Anybody know where I can buy that neat little metal plate that the STI guys put on their bumpers to protect the plastic from melting with their exhaust so close?
Here's a video clip with just the straight downpipe. You can really hear the turbo with the exhaust removed. I miss that sound a lot. Damn factory airbox silenced my poor turbo. Part of me wants to leave the exhaust off and drive around like that but the bigger part of me says,"Don't be that asshole. You're not 16 anymore." It's very loud. I remember when I drove it to the exhaust shop with just the downpipe on and I had one hell of a headache by the time I got there.
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"Your testes are close to your bottom but you still play with them all the time." Jeremy Clarkson
You can fab one out of aluminum. You can buy a flanging tool to form the metal around the outer curve of the bumper to cover that melted part or you can clean that up decently if you have a soldering iron and a wide tip (or a plastic welder). It's polypropylene, so it's not bad to work with. It kind of smears as you melt it, but it's fairly forgiving and you can get it pretty smooth. If you have a plastic welder and some PP rod, you could even fill in the parts that have melted off and get it back to near perfect, otherwise you'll need some body filler if you care to bother fixing it.
Midnight in a Perfect World on Amazon or order anywhere. The first book in a quartet chronicling the rise of a man from angry criminal to philanthropist. Midnight... is a distopic noirish novel featuring 'Duchess', a modified 1990 Subaru Legacy wagon.
kimokalihi wrote:I'm completely blown away at how effective that coating is. IF you get it done at the right place that actually uses quality ceramic coating and now just some shitty rattle can job like I swear grimmspeed does.
Yup, if you've got good ceramic coating, it goes a long way to keep the heat in.
And it's only ceramic coated on the outside! Normally they do both inside and out but since I had that STUPID cat they couldn't do the inside or it would probably be even more affective than it is.
I don't want to move the muffler anywhere. I like it the way it is and it hasn't melted the bumper until this happened. The plate I was asking about was just to cover up the damage to the bumper. Although it's hardly even noticeable since it's so low and on the underside. You have to get your head down there to see it really.
Steve, one of these days I'm gonna buy a plastic welder. So many neat uses for it. And a rivet gun.
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"Your testes are close to your bottom but you still play with them all the time." Jeremy Clarkson
If you can fit a weder tip to put rod through to a solder iron, but otherwise it's not a good way to try to weld with rod and you'd want with an adjustable temp. It could definitely be used to clean that area up by just melting what's there back into place so that it looks OK, but so could sandpaper. A plastic welder is nice to have, but kind of pricey if you rarely use it. I'd let you borrow mine if you lived around here. Rivet guns are a lot easier to justify expense-wise.
Midnight in a Perfect World on Amazon or order anywhere. The first book in a quartet chronicling the rise of a man from angry criminal to philanthropist. Midnight... is a distopic noirish novel featuring 'Duchess', a modified 1990 Subaru Legacy wagon.
I finally got my hands on some pearl white door handles! Been a long search. Can't tell from these pictures but they are a bit lighter than the doors so that sucks but they look a hell of a lot better than chrome. That was the last of the chrome on my car too. Good riddance.
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"Your testes are close to your bottom but you still play with them all the time." Jeremy Clarkson
Thanks. I'd like to raise the front a half inch or so though. Pretty tired of the rubbing. It's rubbing on the frame of the car on the inside of the fender wells.
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"Your testes are close to your bottom but you still play with them all the time." Jeremy Clarkson
SILINC3R wrote:looks awesome Kimo, you going to keep the mirrors and the scoop black?
The scoop is only there until I go 257/tmic. I have an na hood waiting for that. I hate the scoop. Looks tacky and ricey.
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"Your testes are close to your bottom but you still play with them all the time." Jeremy Clarkson
SILINC3R wrote:looks awesome Kimo, you going to keep the mirrors and the scoop black?
The scoop is only there until I go 257/tmic. I have an na hood waiting for that. I hate the scoop. Looks tacky and ricey.
You mean AWIC?
Nice find, looking good.
Haha! Stupid phone no I meant FMIC.
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"Your testes are close to your bottom but you still play with them all the time." Jeremy Clarkson
prodrive wrote:where did you get the door handles from?
fngearhead found them on a pearl white wagon at a junkyard and sold them to me.
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"Your testes are close to your bottom but you still play with them all the time." Jeremy Clarkson
The hood scoop is only ricer when it is taped onto the hood with no hole in the hood under it. Since it is pre-facelift I do vote for scoopless once you get a FMIC though, would look nice and clean!
Thanks. It will be a vast improvement to ditch that scoop. It also kind of gives me away. To cops and people that want to race. I think a lot of people wouldn't notice my car without it unless they heard my exhaust which isn't very loud either.
98 Metro Hatch Daily Driver :)
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"Your testes are close to your bottom but you still play with them all the time." Jeremy Clarkson
Here's some shitty overexposed HTC shots of my semi decent gauge install. Not as happy with it as I had hoped. I painted the trim around the gauges black to match everything and the paint didn't come out all that well. It's actually Vinyl/plastic dye. It looks OK though I guess.
Damn STI/WRX owners and their saturated aftermarket selection. Most of them don't know what modding a car is. I feel like I've hand built this car from the ground up.
Last edited by kimokalihi on Mon Mar 26, 2012 1:48 am, edited 1 time in total.
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"Your testes are close to your bottom but you still play with them all the time." Jeremy Clarkson
Did a pull on an SVO Mustang today on the freeway. Just one quick pull and he got the jump on me at first partly because I wasn't sure if he wanted to race and he started first but also because I only downshifted into 4th and he ran out of steam when I started to get into the power band. 3rd gear and I'm sure he would have been left behind. I just don't race or drive fast much for that matter anymore so I didn't think 3rd was necessary but I was wrong.
I'm assuming it was an SVO 2.3 turbo or whatever they are because I could hear the turbo pretty loudly when he pulled up next to me and I haven't heard of too many people turbocharging 5.0's.
My car runs too rich and I think that's robbing me of power. WOT at 18psi it's almost 10:1! 10.2-10.5ish is about as rich as it goes but it shouldn't be that rich. That's crazy rich. Should be 12.5:1 - 13:1. And I still see it flash the knock light at me sometimes in boost which defies logic with that rich of a mixture. I'm going to try to get a video and talk to Rob about it.
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"Your testes are close to your bottom but you still play with them all the time." Jeremy Clarkson
lol easier said than done. I don't have an extra $1,500-$2K laying around. Well, I do but I don't want to blow it on my car.
But the car is SLOW. It's embarrassing.
98 Metro Hatch Daily Driver :)
91 SS EJ20G Engine/Tranny/Diff Swap Build Thread Here
"Your testes are close to your bottom but you still play with them all the time." Jeremy Clarkson
It's very loud. I remember when I drove it to the exhaust shop with just the downpipe on and I had one hell of a headache by the time I got there. 
