New shift boot. Fun little project. With the help of my grandma, we made a new shift boot. It took aome leather from hobby lobby, a sewing machine, and some tracing. Wasn’t the easiest thing ever but it turned out looking OEM. The previous owner lost the original shift boot.

Whiteline diff bushings can in today. Hopefully going to tackle the bushings and the trans mount this Saturday.

 

Grandma’s homemade shift boot is one of the coolest, and the most wholesome, thing I’ve come across on this website. Very neat project and hope the 6mt is treating you well so far!

 

I've had an exhaust leak between the OEM header and Fast Intentions hfc for a few months now. I also purchased some new Fast Intentions resonated test pipes about a year ago. So today seemed like a good day to fix the leak by installing the new test pipes. Took about 2 hours on my back in the garage and everything was accessible from underneath. Saved myself $250 labor. The sound is definitely smoother and a little deeper than the hfc surprisingly.
On a side note. I'm on the base tune from Z1 but always feel like something is missing in daily driving. Looked into their stage 2 tune but not really impressed. They seem to only require logs of wot, nothing just cruising around normal. So I've contacted RS-Enthalpy about a retune. Hopefully in the next few weeks I'll get around to logging.

 

 

You did the diff bushing yourself? Impressive.

Diff bushings and transmission mount... that will wake things up. After a while toss on a diff brace and see if you like that. They're pretty inexpensive and easy to bolt on. Literally a "bolt-on" mod.

 

I’ve had my test pipes off too many times. lol Leaks, fitment issues, bolts coming loose. The czp extra thick gaskets are what I’m running now.
On the last G I had I was tuned by z1. I wouldn’t recommend it. It took a lot of logs and time to get it right. I would go with admin or Martin at RS.

yessir, the trans mount I got from you was a breeze to install compared to the diff bushings. It seemed quite daunting at first, but after getting into it the job wasn’t too hard. Sawing out the old bushings was the most difficult part. I felt quite accomplished after the job was done. The car shifts much smoother now. Feels firm and stout. I like the noise it makes now. The vibration is a little more than I expected, but I’m sure I’ll get used to it.

 

I'm anxious to drive mine without the exhaust leak. I had a Zspeed clutch and the Z1 trans mount installed a few months ago. The guy was supposed to install the test pipes at the same time due to the exhaust leak. But he ran behind on the clutch so I chose to forgo the exhaust work. The exhaust leak was pointing towards the center of the car and had a lot of added noise on top of the stiffer trans mount nvh and new clutch/lighter flywheel sounds. Tomorrow morning will be my first real drive going to work and not just around the neighborhood. Not sure what to expect from the trans mount.
I'm going to bookmark those exhaust gaskets you mentioned in case I have anymore leaks. Already tried the Z1 metal ones. They leaked but I believe it was from the bolts working loose.

 

The CZP extra thick graphite gaskets are super good. The dumbass dealer warped one of my Q50 exhaust flanges when installing the sport exhaust and these graphite gaskets fixed the issue. They compress well which is how they seal. The OEM gaskets are only good on cars with very clean flanges and that are basically perfectly parallel.

I would not bother with any other gaskets as they seem to never hold up. There is also Remflex is also very good.

 

Thursday I had my wife's car interior detailed and headlights restored by a mobile detailer. He did such a nice job I've scheduled the G for 2 weeks for a 1-stage paint correction and full detail.

 

Hats off to @Krzysztof47 for the LVP rec (thank you)

My seats never seemed to be THIS bad

This cleaner does the trick, very light scrubbing and the dirt lifts right off

 

Wow, that turned out very nice! I think beige / tan leather is nice, as you know when it needs cleaning and it is easier to see how effective whatever you use to clean it! No problem!

Thanks for sharing!

 

Question. What made the seat that dirty? Dye from pants?

 

That’d be my guess, I wear black denim all the time

Admittedly the seats hadn’t seen anything but soap and water since I bought the car new. I mean, I’m pretty neat and my clothes are generally clean (my dirty job years ended before I bought the car).

But 11 years is also a good amount of time for grime to build up

 

Consider yourself lucky it can clean up, socket. I've got a huge strip of damaged leather in my driver's seat, like 1" by 6" down the middle, almost like there's a finish on the leather that's worn off, and the leather just got stained by blue jeans. Makes me sad every time I think about it. Getting it repaired has been on my list for 5 years now. Back then I had a $600 estimate to have the upholsterer replace the section with a new piece. I can only imagine what it would cost today.

Crazy, because I always thought I was doing right by the car keeping the leather clean, and yet it happened anyway.

 

Most of the leather is actually vinyl in these cars. You can buy the leather from a merchant on eBay. Just would need to take the seat out and leather off. I believe they hold the leather on by just some clips and hooks. I believe they sell the lower and upper seat sections in OEM leather colors and in vinyl or leather.