to use sleeves at all.

And finally



a custom emblem i designed and had made, this will go on my trunk where the MAZDA is, after i debadge everything else.

 

nice