heinzboehmer's 2002 Topaz 6MT Coupe

[heinzboehmer]

Alignment done. As expected, front toe was way off:



I say this every time I get an alignment, but I really really need camber arms in the rear so that I can get the camber I actually want (both front and rear).

Anyway, car feels awesome. I am really liking the ZCP rack. The difference in ratio is pretty slight (which is a good thing!), but the difference in feel is huge. The dead center feeling is mostly gone and I really like the weight of it. Excited to rebuild the rack, as it should make it feel even better.

[heinzboehmer]

I've been thinking about what to do with two of the same car (context) and I think I have a plan for the short/medium term.

Grey car is getting all the maintenance it needs and some hand-me-down parts from the blue car (like the belly pan). Blue car is getting some ZCP bits along with brand new parts to replace the hand-me-downs. I did toy around with the idea of stripping the grey car and building an M3 wagon (and the shell into a racecar?), but I just really have no need for that class of vehicle at this point.

So for now, the grey car is going to be made as nice as possible while sticking to a set budget and the blue car is going to continue to be treated as has been since I bought it. It is a bit weird that the traditionally less desirable car (mainly because it's an early car) is getting a larger time and money budget, but I just can't shake the emotional attachment I have to this stupid thing.

Anyway, first thing I did was swap the ZCP steering rack into this car and code the MK60 for the new ratio:



The steering rack was disgusting when it came out of the grey car. Here's a before (after some preliminary cleaning) and after:




I also swapped in new inner tie rods, new outer tie rods and new boots. The rack feels perfectly fine, but I am going to rebuild it in the nearish future just because of the mileage. Have done a decent amount of research and it seems like a job that I should be able to get done without too much frustration. We'll see if that's true once it comes time to remove that inner seal though...

Here's both cars getting their power steering systems bled:



After that came a brand new belly pan:



And that's it? Feels weird to get a job done in a couple hours after the amount of hours I've been spending on the grey car.

Haven't driven this car at all because I don't want to kill the front tires with my very (very) approximate toe settings. Have an alignment appointment on Friday, though, so will post up some impressions after that.

[heinzboehmer]

Cool...I've been wondering about replacing the seat studs in my car. Any reason to not install studs in the rear holes as well?

No reason really. Went with bolts simply cause I had new ones in the garage and I did not have two more studs.

[bigjae46]

Hardware I ordered to fix the seat studs arrived.

New studs installed with red threadlocker:

Cool...I've been wondering about replacing the seat studs in my car. Any reason to not install studs in the rear holes as well?

[heinzboehmer]

Yes S5 with DSC on, S6 with DSC off. The CSL tune will help with overall shift performance. Remember there are adjustments to make on the main DME and SMG DME. If clutch is slipping due to age that could impact as well.

Makes sense, thanks for the info. I'll give it a try in those modes.

For now, car is staying locked in the garage until I do the bearings

[oceansize]

Transmission is shifting much slower than I expect. It's possible that I wasn't in S5 or S6 though. Dumb question but S5 is max bars with DSC on and S6 is max bars with DSC on?

Yes S5 with DSC on, S6 with DSC off. The CSL tune will help with overall shift performance. Remember there are adjustments to make on the main DME and SMG DME. If clutch is slipping due to age that could impact as well.

[heinzboehmer]

It is. No auto mode, ever, just yikes. S5 or S6 only. CSL tune will help. Let off the gas just a hair on shift. I've gone back and forth on letting off the gas and I've finally settled on it does seem to help a bit. If you've got a 181k and the original clutch/pp I'd say your due lol.

Yeah I figured out the no auto mode thing pretty fast. It's not goot at all. Thing I have trouble with is timing when to let off the throttle. Transmission is shifting much slower than I expect. It's possible that I wasn't in S5 or S6 though. Dumb question but S5 is max bars with DSC on and S6 is max bars with DSC on?

Slave cylinder blew a hole through the clutch pivot fork 15k mi ago and all that was replaced. For some reason clutch wasn't, but invoice says it was inspected and "is good" lol. I'll throw a new one in if it starts giving me trouble.

Also, thanks for the reminder about the SMG work, forgot to list that above. Updated.

Yeah it's going to be really cool seeing the condition of the bearings. Please do keep us updated when you do that.

Agreed! Will definitely post pictures when I take the thing apart

[0-60motorsports]

Yep!

Here's all the good things about it:

- ZCP
- Built 04/25/06
- Clean title
- No accidents
- California car
- Cinnamon interior
- Has every single option (even the rear sunshade!)
- VANOS done
- SMG pump rebuilt
- Completely stock
- Cheap!

And the not so good:

- Originally alpine white (which would have been awesome against cinnamon, sigh), but was resprayed some sort of metallic grey by the previous, long term owner
- Car sat in a driveway most of it's life, so paint is hazy, but looks like a paint correction can fix that
- 181k mi and still on original rod bearings (!). Actually kinda excited about this one, really want to see what those bearings look like
- SMG. It's still on all stock everything, so maybe the CSL tune will help, but man SMG is weird

Yeah it's going to be really cool seeing the condition of the bearings. Please do keep us updated when you do that.

[oceansize]

Yep!
- SMG. It's still on all stock everything, so maybe the CSL tune will help, but man SMG is weird

It is. No auto mode, ever, just yikes. S5 or S6 only. CSL tune will help. Let off the gas just a hair on shift. I've gone back and forth on letting off the gas and I've finally settled on it does seem to help a bit. If you've got a 181k and the original clutch/pp I'd say your due lol.

[heinzboehmer]

Yep!

Here's all the good things about it:

- ZCP
- Built 04/25/06
- Clean title
- No accidents
- California car
- Cinnamon interior
- Has every single option (even the rear sunshade!)
- VANOS done
- SMG pump rebuilt with Burkhart stuff
- SMG slave cylinder replaced recently
- Completely stock
- Cheap!

And the not so good:

- Originally alpine white (which would have been awesome against cinnamon, sigh), but was resprayed some sort of metallic grey by the previous, long term owner
- Car sat in a driveway most of it's life, so paint is hazy, but looks like a paint correction can fix that
- 181k mi and still on original rod bearings (!). Actually kinda excited about this one, really want to see what those bearings look like
- SMG. It's still on all stock everything, so maybe the CSL tune will help, but man SMG is weird

[Obioban]

Ha. Did you get a 2nd?

[heinzboehmer]

Waaait what

[heinzboehmer]

Isn't 45nm like 35 ft-lbs? What am I missing?

45 Nm + 90 deg. Ends up stupid tight after the angle

[discoelk]

Isn't 45nm like 35 ft-lbs? What am I missing?

[heinzboehmer]

So, uh, I might need to work on my critical thinking skills a little...

I had previously been blindly following the TIS torque specs for the seat bolts (shown below) and it wasn't until yesterday that I started questioning why they were so ridiculously high.



I think it's fairly obvious that I caused these failures by sticking to that spec.

Anyway, new bolts are torqued to much more reasonable M10 numbers (~50 lb-ft), which should help preserve the threads. I do need to add the passenger side seat rail bracket to my junkyard shopping list, though. Pretty sure those threads are also going to fail whenever I go to remove that seat.