Yes. You going to bring my new exhaust down with you?

 

maybe. where they at?

 

So new exhaust is on and has been for a little while. It was a pain in the butt to install it because the flange did not line up at all. I figure that was probably why it was so cheap, but I think it sounds alright. Not too loud, just drones like crazy when I'm on the freeway.

I'm also getting X2 Ball Joints tomorrow, and I'm trying to figure out which arms I want to press them into- my current A-Arms or the ones from Arin's Bullitt that I have sitting in my garage. I'm thinking about possibly grabbing a set of MM Urethane bushings for the control arms if I go with Arin's old ones since they are out of the car already and it would give me less down time than doing it to my current ones. Has anyone installed the bushings? Is it tough after the arms are out, or is it getting them out that is the hard part?

 

Pete, would you or Arin be interested in my wheels? I'm low on money right now, saving up in case I need to go into the Police academy as a non affiliate. They are 10th Anni wheels, powdercoated semi gloss black with 275/40-17 BFG KDW AS on them, with about 5k on the tires. Couple of stipulations, I'd need your old wheels for mine to sit under a cover, and I'd want to buy the wheels back from you haha. Say $400 and trade?

 

Tell me if those x2 ball joints actually lower the car more! And I think removing is the hard part. You don't want to remove the metal sleeve in the a arm. Just the bushing. Hell, if there off the car throw then in the freezer so the bushings shrink a bit and press them out.

 

If it was me, I'd use the ones out of the car. LCA bushings come in two styles. The complete replacement, or the ones that use the steel sleeve from the old bushings. It's nothing out of this world to do, but it's very tedious. My dad taught me a trick to remove the rubber out of the bushings if you need the sleeve intact. Use a torch and a screwdriver to scrape the burnt pieces out. And if you need that sleeve out, it's much easier to split it with a chissel after the rubber is out of the way. Then hammer it out of the control arm. Or try ro hammer the whole bushing intact from the lca, but be carefull not to damage the holes. If they get out of round or dented, it will bw a royal PITA to put the new bushings in. You may need to file the dent a little bit for it to move.

 

I think I'm going to skip out on doing the control arm bushings. I am hopeful that someday I will be able to afford coilovers and A arms so the stuff on the car now is just interim stuff.

On another note I am starting to think that my front right strut is going bad. I am getting a lot of noise from that corner of the car and I went through and double checked the torque on all of the bolts over there and couldn't find anything loose. It happens mostly over bumps, but sometimes I get a lot of noise just driving down the road. Doesn't really seem to affect how it rides. Just a noise.

 

Started working on my ball joints today, and God was that a mistake...

 

So the ball joints are finally in... What a royal pain in the. It took no time at all to press out/back in the driver's side ball joint, but the passenger side was a whole different beast. Getting the spindle off of the ball joint was far too difficult. I used a BFH to beat on it for a long time before I gave up for the day. The next day I picked up a Pitman Arm Puller from Autozone and that popped it out in no time flat.

If you go to do this job DO NOT get the press from O'Reilly. Get the one from Autozone. The one from O'Reilly does not fit around our ball joints.

 

It's a Kicker CompVR 10" hooked up to a Clarion APX400.4M.

Honestly, I'm no audio geek, but I was told that the sub was a good piece of kit. My problem is that it has more kick to it than my speakers put out, so I hear a ton of bass and my speakers are much more faint. I want the bass to enhance the sound and not just overpower it. On my head unit(DSX-S300BTX) I have an adjustment for the sub, but after -4db it doesn't change the output at all (Until it is at off). I did not hook my speakers up to the amp since they are already connected to the stock amps. Is there a reason to hook them up?

 

I'm no audio geek, here's some things I would try for the subs.( I have 2 10" CVR)1. Is there bass control ****/switch on the amp? If so you could try lowering it to a level you like.
2. Try lowering bass in the HU and rise the treble, on my alpine, I usually have subwoofer setting on 0, Bass at -2 or less, and Treble at +2 or +3.
As for adding an amp to the speakers, I wouldn't unless you were planning on adding additional speakers.

 

Pete, check out my posts in the 10-14 section on audio. There's a lot of useful info there. I wouldn't bother amping the stock speakers, but you have a 4 channel amp. This would be fine for powering a nice set of component speakers up front and your sub, off one amp. It really depends on how you have everything set up. Post some pics of your amp and the settings!

 

this thread blows now

 

You're making me want to get a system too now.

 

music FTW!

 

 

I'm thinking about glassing a box into the trunk since the box I have now just kind of slides around everywhere, and I'm afraid that it might be tugging on the wires when it moves around... And it will look cooler, and it will be out of the way. Yay!

 

Do it. Have you done fb before?

 

^ this, I'm thinking about making a custom enclosure just to to free up more space,

 

I'd like to do one, but it'll have to wait until I've got something else for DD duty, it'll also be in place of the rear seats, there's not enough room in the trunk as it is!