Deadmau5X: MOAR Mods 'N Stuff

[Rmondoh]

Well I just went and did a few errands, came home and got some rags, and went to wash the car. I LOVE how the car feels and sounds now. The exhaust note sounds absolutely perfect to me. It's louder than my old HKS Legamax but not obnoxiously loud. It's pretty much perfect. I know it will get a little bit louder when I throw the test pipe on there, but I don't care, it sounds great. It also feels great too.

I'm not sure I can really tell the bushings are making a difference though, but I know they are definitely better than the stock rubber ones. A visual comparison makes that obvious. Perhaps as I do more driving then I'll feel it a little more.

Either way, I'm super happy with everything!

[Kracka]

I'm super happy with everything!
Great to hear!

[mlomker]

which makes me a ricer according to Lomker, but I'm sure it adds "some" downforce so it's not total rice, lol ;))

Get a big wing or walk in my shadow. ;)

[Rmondoh]

So it's been a while since I posted anything so I figured I'd update this.

Last week I started hearing a noise coming from the front driver side whenever I would accelerate or decelerate and while in gear or out of gear and it only happens at around 18mph. It sounds like a "wump wump wump".

At first I thought it was something I did recently, but the only mods I've done in the past few weeks were my Specialty X catback, drive shaft bushings, and rear differential bushings. Since the noise was happening when the car was moving and whether in gear or not, I thought maybe the drive shaft bushings were to blame. So I put the stock ones back in and unfortunately the noise was still present. I was getting a little worried at this point because I've always looked after the car.

Well I ended up taking the car to Don Herring Mitsu and I explained to the service guy and the service tech what was going on. The tech took it for a drive and heard the noise I was referring to. After a bit of inspecting, I'm told that my front driver's side tire is cupping pretty bad. The inside of the tire is wearing a lot more than the rest of the tire and even then, the tire isn't wearing evenly. I checked the remaining tires and the front passenger tire doesn't feel anywhere near as bad, but it doesn't feel like even wear either. The rear tires feel fine though.

So I'm relieved that there is nothing wrong with the car itself. When I got home, I decided to do a google search and this is what came up:

http://www.lmgtfy.com/?q=goodyear+eagle+f1+all+season+cupping

Looks like the tires have been known to have some issues. Today I took the car back up to Don Herring Mitsu to get my alignment checked. Reason for that is I want to have some proof for Discount Tire that IF my alignment is perfectly fine, then I have an issue with the tires. I know if I had gone to them first and brought up the issue, they probably would have said I need to have my alignment checked so I decided to remove any doubt first before going to talk with them. I only have about 15k on the tires and they still have PLENTY of thread left. I don't really abuse them at all.

It's been about 3 hours since I left the car so I hope to be hearing back from them soon. I'll keep everyone updated as I have news.

*edit: I keep my tires at 32psi and rotate them every 5k.

[Kracka]

The inside of the tire is wearing a lot more than the rest of the tire and even then, the tire isn't wearing evenly.
This makes me think your front toe is out of whack which is very common with the factory alignment.

[Rmondoh]

UPDATE 1:

Just got the call from Mitsu. They found my alignment to be PERFECTLY fine (even after 29k miles :)). The ONLY thing they found was that the passenger side rear tire was off 1/10th of a degree. Based on that, the only logical deduction is that the tires are crapping out on their own. I'll be going to pick it up in a half hour and then heading on over to Discount Tire and probably getting into a fight with them so we'll see!

[Rmondoh]

UPDATE 2:

Well I'm never going to Discount Tire again unless it's to fix a flat tire. They were less than helpful. They blamed the wear on the toe/camber settings of the car despite having shown them that it is up to par with the factory specs. So apparently factory specs are not good enough for any tires put on the Evo X. They also couldn't pro-rate them because of the thread loss and the uneven wear, so even if they sent them back to Goodyear, they would get nothing back. The only thing they could do for me was rotate my tires and tell me I have a really nice car. :jackoff: Of course, they tried to get me to look at other tires but I said no thanks to that.

For now, I guess I'm just going to wear these out, rotating them as necessary to minimize the cupping damage. I plan on going to visit PTP in Ft Worth when I need new tires as it's better to support a local shop full of good guys than a store chain that can't help you. I should have plenty of time to decide which tires to get by then. I'll most likely have to change my brake pads by then so I'll probably do it all at once (EBC Redstuff or RB ET500).

If you have tire suggestions, I'd appreciate it. I think I'll be going with a summer tire this time.

[Kracka]

Good news about the alignment, bad news about the tires :(

Based on what I know about your driving habits, I'm going to suggest the Sumitomo HTR Z III (I've had 3 sets of these) or the Hankook Ventus V12 evo K110 (thinking about trying these next).

[Rmondoh]

UPDATE 3:

Managed to get my oil and oil filter changed after getting back from No Discount Tires. Also was able to put the Torque Solution drive shaft bushings back on. I could not manage to undo the bolts holding the cat to my catback. I blasted them with WD-40 and even busted out my dad's torque wrench to get more leverage and nothing. I ended up giving up as it was 6pm and parents were starving.

I realize now that I probably should have done the cat first when the bolts were still hot/warm instead of doing the oil and bushings. Lesson learned!

I'm heading over to Kracka's early tomorrow morning (well...trying to be there before 730 if possible...which for me is a hard thing to do, lol) to try and do the cat/test pipe swap before heading out to Cobb for the dyno day. Hopefully all goes well and we can get the pipe swapped so I can flash to Cobb's OTS Stage 2 for the dyno day. :)

For those who might be wondering, I really want to dyno the car with Cobb's OTS Stage 2 map because my mods have stayed the same from my Stage 1 OTS dyno pull until now. Swapping out the test pipe will allow me to run OTS Stage 2. So it will give me a good comparison of how well Cobb's OTS Stage 1 and Stage 2 maps compare. I'm currently on a Stage 1 protune from Cobb and making 317whp/322wtq. I made 305hp/291tq on their Stage 1 OTS. I'm guessing that with Stage 2 OTS, I'll probably be around the same hp/tq that I'm currently running. I plan to go back in a few weeks for a retune with a Grimmspeed 3port and a Synchronic BOV. Goal is to be a 330whp daily driver. After that, the car will be donezo!

[Rmondoh]

Good news about the alignment, bad news about the tires :(

Based on what I know about your driving habits, I'm going to suggest the Sumitomo HTR Z III (I've had 3 sets of these) or the Hankook Ventus V12 evo K110 (thinking about trying these next).

Based on those 2 tires, I'd have to go with the Sumitomo only because the Hankook's look like my Goodyear Eagle F1 A/S. The guy at Discount said he recommends asymmetrical tires as opposed to directional tires, especially for a car like the Evo which runs negative camber. Whether he was blowing smoke up my ass or not, that's what he said. I looked at my Advans and they feel/look ok. Nothing like my Goodyears. Tirerack has those Sumitomo's for $123 in the stock tire size. That's a pretty good deal if you ask me. The other thing I liked about the Sumitomo's is this

The inside shoulder is linked by another continuous circumferential rib that enhances wear quality to help reduce noise throughout the life of the tire, especially on vehicles with independent suspensions and alignment settings that specify negative camber.

Considering that one of my Goodyears wore pretty badly on the inside shoulder, that part of the Sumitomo description gives it a +1 from me. I guess I'm adding the Sumitomo HTR Z III's to my list, which consists of just 1 tire so far...Sumitomo HTR Z III, lol! Thanks for the recommendation Kracka!