As winter continues to wane, the warmer months here in North Carolina will be here soon and I'm already making preparations. The full machine correction on the exterior paint has been months in the works; just a matter of finding the right weekend to do it. I have also known for a while now that I'm running on borrowed time (over 70,000 miles) as far as my water pump goes, so along with the OEM replacement water pump, e-thermostat, and coolant that I got in a few weeks back, I recently added the u-shaped hose as well just to be on the safe side.
Soon after collecting all the supplies needed for these jobs, I made the decision to free up some space as well as collect some extra modding funds by selling all the parts I had removed since taking ownership. At this point there were quite a few. This helped alleviate some of the costs associated with the next round of enhancements I had sitting in an ECS wish list.
In addition to the paint correction and water pump jobs, two serious future time commitments, I added even more time in the garage when I pulled the trigger on the following:
- Side skirt splitters from FMXOMAR
- Ikon Motorsports front lip
- Made arrangements to have my calipers rebuilt and powder coated a different color
- The ECS Performance front/rear service kit complete with 2 piece drilled/slotted front rotors, GEOMET drilled/slotted rear rotors, front/rear Hawk HPS pads, pad sensors and new installation hardware
- ECS stainless steel brake lines
- The ECS Brake Fluid flush kit complete with Schwaben bleeder, bottles, wrench, and 1 liter of Pentosin Super DOT4 brake fluid
- OEM front belt kit complete with upper idler pulley, lower idler pulley, accessory belt tensioner and accessory belt
- Two five liter bottles of Motul X-Cess 5W-40 (I finally made the decision to switch from the OEM oil I've been using for years) and a Mann oil filter kit
- A set of colder NGK plugs (going to give these a try over the OEM plugs since it's getting close to change interval)
- Bosch wiper blades
As these parts trickle in over the next few weeks, I'll update this thread. This round of mods should round the car out nicely aesthetically as well as ensuring I won't fall victim to any of the usual culprits that cause issues mechanically. After all of this, a single turbo may be the last task left to tackle before calling it a day.