went to JRX rotary today to get new pads and rotors installed (finally)

Centric premium rotors are probably the best for the money OEM replacement rotors you can purchase, being that they cost about 50bux each. After doing some research, i found these to be adequate for daily and track use, i favor blanks over slotted or drilled rotors since the latter is more prone to cracking, and isnt proven to make your stopping distance any shorter. I do wish i had the cash for some nice 2peice rotors though, preferably with blank friction surfaces.

The cobalt friction pads were made to order, eventually i wanted these for mazfest but they didnt get delivered until 2 weeks after, making it about 4 weeks in the making.



Inside JRX, the rx3 is amazing



We found one of the caliper sliding pins were stuck when we took off the caliper, probably due to heat generated running on very thin pads AND rotors. This is the result, note the uneven wear. These are project Mu pads with about 50k miles on them

 

so not much has changed, i got a gopro camera over the holidays and BHR coils are on their way. I think my cat is going out soon since the car is starting to smell funny. Car is just over 91,000 miles since New Years

on the list of things to do for 2011:here is some gopro vids i took over the weekend at malibu

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJbrS8PdL2U

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrfCSOtT_Yg

 

something new



Thanks to Charles R Hill and the BHR crew,

my friend lionzoo helped with the install, idle is now much more smooth and car pulls stronger

im thinking either Waterpump next or the BHR midpipe, since my cat is starting to smell funny

 

those roads look pretty fun! where are they??

 

pm'ed

 

Let me know when you down size your wheel and part out the current one~
Do TPMS fit in these?

 

yup, they do,



So last night i tried to install the waterpump and thermostat after i’ve been putting it off for weeks. I wanted to get everything in before the track day on saturday. The install is pretty simple really, remove battery, loosen alternator belt, unbolt the waterpump, installed new one in reverse order, until i lost a bolt in the engine bay. I didn’t have a magnetic wand on hand (i know i know) and the lighting wasnt too great, so after spending a good 30 minutes looking for it, even taking off the alternator, its soo amiss. Then maybe its the late hours and loss of concentration, i lost ANOTHER nut in the same spot. Then i decided that its probably a good idea to pack up and finish the next day before i make anymore mistakes. Then the worst of the night happened. While putting on the pulley, i over torqued one of the bolts and sheared it. Devastated, i hurriedly threw everything back together and locked the car up and went straight to sleep. This morning i find out i’ve been reading the torque specs wrong on the install diagram. While the rest of the components are marked in ft/lb, the pulley bolts are marked in in/lb, FAIL on my part for not catching that. Well i went out and bought the appropriate tools for relocating my lost nuts and extracting the sheared bolt. As well as some extra hardware to finish the project, hopefully it’ll be a much better night (fingers crossed)

pictures of the damage to come.

 

car is looking good

 

well i got everything in and working, also removed the engine hook and stock intake tray so the fan can flow more, not sure if this actually works, will monitor coolant temps to see if theres improvement

 

so heres my engine bay, i figured if the intake is getting heat soaked anyways, it doesnt hurt to free up at least radiator airflow, later i may find some kind of hose that would fit over the intake filter and make some kind of duct/shield for it

 

So last saturday was track day at streets of willow with speedventures, this is my first time going CCW, the track seems much faster than going CW, 2 areas i had trouble with was on the skid pad and the bowl, both involve a long straight at 100+mph going into a slow turn, the bowl is especially difficult since its banked and also a decreasing radius turn.

Heres some photos

there were 3 other rx8s besides lionzoo and i, we met eddie who was awesome and pulling crazy drifts in the skidpad (much better than the drifters in the drifting event that was also happening on the balcony btw), and also a black rx8 that looks really fast, so while i was walking around the pits, look at who i ran into! mazdamaniaaaaaaaac!



nice meeting you Jeff, hope you had fun out there, the car looked good!



saw this clean hatchiroku going around also, the interior on this thing is immaculate!



pretty nice skyline, the driver had trouble point people by since hes rhd haha



this ferrari was slow! it was holding people at going 40mph in the blue group, and of course the driver wasnt pointing anyone by , did this for 2 laps and eventually got black flagged and bumped down to white group

later on i think one of the instructors got its hand on it tho and mannn that thing could go, fastest lap time in the group set by the ferrari lol



this thing was hauling *** in the black group, faster than some of the much faster cars. it had no windows or interior and the gauge cluster was zip tied to the steering column, freaking awesome! There was also a stock hyundai accent in the black group that was keeping its pace with a lotus exige, (keep in mind that people in the black group are not slow, they're all pretty good drivers, the hyundai driver was just insane)

Speaking of rats there was also this awesome car





yes thats astro turf on the roof and hood and incase you can make it out, its also got a dolphin on top of it, LEMONS ftw


darin from westends hatch, i met darin a while back at his shop for corner balancing, and its good to see him out on the track, that guy is seriously fast!



and finally my car chilling a little bit by the overlook near the bowl, i really need to get some magnetic numbers or something the racing tape numbers look so cheap

in car video from my gopro before i ran out of batteries, the evo blew its intercooler piping mid run so its getting towed, best time time of the day for me was 1:36.07, best time in the video was 1:38.7

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XHs4P7tH2I

 

nice pix coldflame... who was the yellow rx-8 with the plates "myse3p?"

 

haha im not too sure, never got to meet the guy, he was in the white run group though

 

so been inactive for a while, i finally fixed my underbody damage. The shop did a pretty decent job even matching up the orange peel to stock, although they installed my aero flares a little too low, going back to get it fixed soon.

Recently i had to replace my battery and tires, so i got a braille 15lb battery to replace my red-top, and ordered a set of RS-3s. Since i was going to take the tires off anyways, thought i'd give my rims a refresher and get rid of that tired time attack look (its way played out).

Big thanks to tiltmode for hooking up the powder coating!

 

looking good!

 

great thread c0ldf1ame, awesome build. I just read through it all.

 

you ever consider making and selling those rxviii badges?

 

Keep an eye on your Braille battery. I've had 3 of their batteries over the last 3 years and killed every single one in just about a year. If you end up in a situation where you run the battery flat it never seems to be quite the same.

I've had 2 of the 11lb carbon series and one of the 15 lb standard series. Nothing worse than being stranded because of a dead battery.

 

I thought about it but i think i need at least 10 ppl+ to be interested to get a good deal, i dont think most people would want to pay more than 20-30 for these badges

I was worried about this too but really hated the idea of getting another 37lb battery, my red top died in exactly 2 years. The 8 is my daily driver but i do go out of town alot, my plan is to just put it on a tender if im ever gone for more than a week. So far its been running pretty strong.

 

ahh, i see. well if one day 10 ppl+ show interest and you start a group buy im definitely in that list lol.

that badge looks dope!

 

^

i'm down

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aF6CUkdVQHY

did a 2:17 at buttonwillow cw13 today, im pretty happy since its a 9second improvement from the first time i went (this is the 2nd). Goal for next outting is somewhere below 2:15. My friend once did a 2:06 with a pretty much stock rx8, one day i will be like him lol.

We were also sharing the track with the Honda FF challenge, nothing quite like getting smoked by 20 year old hatchbacks left n right, some of these guys are amazing drivers.

 

I love your AWR bar

 

^thanks! i love it too haha

Hit up mazfest today @ Autoclub speedway

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoaRlP2c-rI

best lap time of 2:09, could be faster but it was really hot out

i didnt really take too many photos of mazfest, im sure the other members have already gotten that taken care of



renting a garage space is a good idea for fontana in the summer



this ultima GTR is crazy! the guy wasnt even pushing it and he's running 2:02s consistantly, one day when im rich



guy with a 911 turbo cabriolet next to me in the garage blew out his rear tire at 150mph on the straight, luckily it was just a little bit before the highspeed banking, or else he would be going 150mph into a concrete wall. The tire ended up also destroying his rear bumper and passenger side airbox. Gotta be careful out there.

Nice CCWs too, what do you guys think of these as my next set of rims?

 

so drove home on friday night, and car started behaving a little wierd, got home and saw some steam coming out of the hood and alot of coolant pouring out. Popped the hood and the top nozzle of the radiator has broken off.

A mazdaspeed competition radiator with the ron davis core is on the way and also while im at it, a SAMCO 6 peice kit, hopefully i caught it early enough and there was no permanent damage to the coolant seals