sailaholic NA8

The American · Postby **The American** » Mon Mar 23, 2015 9:01 pm

Must have been the weekend for it:

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This was an exhaust stud. 1 minute to snap, 3 hours with vice grips, penetrating fluid and all my knuckles to remove.

gslender · Postby **gslender** » Mon Mar 23, 2015 9:19 pm

Whenever faced with a bolt/nut/stud that cannot be removed, I've always found that hitting the nut/bolt whilst at the same time applying a steady force to unscrew would eventually loosen/crack the threads. You have to hit it about 3-5x harder than you are turning it - ie just a steady twisting force is needed, but you can hit it fairly hard as long as you don't damage the head of the bolt/nut etc. I find sometimes a spare set of hands are needed - one to apply a twisting force, another to swing the hammer.

This works in every case I've ever had - was told of this technique by an old mechanic since passed away. Back in a time when the only tools were simple spanners and no penetrating fluids or special stripped-bolt tools existed.

Hope you get some joy.....

sailaholic · Postby **sailaholic** » Mon Mar 23, 2015 11:37 pm

No room to belt it that hard G with the exhaust and trans tunnel in the way otherwise I would have tried it. As you say, can make a big difference.

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sailaholic · Postby **sailaholic** » Tue Sep 15, 2015 8:22 pm

So this weekend is a come and try day at the dirt track on Saturday and also a sprint round on Sunday.

I've not dríven the car much for various reasons so I thought best to get in and do and oil change and check over. Glad I did as I found this!

Right rear rotor which I've had some issues with the handbrake getting stuck on.

So I'm obviously going to need new rear rotors and I'm fairly tempted to get the callipers rebuilt all around at the same time. It's a job that's been on the to-do list for along time but ive never got to it.

Might just throw it at a shop or talk to automotive plus about exchange units. Either way it will be expensive to get done by the weekend.

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slug_dub · Postby **slug_dub** » Tue Sep 15, 2015 10:22 pm

Aww snap! That blows

Have you got stock calipers?

sailaholic · Postby **sailaholic** » Tue Sep 15, 2015 10:40 pm

No of course they're not stock on my car! They are painted red

Yeah bit of pain in the ass, guess i should have fixed that handbrake properly the first time.

The American · Postby **The American** » Tue Sep 15, 2015 11:08 pm

Woah!

Will you go back to standard rotors?

sailaholic · Postby **sailaholic** » Tue Sep 15, 2015 11:13 pm

Yup, 2 reasons.
1. Everyone always said cross drilled was more prone to cracking ( i believed them but wasn't worried enough to actually change the rotors just because) and as you can see the crack goes straight the hole which is being a stress concentrator.

2. Rear brakes don't work hard enough to need anything special. These rotors are almost new in terms of thickness.

Interesting, looking at that photo blow up that the crack doesn't seem to be full depth yet, but duplicated on both sides. Be interesting to see once it comes off the car.

hks_kansei · Postby **hks_kansei** » Tue Sep 15, 2015 11:31 pm

I'd suggest rebuilding the calipers yuorself, it's a pretty easy job if you have some circlip pliers.

of course, if you can't get the kit by the weekend just pay someone else to do it.

sailaholic · Postby **sailaholic** » Wed Sep 16, 2015 7:10 am

Thinking I'll just throw some rear rotors in and get rebuild kits to do the job myself after the weekend.

I have fixed the sticking handbrake so it drives fine I just suspect that was the root cause of the cracking

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Magpie · Postby **Magpie** » Wed Sep 16, 2015 7:24 am

I agree on the handbrake being an issue as the drag would have caused excess heat in the disc. Further drilled rotors are susceptible to fatigue where they are drilled. People can argue that the likes of Ferrari and Porsche use drilled however there maybe a quality difference between what we buy and what the supercars have made.

The rebuilding of the rears is a little bit harder than the fronts and there a few guides posted on the forum for these.

gslender · Postby **gslender** » Wed Sep 16, 2015 9:46 am

I've rebuilt both front and rears and it is fairly easy. Happy to help or provide advice

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sailaholic · Postby **sailaholic** » Wed Sep 16, 2015 9:49 am

Cheers G, advice on which set of circlip pliers to buy would be good. I seem to remember you didn't have to grind yours down like post people.

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gslender · Postby **gslender** » Wed Sep 16, 2015 1:57 pm

sailaholic wrote:Cheers G, advice on which set of circlip pliers to buy would be good. I seem to remember you didn't have to grind yours down like post people.

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Yes, I bought the thinnest I could find but the issue wasn't the head, it was the grips which were too big to fit into the caliper head, so cutting off the rubber grip and leaving just the thinner metal arms of the pliers worked fine. I still have them and you can pop over and borrow them if you wish - I can leave them in my letter box if you want and just swing by and collect them. PM me to confirm the date and I'll make sure they are there!

G

sailaholic · Postby **sailaholic** » Mon Feb 08, 2016 9:26 am

In the interest of noting track time...

Spent Sunday at the dirt track with the WRX club. Got a huge amount of track time, somewhere around the 60-70 laps in my car plus another 10 or so in plohls.

Car was fairly good all day. Some overheating issues if left idling while queuing for track time. This had been a problem before but I thought the bigger radiator fan from a late na8 had fixed it.

Doesn't seem to be an issue of the aircon fan is running. So I'll probably wire una switch to run that fan manually or set it to be dual switch by both the ECU for coolant and for AC.

Unfortunately the ride and then drive of plohls car showed again just how poorly the engine is performing for torque and how much it's costing me in time and car control.

With that in mind I'll probably start charging back to standard parts to identify what's wrong/ the culprit.

Step 1 will be swap the ITBs out and see if that's the issue.
Step 2. Swap the head back to stock and see if it's too big for the stock bottom end.

If both of those don't produce the expected results I'll assume the bottom end is the issue and work out where next.

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