With the vacation filed, work on getting the car ready for the season has begun. Kelly Aiken at BMR Suspension has one of their new Watts links headed my way which I await eagerly. I was also given the information to a person in LA that was selling a set of sticker 285/35/18 RS3V2's for a price I couldn't argue with. They were paid for and should be here well before the start of the season. The wheels are already here and they are a set of SVE drifts, 18x10, in Dark Stainless:
At 24lbs they aren't the lightest 18x10, they aren't the heaviest, but the price to weight ratio is just impossible to really beat. These wheels are $169 a piece from Late Model Restoration and have been used on a large number of track driven Mustangs. They'll serve me just fine with 285/35/18 RS3V2's!
The other major servicing that needed to be done was to the brakes. My rear brake pads were in need of replacement, a product of having co-drivers who don't remember to turn off the traction control system, and the tons of runs done on a car with a clutch based differential that wears out easily. Combine that with C-Clip axles and your outer brake pads wear quicker than the inner brake pads. With the T2R, if there is any additional wear on the outer pads it will be minor in comparison to what it was with the T-Lok rear diff.
Carbotech 1521's replaced the factory pads and Centric 120 series rotors replaced the factory rotors. This is a relatively simple process to do but it is time consuming. After some 2.5hrs of fiddling with the brakes, they were installed. Bedding these new pads in to the new rotors was relatively straight forward too. Carbotech recommends a series of stops from 60 down to about 25. A short break and then another series of stops. I did 5 stops, a 5 minute cool down and 5 more stops. That produced a very nice transfer layer on the new rotors. Not that I took photos of that because that would make sense!
As for the pads themselves? Well, I'm a bit underwhelmed by them but they are so new I'm not sure I can really pass judgement quite yet. What I'm noticing is that initial bite is about the same as the factory pads. The pedal effort, IE: How much pedal needed before ABS engagement, has increased. It takes A LOT of stepping on the brake to get the ABS to engage, even with snow tires. I'm curious to see how that works out when there is some serious rubber under the car. On that note, I suspect a lot to blame in the factory lines and fluid still in the car... if nothing else they don't help at all and are on that "shortlist" to replace.
I should also note that in addition to the brake lines and fluids the car is in need of a transmission flush and a coolant flush. I suspect that at 55,000 miles it's high time to take care of those things. I'm sure the spark plugs are coming up on replacement too. The Tremec 3650 5 speed manual transmission has a recommended oil of Penzoil Syncromesh or GM's Syncromesh. I plan on using exactly that. That should smooth out some of the shifting. The rest is just maintenance... I suppose the brake fluid is more than just maintenance... not sure if I want to do the brake lines just yet. If I go to that level of work I'll do the clutch line too because why not? Lets remove all the rubber from the lines that use brake fluid!
That's what is next. I'm hoping to have that all done before the start of the season so the car will be as fresh as possible for the return to National Competition.
