A Couple Pictures at Dusk

Not much going on with my RX-8 lately other than it being my daily driver. I bought a Valentine-1 radar detector, which is pretty cool. I'm thinking about hardwiring it into where my sunroof wires run so that I don't have a cord hanging down from my windshield. I'm also thinking of returning it because it was expensive and cops use laser now which detectors are useless against...

I need to change my oil and rotate my tires, so that should be happening something in the near future as well. Here are a couple pics I took while working on my Jeep (tgjeep.blogspot.com) on evening at Dave's house:

Best Mod I've Done So Far

While I was in South Bend last weekend I stopped by the Notre Dame Bookstore and picked up the quintessential ND Alumni item: the Notre Dame license plate frame. I put it on last night and after driving it to work this morning I'm pretty sure it added at least 25 horsepower, which is nice.

Oh and that's my garage at my apartment in Ohio, and that poster on the wall is something I stole from the ND Engineering building on my graduation day; yeah, I'm a rebel.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changin'.... the Oil

So I'm finally posting on this blog again. I've been loving the RX-8 for the past 5 months, but I haven't really had anything significant to post about, so I've basically forgotten I even had this blog. Well today I finally did something other than drive it or put gas in the tank; I changed my own oil, for the first time in my life!


It took me a couple hours because I was learning as I went, and also it was difficult to jack up the car because it is so low and because there wasn't an easy jack location at the front of the car.


Eventually I got the car up high enough so that I could slide under it and remove the oil pan plug and drain the old oil. When the flow stopped, I put the plug back in and added the oil. I put in 4 quarts before checking the owner's manual and finding out that the engine oil capacity is 3.5 quarts (oops!). But after I checked the dipstick, the oil level was just barely above the "full" line, so I think it all worked out.


The oil filter was kind of a pain because it was tucked behind some tubes up against the fire wall, but after a few minutes I managed to squeeze my arm in there and swap out the old filter for a new one.


Another thing I did was to remove the plastic molding from the front bumper which I thought was kind of lame and gave it too much of that "straight from the factory" untouched look. It came off without too much trouble, but it left behind some glue-type stuff which I'll need to spend some more time getting off.

Also, I just realized that I forgot to put my liscence plate back on and I drove home with only one plate (double oops!).

My New Car: First Impressions, Future Plans

I purchased my 2004 Velocity Red Mazda RX-8 GT 6 Speed on October 25th, 2008, which also happened to be my 23rd birthday. Many people celebrate their birthdays by going out to dinner or spending time with friends and family; I, however, decided to spend the day at a dealership. Although it may not have been the most exciting birthday I've ever had (5+ hours were spent sitting around while bumbling idiots filled out paperwork), the end result was all that mattered.

During the past week, I have spent a great deal of time reading about all aspects of the RX-8, from suggested maintenance to the numerous methods for increasing horsepower. I have already put together a list of the things I would like to do to ensure that the car is operating at peak performance; I have also thought of a few ways that I would like to add a little more power.

I would most likely not be making any performance or cosmetic modifications for a while since I still have the entire car loan to pay off, but I would like to do some of the preventitive maintenance to ensure that I don't run into any problems in the future.

Repairs:
- Fix some minor paint chips & scratches
- Look into the rough idle problem (might be loose engine mounts)

Maintenance:
- Change cabin air filter
- Change Trans. & Diff. fluids (Redline)
- Change the oil (Royal Purple 5w30)
- New spark plugs & wires
- New ignition coils (MazSport)
- Check/Replace engine air filter
- New performance oil filter
- Wash/wax/seal exterior paint

Future Mods:
- Window tint, 20%-30% (For the stealth look, and privacy)
- Tail light tint (I'm not a big fan of the altezza look)
- Exhaust (Greddy SP2, Borla)
- Axial Flow STS (Best early mod, according to most)

Distant Future:
- RB REVi Intake

- RB Ram Air Duct

- New springs/struts

- Front/Rear Sway Bars
- New pulley/flywheel
- Small wing (can't decide if I like my current wingless look)

- Car PC

- Small turbo kit (VERY distant future, if ever)

I washed my car this weekend, and doing so allowed me to get a better feel for all of the small imperfections in the paint. At some point, I want to spend a few hours fixing all of the tiny chips and scratches in the paint, and then clay bar the whole car, followed by a full seal and wax job. I was told by a friend that Klasse products are great for protecting paint and they bring out the shine in factory paint jobs.

I also am interested in attempting to clean out any carbon build-up that might currently exist in the engine. If the previous owner didn't redline the car often, there may be a carbon problem that could be cleaned out with seafoam or other carbon cleaning agent.

Anyway, this will hopefully be the first of many posts about my car's progress (as long as I don't get too lazy). I'll try to use a camera better than my iPhone for future pictures!