Sweet, nicely done! So what it took you 8 months? I'm at 1.5 years and not even halfway to what you did...and my car is stone age in comparison.
Can't wait to see it at Summit.
Sweet, nicely done! So what it took you 8 months? I'm at 1.5 years and not even halfway to what you did...and my car is stone age in comparison.
Can't wait to see it at Summit.
Klayfish wrote: Sweet, nicely done! So what it took you 8 months? I'm at 1.5 years and not even halfway to what you did...and my car is stone age in comparison. Can't wait to see it at Summit.
Well, you do have a couple little demands on your time that I don't.
The biggest delay was frustration-caused breaks. I took a month or two off here or there to work on other things when I got fed up with it. There's just too much stuff in too small of a space. "Ten pounds of E36 M3 in a five-pound bag" so to speak. The platform was designed around an I6 motor and they shoehorned the V8 in there. To give you an idea of how tight it is, the factory service manual says to pull the cylinder head in order to replace the exhaust manifold gasket. I obviously had the cylinder heads off but many things were just too tight both on disassembly and reassembly.
Wow, over 4 months later. Life with the GS: An update.
The service I have had to do: Nothing! Nothing to speak of other than reliable, fast, comfortable driving. Literally the only things I have done is add air to the tires and change the oil. I've put about 4500 miles on it, the majority in driving to Lemons races since my commute is about 8 miles and I do that mostly by motorcycle or bicycle.
I had intended to do some light mods to the car but as usual life has kept me busy on other things. And a potential project house hell coming up has me limited for the next 6 months or so.
What driving it is like: very, very fast - oh god the power - with very flat handling and surprisingly decent behavior out of the auto transmission when in sport mode and really good grip through the turns. The traction control is necessary in aggressive daily driving and is more forgiving than the old stuff, it doesn't cut 100% of the power at the first sign of slip but keeps things in control. But all told in real every day driving it's not that exciting. It handles really well for what it is (a 3700 pound luxury / "sport" sedan) but I've bumped into the "fast car on the street" syndrome. 300hp is great when you're able to use it, but when can you use it on the commute or even on long trips? You floor it, get to 65 in about 6 seconds, then let off. Occasionally blast from 40 to 70 in a few seconds with a big grin on your face then lift or face a massive ticket. So there's that.
The fuel economy is better than I expected. On my trip to CMP the weekend before last I averaged about 27mpg. That's pretty damn good for a v8 rwd sedan, I think. It ties with my i5 Volvo wagon while being a heck of a lot faster. I expected worse, actually. Average so far is in the 24mpg range which is about 5mpg better than I expected.
Reliability is what I've expected - excellent. The only troubles right now are things I bought it with: the passenger rear door lock actuator doesn't work and the passenger front window doesn't want to roll up occasionally. The auto-up function thinks there's something in the way so rolls it DOWN instead which isn't fun, but it's excusable after 238,000 miles and I haven't even taken the time to pop the door panel and lubricate the tracks since it only does it about once every couple months.
I do not regret buying the car and putting all the work into it. It's been 100% worth it to me and reselling it for everything I have into it and then some shouldn't be difficult. Any questions ask away.
Oh, one clarification on the grip / twisty driving abilities of the car. I had an LS400 before this and expected that with a little less weight and a little less body lean. This is a totally different animal. The LS400 is totally tuned for comfort, this is tuned way more toward the handling side. It's way more taught and composed in turns. The sway bars are about 2x bigger in front and 5x bigger in the rear compared to the LS. Sweepers can be comfortable taken at speeds that would be terrifying in the LS.
It is very satisfying to drive, for what it is, I'm saying. It's not gonna pass any Miatas mid-curve, but you'll be a lot more comfortable while blasting past them on the straights.
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