Good Day In The Garage

[MazdaTom]

Installed a few things today on my day off. There's a guy on mazdas247.com producing lightweight accessory pullies for 2.0L Proteges. He started with the alternator pulley and is working on the water pump pulley and power steering pulley.





The lightweight pulley is something like 100 grams lighter. Not a huge amount, but since it's spinning, it's just that much more crucial.

And I got the GT Spec 4 point ladder brace installed. Yes, normally GT Spec stuff is orange, or more recently blue, but the guy who I bought this from (same guy who is doing the pullies as a matter of fact) powder coated it black.

this is the stock brace- it probably does the job fine but weighs about 3 or 4 times as much as the GT Spec piece.





Plus I readjusted my Racing Beat cat-back. When I installed it originally, the muffler tip sat too close to the rear bumper cover and would rattle at times- like ALOT! Now it looks like it's nice and clear.

[Huzer21]

Nice. Looks like a fun tech day. That brace definitely looks a good deal lighter than the stock piece. I'm looking forward to playing around with my car tomorrow!

[Colombia28]

Very cool! Loving the GT spec stuff!

[SpeedRacer]

wow and I thought I was hands on with my car...

[MazdaTom]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (SpeedRacer @ Oct 5 2007, 08:41 PM) [url=index.php?act=findpost&pid=3726]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/url]</div>

wow and I thought I was hands on with my car...[/b]

The professionals only to get touch my car after I've totally screwed it up. Or, on the rare occassion, it's something that I just don't want to do. The lateral link I need replaced might get handled by the professionals. I got the nut off the bolt, the bolt itself doesn't want to come out of the knuckle. I struggled with a pair of lateral link bolts on my Saturn for the better part of a weekend once, so I've already earned my stripes- so to speak.

[SpeedRacer]

Damn... wow.. lol...

[tsx_guy]

nice work, how is the ride/handling now....can you drift down the street now? [img]http://coloradomazdaclub.com/forums/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/laugh.gif[/img]

[dcbeggs]

Can you feel any difference after installing those light weight pullies?

[MazdaTom]

Can't feel any difference with the pulley- driving wise. Doing the side-by-side comparison though, the lightweight one is definitely much lighter.

Water pump pulley should be in route. Power steering pulley should be in route sometime next week.

And as far as the brace goes, the car feels a little more stiff going over bumps unevenly- especially driving up over the curb to go up my driveway (right front wheel, left front wheel and then the rear).