Re: Evo X upgrades
 

Sand blast it and either do a good rattle job, or powder coat it. (Can you even successfully powder coat an fmic?)

Re: Evo X upgrades
 

Perrin customer service is pretty quick. Their guy told me that it is a powder coat. My guess is that the surface wasn't prepped well enough, otherwise this big piece shouldn't have come off.

I'm going to take a pic to send them when I get home. I hope they swap it for a new one. $650 (or whatever) should look good for more than six months.

Re: Evo X upgrades
 

Why not do a thermal dispersant coating to release heat instead of keeping it in? Or anodize it. That is if Perrin won't do anything for you.

Re: Evo X upgrades
 

Zac had a black perrin FMIC and the same thing happened after like 6 months. He ended up just getting a silver/unpowdercoated one.

Re: Evo X upgrades
 

Sand blast it and either do a good rattle job, or powder coat it.

edit, wtf I posted this twice.

Re: Evo X upgrades
 

The thermal dispersant idea andrew had sounds nice, but when I talked to Jesse @ Primo, he made it sound as though they helped some parts lots more than others. I thought about getting my SMIM done, but for near twice the cost it wouldn't have been worth the cost for the difference it would have made. Something worth asking about though I suppose

Re: Evo X upgrades
 

That was the first thing that crossed my mind. Wish I'd gone with ETS on more of my parts--they anodize.

http://i959.photobucket.com/albums/a...02010/fmic.jpg

Re: Evo X upgrades
 

Got my gauges figured out again...the OBD module had terminated the daisy chain again since the config was reset.

http://i959.photobucket.com/albums/a.../alignment.jpg

Re: Evo X upgrades
 

How's that rear toe gonna treat you? Also, with that big flake off the intercooler, it seems to me to be something wrong with the surface in that area, like you said. But keep in mind, there are always going to be rocks/sand/dust hitting it that will eventually take off any coating except maybe anodizing, still, that's only a surface treatment of the metal, right? So a big rock could gouge right through it. You should see the stuff in my intercooler.

Re: Evo X upgrades
 

Justin was very insistent about the rear toe. The car comes with that stock so I've never driven a car at 0 to compare.

What's interesting is that my car is out of spec for caster and it isn't adjustable on the X. I'd have to have the PSRS installed (which I do have) to add caster. I guess that's a possible Winter project.

Re: Evo X upgrades
 

Debadged the trunk and put a number of scratches in it. I was careful, too. I'm really loving my Mitsu paint. :toiletp:

http://i959.photobucket.com/albums/a...0/debadged.jpg

Re: Evo X upgrades
 

Looks good!

Re: Evo X upgrades
 

What did you use to remove the badges?

Re: Evo X upgrades
 

Unless you're set on this car being a track beast I'd get that rear toe zero'd out. .13 on each side is a ton and will chew through your tires. If you insist on running rear toe I'd go factory spec with .06 (.12 toe-in combined).

I take it this shop doesn't have much Evo experience? You're going to be hard-pressed to find a suspension shop with Evo experience to recommend running toe, especially that much, on a street car. Why not just go to Jeff since he's proven, and my guess, cheaper?

Re: Evo X upgrades
 

I tried a hair dryer & dental floss but it kept breaking so I ended up prying them up instead. If I ever do it again I'll make sure that I have fishing line and two people.

He doesn't seem enthused about corner balancing and I needed that along with an alignment.

Re: Evo X upgrades
 

Corner balancing is definitely overkill for for any street car and even most recreational track cars. I can understand why you'd want one though, I'm overly anal like that too :) Hopefully you set your tire pressures exactly to whatever spec you plan to run, had the same amount of fuel in your tank you plan to race with, and were sitting in your car. All those things can completely throw a corner balance off. I was actually amazed to see how much even an extra 1-2 psi in one tire can make. Mind me asking what they charged you for the whole package and how long it took? What kind of alignment rack and scales do they use? Did they have the fancy Hunter EagleEye laser rack with scales and tire pressure hoses at each corner to keep the tires at a constant?

Re: Evo X upgrades
 

The same could be said of coilovers but I have them. Might as well set them up. Eventually my car will be track-only. I hope to buy a tow vehicle and get rid of the Acclaim in the next year. lol.

http://www.stellar-autoworks.com/services.html

These guys have a killer setup. You're right that they don't have extensive Evo experience but they have a lot of combined experience setting up track cars. I wish I could remember the name of the place that they worked for...something 'truck service'. They've now hung out their own shingle. In their opinion there are only 4 alignment guys in town of their caliber and Jeff was among them.

Re: Evo X upgrades
 

Regarding the weights...they did put my weight in the driver's seat using barbell weights.

Fuel in the tank shouldn't matter unless the tank isn't centered (it looks like it is). I actually didn't know what a corner balance was and had to have them explain it--it's making the weight on the drivers rear & passenger front equal the weight on the passenger rear & driver's front wheels.

I had RS Motors slap those coilovers in back in December...the rear was riding higher than the front. It was in pretty sad shape as far as balance goes.

I had them use 32psi but 32 turns into 38 when the tires are hot. It's still the same volume of air.

They had the car for a full day but gave me a loaner vehicle so I didn't have to miss any work. That was a plus considering how much work I've missed dealing with the car (the amusement of my boss only goes so far).

http://i959.photobucket.com/albums/a...nerbalance.jpg

Re: Evo X upgrades
 

Well, how was the track day man? Did the car do ok? You have fun? :D

Re: Evo X upgrades
 

Snapfish bought Motionbox so now my videos are half the quality (surprise).

This is just a few turns at BIR.
http://www5.snapfish.com/snapfish/sl...NAME=snapfish/

Front o2 threw another CEL. I lost one of the muffler bolts on the track. Didn't realize that until the ride home, though.