08-18-02 - I finally changed out the opti spark after 70,000 miles. It was missing pretty bad, even backfired on me a couple times one day. It was the loudest backfire I've ever heard, it bounced off the walls of one building on one side of the street and echoed all the way across the golf course on the other side of the street. BOOM!!! I didn't end up changing out the actual "opti" part of it, only the cap and rotor, which is what I suspected being the culprit anyway. I bought a Niehoff cap/rotor kit (part # DR80K) from Schuck's for $196. FYI, this part is Universal, and made for BOTH styles of opti's, vented/non-vented. What's cool is the cap already has a vent tube molded into it so I kind of got a vented model without changing out the entire setup, i.e. timing cover, dowel pin on the cam, etc. Once I got it apart the wear on the pins in the cap were pretty bad. They had all worn through about 40%! No wonder it was missing on me. I REALLY wanted to put in a new timing cover while I had it all apart but didn't have a puller for the crank hub and was under some time constraints since I had to work the next morning so I skipped it. I compared and looked over the Niehoff and original AC Delco parts, and they honestly don't look any different from each other as far as quality/finish goes. So far so good!
I also have a new clutch sittin' on the workbench waiting to be installed. It's a Star Spec Stage 3 unit, designed for 600hp applications supposedly. If it holds up as well as it's advertised I shouldn't be able to break it with what "little" power I'm making at the wheels. I'll thrash on the stocker once more on the 30th at our last Car Club Challenge of the year and change it out soon.
12-12-02
- New Stereo & Speakers
The wife got me this setup today as a B-day gift. Nice one too I might say. Thanks Jen!
I originally planned on this to be a $400 project, but somehow it ended up costing me $639.49! That's what happens when you have something professionally installed. I hardly ever take my car in to have something done to it, but the wife said "let's just get it in and be done with it".
So I ended up getting the Alpine deck I wanted (7874):
And they didn't have the Polk speakers I wanted, but said that the Infinity's they had in stock were very similar so I went with them (635i):
NOTE Don't be fooled by "Free Installation". I got hammered with all kinds of misc. costs. The list goes like this:
Free Installation - $.00
CD Player (on sale) - $164.99
Roadshop Install - $35.00
Harness - $15.99
Smart Cables (?) - $5.99
Other Installation - $3.99
Speaker - $99.99
Speaker (second set 1/2 price) - $50.00
Service Plan - $18.99
Service Plan - $18.99
Other Instalation - $6.99
Roadshop Install - $35.99
Other Installation - $6.99
Roadshop Install - $35.99
Kits - $17.95
Antenna Adaptor - $12.99
Monster Cable - $59.99
So there ya have it. I don't understand why there are "Roadshop Install" fee's here, since they (Circuit City) were advertising FREE installation.
Other than that, I'm very happy with the outcome. The deck is nice, and I've gone through the book and figured most of it out. This deck has a neat "timespace" feature making it so that I can adjust the signal inputs to EACH individual speaker, making it sound like I'm sitting in the middle of the car rather than in the driver's seat when listening to music. I haven't messed with it yet though, it kicks ass the way it is. This is a night n' day difference over the original 3-speaker Bose. Once I get a decent box made for the sub it'll sound even better.
