Another P5 on a College Budget....Meet Ozzie

I'm pumped to see your new springs on! From what I've seen around here, the Tokico setup is also pretty popular, and it is available at protegegarage and often in the For Sale section. Eibach does have a good rep though, and I want to know how your handling improves/differs.

Fun times with the P5!
 
The Eibach's will end up giving about a 1.4 inch drop up front and 1.2 inch in the back according to Tire Rack.

BUT JUST TO BE CLEAR, I'm not getting Eibach's for this suspension swap. It sounded like some of you thought I was and while I wish I was, I'm not.

Additionally, I seem to have gotten myself into a mini financial crisis (can I get a bailout?). I found out that I forgot to order strut bellows for my swap, and two of mine are torn anyways. So I'll have to wait to do the suspension swap until those come in, which means that it might not be done before I go out of town next weekend with 4 other people in my car. Oh great. Let's hope that I can get to it on Wednesday, and that it gets completely done, along with getting it in the shop for an alignment.

Time for some positive updates!

I got my springs in just before the weekend, some Tanabe DF210's from another member here. They'll give me not quite a 2 inch drop up front, so it is lower than I wanted, but I did need springs ASAP and these were cheap. Oops....


I also convinced my roommate to pick up my brake calipers in the Cities this weekend, and they are slightly corroded. So I'm planning on sanding them down and painting them red in the next day or two. My rotors and pads also came in yesterday, along with my endlinks on Monday. So this is what my room looks like right now: flooded with car parts.

Needless to say, I need a garage when I move in August.

And it was a busy weekend for Ozzie. Homecoming was here, and I drove him hard almost 400 miles in 3 days. It was not good, and my brakes kept getting louder and louder as the nights wore on, and sadly it wasn't a particularly profitable weekend either. On top of that, Friday night just before close one of out driver's cars was stolen from the store! Some totally trashed blond bomshell decided she needed a ride and just took it since he left the keys inside. Ozzie and I were the ones to find it, completely unharmed, at 5:30 AM. She even left her debit card and driver's license on the front seat, blinker on, keys still in the ignition, and the car top still on. So I would consider Ozzie a hero for that, and the guy will not shut up about how glad he is that I found it.


So that was basically my weekend in a nutshell. Super crazy, but I'm glad it's over. And now I have to wait and rush my repairs on my car. Looks like I'll be busy for a while...
 
I know! He keeps tellin me he owes me for findin it, but I told him don't worry about it cuz he needs the money more than I do (or so I thought). However, other people at work still owe me money.....
Maybe I could get some booze out of it. :) That would make me feel better. haha
 
Haha,whatever works. Or he can come over and lend you a hand when you go and work on your car? I'm usually not keen on taking money for helping people out. If they're friends or colleagues or whoever, I just help to help. (Karma +1 lol)
 
Same here. If they offer a specific about before I do something (like my friend did to move his stuff when he was in Cali and his apartment lease expired) then sure. But it all depends on the situation. And he might be able to help me. I'll see if he'd be willing. Or maybe he could switch shifts with me tomorrow. I might need that. ha
 
Another big update comin your way! I managed to get my brake overhaul done today!

My MZ6 brake upgrade is complete after 6 hours of labor in the campus auto lab. With the help of many people throughout the day, I first was only gonna do the fronts so that I would have time to take a nap before working my 12 hour shift (Florida Georgia Line is in town tonight, so it's gonna be nuts!) seeing as I'm running on two 2.5 hour naps in the last 12 hours. Woo hoo.

However, when we had finished the front brakes and were bleeding them, we decided that we needed to bleed all 4 brakes, even though we didn't touch the rears at all. And when I went to open the bleeder on the rear passenger side, the bleed valve simply snapped off. So we rushed through the two rear brakes in about 2 hours along with bleeding the system twice. And not only did I get a lot of comments of how good it looked, they work great! A little more numb on the brake feel than with the P5 stockers, but it's still really good at stopping so far! I have yet to do the full break-in process, but that'll happen when I start working at 5. ha

So here's some car porn for ya! Fronts:


With the wheels on:




And for those of you who were wondering about the clearance, it's not even a finger depth:


Kinda tough to see, but it's there.

So yeah, that's my update for now, I'll let ya know how everything goes after my shift and if I need to adjust anything. Or you might just see Ozzie smashed up on the side of the highway. Let's all pray that doesn't happen......
 
Not sure if your rotors had designated stickers for which side their on. But i remember putting my drilled and slotted rotors on, anyways my rotors were switched where the slotted lines are opposing facing toward the from of the car rather than sloping toward the back of the car. idk how to explain it, im buzzed, but I remember looking this up and researching what way is the optimal braking performance. Anyways mine weren't designated which direction so i just put put mine opposite of how you have yours, (aka switched left to right). I used to have a link on mazdas247 were people argued the difference. But i found out it depends on how internally your rotors are made. If your rotors have curved internal vanes then the direction matters, but if your internal cooling vanes in the rotors are straight then the direction doesnt matter. Its hard to explain but my cooling vanes were straight i put it facing toward the front because I liked the look more than the opposite direction (sloping toward the back of the car). This is what I read online for a better description.

http://zeckhausen.com/how_to_properly_install_rotors.htm
 
Btw, did you paint those calipers? I remember painting mine for like 6 hours straight and i swear I was high as hell when leaving that room because I was smelling those fumes for so long. I used G2 paint ha.
 
Mine were stickered for which corner they go on. Plus they're straight-veined so it wouldn't make a difference. And yeah, I painted the calipers. Did a pretty crappy job, but considering that it was in between deliveries the night before I think it turned out pretty good. haha

Good report: 150 miles down and my brakes are wicked solid! I even locked them up a couple times on accident since the roads were slick. We had a mini hurricane goin for a while tonight, so everything (especially the roads) were soaked all night. This also made it tricky to get a good start without peeling out of corners and dealing with axle hop (drives me nuts).
Bad news: I forgot to mention earlier that I didn't have a parking brake when I did the swap. This got annoying, but that's it. I just need to be really careful with parking while the engine is running.
And more bad news: Driving through the hurricane and subsequent puddles somehow managed to mess with my horn, and now it is slowly dying. This is bad cuz tonight I had to use my horn a lot (stupid people were out in full force, I swear). So now I'm in the market for a new horn. I was thinking maybe a fog horn like on barges and such, but not entirely sure if that's legal. It would be sweet though! Any suggestions?
 
I've heard a lot of people talking about the Sickspeed ones, but idk if they have anything I like.

Sidenote: What size/fitment things should I be looking for? I was looking at the eBay listings and it said none of the first 8 or so fit the P5.

I really would like something loud and (preferably) not buzzy. Something that will leave skid marks in other people's pants. :) But then again, that may not be legal.
 
Alright guys, I need some help fast! I'm in the shop today to replace my....well, basically my entire suspension. Struts, strut mounts, springs, end links, the whole 9 yards. But I have a question about the rears, for anyone who has done this or knows about it:

How do I access the top bolt for the rear struts? Do I need to remove the seat belt attachments and remove the entire plastic wall, or is there another way to get at it?
 
Also, does the washer for the strut mounts go on the top like this:

Or does it go on the bottom like this:
 
You will have to pull the stock strut to see how the washer fits. The interior hatch panels have to come out to get to the rear struts.
 
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