i’m IN bro! i love working on hondas. worst part of those jobs is breaking the god damn crank pulley bolt free.
yes i have the tool.
Edit: let me know if / when your bros car needs help too.
UPDATE STUFF NOW AT BOTTOM OF PAGE
Edited.
Nice man! looks great!!
What does the tire guy charge for a set of 4? How does he balence them? Is everything in his truck? Thats pretty cool.
I hate to go Pete on you but…let’s rattle can them bumpers/rockers black…Just for shits n gigs. :shifty
When my car’s up and running we’ll have to swap wheels for the hell of it…I want to see what the SSR’s look like on the tan if you don’t mind. Also if you ever think about maybe throwing spacers at it I have hubcentric Rogue 10s and H&R 5s, not for sale…I’ll be using them, but just to see what it looks like.
Rattle can the pristine body panels, are you nuts!? Not to mention, they don’t match the red and yellow on my precision handling bits.
But seriously, I’ll figure out what to do with the two tone (er, four tone for now).
By the time your car is up and running the panty droppin’ bottlecap+Blizzak combo will probably be back on. Heck I may have some Deuce Deuces on by then… Just breakin’ your balls man yeah swapping would be cool…
As for spacers, I don’t seem to have any issues with clearing the strut / etc so I’m not really considering them at the moment. May take you up on it later on though if I end up going w/ 245/40s or something and need the space.
:shifty
Hey if you don’t watch it I’ll throw them on tomorrow just to prove a point! hahah
If you want to try the Team dynamics just let me know, have some nice re750s on them too.
I love them.
Wheel swapping party? Hehe, thanks man… Yeah we’ll rap about it…
By far the best build thread on the site.
Damn that means that I’ve got to step up my game.
archie you are doing some good shit here
please paint all that bullshit black tho, i hate that two tone thing going on…
Stage 5 - Suspension / Wheels / Alignment [UPDATED 9/19/2009]
OK, time to get the rest of the suspension in the car.
First order of business - STRIP the top sway bar mounting bolt at 12 midnight before you need the car to go to work!
Again, the reason why I ask people for help!
Quick (non-booty) call to B-fizzle (my nizzle) and there is no endlink to be had for the late night emergency.
So I have to undo the bottom link and pull the strut out. I figure I’ll finish the job and just leave sway bar disconnected.
So I put the new struts in:
I couldn’t finish without sourcing sway bar link, so I drove to work without the sway bar connected and purchased the end links from Eeuroparts.com.
They are knowledgeable and parts always come the next day if they’re in stock since they are in Connecticut. Bought some Karlyn tie rods there too.
New tie rods were put in at Cooley Mazda, along with new sway bar end links:
Now that the pending issues from the installation are addressed, time to mount up the new (well, ok, used) shoes!
I chose to go with SSR Competitions, 17x8.
Main reason I went with these is that they weigh less than 15 lbs. Secondary reason is that they have a nice open look.
Tires are Sumitomo HTRZ IIIs, sized 225/45R17. So a pretty basic fitment. I’m not one to try and put playing cards between tires / fender, sorry.
SSR Competition Wheel
Stack o’ 17s!!
Anywhere Tire Care got the call to do the tire mounting, mainly because you can’t beat home mounting and he had mounted 245/40 18s on RPF1s for me before without scratching anything. Mike’s a nice guy and he knows what he’s doing. Doing a nice business for himself…
All mounted up but still too much of a rake… (We’ll have to fix that)
So yet another night burning the midnight oil and falling asleep at work the next day and:
I start with this:
Play with this:
And end up with:
Overall, the ride height is set to:
The last piece of it is a good alignment to
- make sure car goes straight when wheel is straight
- increase contact patch when the car is in turns
- set toe characteristics so there are no surprises
I brought the car to Capital Cities in Glenmont, a recommendation from BF.com.
It was obvious that they had done previous work on custom suspension setups and knew all the adjustments. A BF.com member had an alignment done there with TCK Single Adjustables, camber plates, and rear camber arms, and had good things to say. This was very similar to what I was going to have done.
I heard that SCCA guys use Watkins Spring in Albany, NY for a good alignment, but the pricing was almost the same and after talking to both places, it seemed that Cap Cities had more experience. Brad from Cap Cities is a great guy, very helpful and personable.
I had been to Cap Cities once, actually as part of the Craigslist deal in which I picked up the 3.38 LSD from one of their techs. He was there but busy so I could not say hi that morning. Brad said he remembered me though and asked if I put the diff in yet. Well, that’s Stage 7 I guess!!
Extra bonus is that I got a free recall fix, the radiator cap replacement from bringing my car there. Well, the extra cost of the alignment more than covered THAT, but it was nice to know even old ratty 17 year old cars get a break once in a while.
I asked for the following alignment specs:
FRONT
Camber: Negative 2.5 degrees
Caster: Positive 6.0 degrees
Toe: 0.0 degrees
REAR
Camber: Negative 2.5 degrees
Toe: 0.20 degrees total toe in (same as 12’, or 12 arc minutes)
As with any place, I got the printout the afternoon I picked it up.
At maximum the specs were off by 6’, or 6 arc minutes. One arc minute is 0.017 degrees, so this is about 0.1 degrees… Er, I think I can live with that!
No alignment write up is complete with the
GRATUITOUS BUTT SHOT!
Here you can see how the top of the tire leans in more to the center of the car.
And here you can see nothing about the alignment, thanks to my ghetto rigged rear bumper.
And last shot so you can see where this 325i started:
Overall, Cap Cities was definitely a good experience, as with most people who have learned some BIY (Butcher It Yourself) stuff, I tend to stay away from dealers since I’m a cheap a$$, but it’s nice to be treated well at one, with the job being done well and on time!
I was kept up to date with what was happening on the car and made to feel like my old POS mattered. That’s service! Or maybe just plain butt ki$$ing. Well, business revolves around customers, and you can peg me as a happy one for now.
Impressions:I went out for a drive Saturday early in the morning and within 5 minutes ended up here!
So the alignment is that good I guess!!
But seriously, with the suspension (and myself) set on Full Hard (minus half an inch, er turn) I bombed out on some local roads /on-off ramps this past Saturday morning.
I can feel the weight transfer of the car so much better and there is a feeling of quiet stability at higher speeds.
Turn in has been helped too, not only with settings but I’m sure the new tie rods contributed a lot here too.
There’s only some rubbing at full lock, but none while driving. Overall, very happy. 
Vlad you give way too much credit.
I basically do the following in the write ups:
- Con other people into helping me out
- Sit back and front like I know what I’m doing (maybe I have a future in management!)
- Make up for it all with diarrhea of the pen / keyboard
Next up will be LSD swap and X brace install… Gimme a couple of weeks…
I have personally been conned by this man. All of our deals seem to happen after 9pm on strange nights of the week, this leads me to believe Archie must in fact be some sort of generic prescription medication dealer to the elderly. A shady practice, indeed.
Looks great!
Thanks. I paid $100 for all four tires, mounted, balanced, and mounted on the car.
It think it was $25 per tire for 45/40 series. This is equivalent to what most shops in the area (that Tire Rack has on their “recommended” list) would charge.
For snows / stuff I don’t care so much about I always use Wal Mart, they mount/balance four tires for like $40 or less…
He has the balance machine in his truck. Everything’s in the truck.
looks great with the new wheels! clean and simple. why the sumi’s, price?
you just need a kramerbuttz/bigred/bakerian detail and some bumper/trim paint and this will be one hell of a daily!!!
Reason for Sumis = you guessed it. I found all four for $270 picked up, cash. Couldn’t beat that for a brand new set of good tires in this size. Read reviews on Tire Rack, and they seemed ok. My initial impression is they don’t make much noise during cornering, have yet to comment on breakaway characteristics, hehee…
Detail - I dunno man, I respect the work y’all do, but it’s like rattle canning over some fake wheels… Gonna be nice on the surface but still $hitty underneath and frankly, who cares? Notice how my pics are all like from mad FAR away? That’s 'cause if you saw the body / dust / wheels you’d probably barf! All good to me though.
I’ve heard a lot of comments on doing body work, and it’s just really low on my priority list, there are so many other things the car “could use” to be a reliable daily.
I’ll probably do the cooling system / diff / x brace all before any body stuff. My stereo’s in too and I’ll write up something on that but it’s not 100% finished, maybe like 95%.
Lookin good Archie!
all i know about those tires is that they are cheap and dkid hatedddd them for auto X. and im just messing with you about the detail, bottom line is you’re making a reliable and fun to drive daily.
and the wheels really do look good, great choice!
Why were they bad?
- Get greasy because of heat?
- Did not heat up quickly enough to provide grip?
- Not look stunna enough to attract ladies during the drivers meeting?
- He spun out in the rain on the way to event?