After a long-endured Minnesota winter its's time for an update on what's going on with the car.
I was pleasantly surprised at how capable the car was throughout the various snowfalls and icy conditions. This is my first RWD only car, and with the Pirelli Sottozero's the car handled everything mother nature sent its way.
Now that it's spring, time to get the winters off and the summers on as well as a few other items.
I dropped the car off yesterday as I am out in Montana for a week, so I figured it would be a good time to knock out some projects. First of which was installing KW H.A.S springs to dial in the stance of the car. I think these coupled with the 10mm front / 12mm rear spacers will really give the car the look I'm going for -- I narrowed in on the KW kit due to it being revered for its 'better than OEM' ride quality as well as the ability to independently adjust ride height front and rear. It seems for some reason that the OEM suspension front wheel gap is slightly larger than the rear, so this independent adjustment should allow me to create a consistent, tight wheel gap at both ends of the car
Additionally, the OEM 343m wheels are off and headed in for reconditioning and ceramic coating. While there was no curbing or egregious damage to the wheels, the finish was beginning to show signs of wear where the underlying silver was poking through. Once reconditioned back to the OEM satin black finish, they will get a full ceramic coating to help keep them protected long term. I will also be swapping out the OEM pads for some Powerstop low-dust formula ceramic pads, as last year I was constantly wiping down the wheels to remove brown brake dust.
New Michelin PS4S summers are going on when they get back. I went with 265/35/20 front (OEM size) and 305/30/20 rear (10mm wider than OEM). Should be able to put the power down better due to the extra width and also moving from Pilot Super Sports. The rolling diameter of the 305's with the 30 aspect ratio will actually be closer to that of the OEM 265/35 fronts than the original 295/30 sized rears, so a nice proportion bonus there. Once the recon'd wheels and tires are on the car, I will update with photos of the new stance.
And lastly, a small but welcome refresh to the brake caliper ///M logo -- while I replaced the faded 'M' last year, I did not go to the length of redoing the faded stripes as well. I got as close as I could to match the colors from readily available vinyl colors that had high heat resistance characteristics, and I think it turned out great. The logo really pops on the blue calipers now and is just one of those small details that is worth the effort.
