Hey guys just picked up an 07 IRL, been following the forums for about two months while looking for a car, and deciding what to look for. Picked up a pretty clean 07. High miles, but one owner car, all highway. Pretty decent shape considering some I've seen. It's the "rare" deep blue. (what IRL ISN'T rare by most standards?) Anyhow. Thought I'd post a little update on it
picked it up with a failing clutch pedal, clutch was on the floor, but no slippage or TOB noises etc, no fluid leaks. I used a copper 1/2" pipe cap for .77c and a neoprene washer (to eliminate any noise from the ball scraping around) from home depot, it clicked into the pedal positively, and solved my problem completely. I won't touch it until the master cylinder breaks, or pedal fails more. Saved myself 100 bucks. Ordering a coolant res. to fix my coolant light this week, as well as an intercooler pump.
sometime this next week, tranny fluid, and intercooler fluid, as well as a TB/MAF cleaning and inspect for vacuum leaks is coming. Oil change was done recently, as well as plugs, and brakes. leaving them be for now. Also there's an infuriating noise I suspect is an exhaust leak. Load only, fluttery sputtery goodness. Once that's fixed I can diagnose the whirring marbles noise in the engine bay. I'm guessing it's the blower- planning on rebuilding the snout and installing new bearings at the same time as a pulley while it's all apart, and then installing a new belt as well. Tensioner too if I have the money at the time- but that's all later.
Then moving on to the suspension. Hesitant to spend money on the car but.... I think I'm going to go ahead and get the FE5 KyB setup with new strut mounts. Cheapo, but can't be a downgrade, and about as cheap as the LNF setup. It needs probably everything in the front end. lots of fun clunkies. axles for sure, I might as well go ahead and do it all, LCAs (aluminum ones from the LE5 as I've learned here-) end links, and tie rod ends. Don't sense any hub or wheel bearing issues as of right now. This should tighten everything up.
Do these cars always bump steer, rather, extremely sensitive to the road surface? I imagine eliminating play in the front end will help.
Then it's on to the rather pricey motor mounts/trans mounts. If nothing else has taken a dump on me by then I'll go ahead and go ZZP stage 3 and run that until the clutch quits.
Like all car guys, I have a million and one small things I could dump money into as well, but trying to only address major issues right now, and from what I've read, this car seems to have a lack of those. well, actually, found about 2" of water in the trunk this morning... assigning blame to the sunroof drains, then checking trunk seals. Not cool. all over the new battery/spare. Sigh. needs a new trunk board/carpet too.
All in all I feel I got a really good deal on the car. Sold my FR-S to get rid of having a car payment, and I'm enjoying this car a ton. It's a freaking fun little rocket ship. maybe rocket shit or space turd is more appropriate. Love it though, really. Everything on the car feels strong, pulls hard, shifts clean. Amazingly, the clutch is original at 175k miles and doesn't slip or make any sorts of noises. The guy I bought it from clearly road tripped it all over. (And he did, had a crazy commute for a while according to him.)
That concludes my hello I guess, look forward to conversations here, hopefully they'll be performance, not lack of performance related! Love my german/american whatever the heck it is car. (noticed metric bolts last night, and I know most electrical components are Bosch, and motor is made in germany, saab shared parts etc etc.)
Oh. Thought I'd go ahead and say WHYYYYY didn't the 07 get recaros
picked it up with a failing clutch pedal, clutch was on the floor, but no slippage or TOB noises etc, no fluid leaks. I used a copper 1/2" pipe cap for .77c and a neoprene washer (to eliminate any noise from the ball scraping around) from home depot, it clicked into the pedal positively, and solved my problem completely. I won't touch it until the master cylinder breaks, or pedal fails more. Saved myself 100 bucks. Ordering a coolant res. to fix my coolant light this week, as well as an intercooler pump.
sometime this next week, tranny fluid, and intercooler fluid, as well as a TB/MAF cleaning and inspect for vacuum leaks is coming. Oil change was done recently, as well as plugs, and brakes. leaving them be for now. Also there's an infuriating noise I suspect is an exhaust leak. Load only, fluttery sputtery goodness. Once that's fixed I can diagnose the whirring marbles noise in the engine bay. I'm guessing it's the blower- planning on rebuilding the snout and installing new bearings at the same time as a pulley while it's all apart, and then installing a new belt as well. Tensioner too if I have the money at the time- but that's all later.
Then moving on to the suspension. Hesitant to spend money on the car but.... I think I'm going to go ahead and get the FE5 KyB setup with new strut mounts. Cheapo, but can't be a downgrade, and about as cheap as the LNF setup. It needs probably everything in the front end. lots of fun clunkies. axles for sure, I might as well go ahead and do it all, LCAs (aluminum ones from the LE5 as I've learned here-) end links, and tie rod ends. Don't sense any hub or wheel bearing issues as of right now. This should tighten everything up.
Do these cars always bump steer, rather, extremely sensitive to the road surface? I imagine eliminating play in the front end will help.
Then it's on to the rather pricey motor mounts/trans mounts. If nothing else has taken a dump on me by then I'll go ahead and go ZZP stage 3 and run that until the clutch quits.
Like all car guys, I have a million and one small things I could dump money into as well, but trying to only address major issues right now, and from what I've read, this car seems to have a lack of those. well, actually, found about 2" of water in the trunk this morning... assigning blame to the sunroof drains, then checking trunk seals. Not cool. all over the new battery/spare. Sigh. needs a new trunk board/carpet too.
All in all I feel I got a really good deal on the car. Sold my FR-S to get rid of having a car payment, and I'm enjoying this car a ton. It's a freaking fun little rocket ship. maybe rocket shit or space turd is more appropriate. Love it though, really. Everything on the car feels strong, pulls hard, shifts clean. Amazingly, the clutch is original at 175k miles and doesn't slip or make any sorts of noises. The guy I bought it from clearly road tripped it all over. (And he did, had a crazy commute for a while according to him.)
That concludes my hello I guess, look forward to conversations here, hopefully they'll be performance, not lack of performance related! Love my german/american whatever the heck it is car. (noticed metric bolts last night, and I know most electrical components are Bosch, and motor is made in germany, saab shared parts etc etc.)
Oh. Thought I'd go ahead and say WHYYYYY didn't the 07 get recaros