Maintenance

Remember how I thought my throw out bearing was bad so I dropped my transmission and swapped the clutch? I thought that noise was unsettling, a few pebbles rattling around, but after the past event those pebbles did a bit of exercise and turned themselves into whole ass rocks. I’m sure it could have lasted a couple more events but I didn’t want to test my luck so I decided to throw that brand new transmission in. With the help of Ian (@longboi.wav), Diangelo (@dandgelo) and Kyle(@suicyle) we swapped everything in a record breaking three hours when we were only supposed to prep to drop it. Of course, nothing car related ever works out perfectly, the T bolts that secured the transmission mount to the transmission SOMEHOW stripped so the next day I was forced to take a dremmel to them. Luckily Tim (@not180sx) had brand new bolts for me so I buttoned everything up and we were good to go! 

A lot of people said short shifters are shit but honestly I really like how it feels. I think it’s easy to base a lot of opinions off hearsay (well for me at least), like how clutches are incredibly hard so don’t even try, or rotary engines are difficult to work with, or 240s are unreliable – the list goes on, but I’ve learned to speak from experience and not spread stigmas that may or may not be true (with some caveats of course, never buy replica wheels. I’ve never owned any but I can assure you they suck. But you just said speak from experience! Well I’ve never met Hitler but I can guarantee you he was an awful person so fuck off). It’s a good way to extend the knowledge base of the car community and open up the floor for different opinions. In essence: never try never know! (again, know replica wheels suck) Anyway I ended up only driving a total of 12 miles before the car ended up back in the garage on jack stands because I uh, well I got a flat. Friendly reminder to get an alignment or at the very least inspect your tires regularly. This one creeped up on me because my dumbass thought my alignment was OK but I had some terrible toe wear on the very inner side of my front passenger side tire. Luckily I have some great friends with spare wheels (@not180sx, @notkouki, @notae86) who came to save the day! I drove it home and dumped it into the garage and I figured I might as well get ready for the kit!

While it was sitting in the garage, I found a spare heart for it from David (@paint_brush_fingers) for $500. Another shitty old KA24DE with a whopping 212,000 miles on it that’ll eventually dig another hole into my pocket in the form of a turbo charger. We’ll save that story for another day (Maybe like 2032 when I actually start building it, stay tuned!) It’s nice to have something to build over time, once mine blows I should be able to drop this one in! Again, back to the earlier topic – SR20s are cool and all but I’m going to give KAT a chance.

I know this update was on the boring side but bear with me! VERY big things ahead. I figure I should start talking about lessons I’ve learned also. Total Cost: $16,366