I honestly did mean it. Taking into consideration the fact that Ek9's are down as supposedly being one of the best handling production FWD hatchbacks ever made it would have made sense too. The fact of the matter is I just can't help myself when it comes to tweaking bits and bobs. I get bored quite easily of driving round in a plain car like the majority of the rest of the world. Even though it had a louder than life exhaust even when I run it with the silencer in it just wasn't enough to satisfy my need to set myself apart from the rest.
I did my research into what and from who, looked into my fundings, sold a set of wheels I had lying around and ordered up a set of BC racing's BR series coilovers. I was really impressed with the service I had to say, you had a choice of spring compressions and they even came with their own dyno testing graph! They showed up 9 days after I'd ordered them which I thought was pretty damn good too, whether they had them on the shelf or not who knows but they sure were an awesome bit of kit! Ridiculously light but no compromise in the build quality whatsoever!
They were out for delivery to my house on a Tuesday but working 8.30am - 5.30pm means that I'm never in for deliveries and my Sister just so happened to be out this day but when I came home to see the calling card it turned out they were being held at a depot 2 minutes down the road from my house that was open untill 7.00pm!
I took my mate Pasty down with me to pick them up as I was heading past his house on the way anyway, he's quite a bad influence and decided that we should fit them there and then that very night. It was getting on a bit and by the time I'd popped home to grab tools, food and a change of clothes it was near enough 8.00pm! There was also light rain but we got it half in his garage which has a porch over it anyway and started taking things to bits.
The fronts came out and the new ones back in easy took us maybe 40 minutes maximum each side with a few tea/fag breaks here and there. We dropped it off the jack and the tyres sat on the arch liners, looked amazing but didn't like moving, so back up it went and we would it up 10mm each side. This worked wonders and after stiffening up the damping a bit it meant that it doesn't catch unless your on heavy load when on lock! By this time it was about 10.30pm but we were convinced the rears were easier so we made start, we were tired and this led to us not using any common sense and seizing a droplink balljoint nut. This put a stop to our efforts for that night and I had to drag its sorry ass to work the next day with full on mega rake!
The next day after a refreshings nights sleep and new droplinks ordered we cracked on and discovered we didn't have to remove the droplinks at all just drop the ARB mounts instead. It all made sense now and within minutes we had the rears out! Success felt good and we had it all back together in no time at all! I was happy, it sat well, still needs minor tweaks but its just a case of winding the rears up a tad! The ride is awesome and I'd highly recommend the BC's to anyone thinking of getting a set!
Anyway enough babbling for now, few more bits to sort then I can get the wheels on. Might be good at some point.
on July 14, 2011, 5:50 am