Nii's Maintenance Update

There are those weeks, the ones where you know you have a few little things you need to do to the car, or maybe a big one, but you convince yourself you're not in the mood (maybe next week, right?).  The things accumulate until the inevitable Productive Days arise, seemingly at random, and with surprising energy.

Productive Day 1:

• Changed my oil (full synthetic)
• Modified my custom undertray (added a lip at the trailing edge so airflow breaks cleanly)
• Cut the heat-shields off my exhaust (stock crap rattling around with the insulation inside disintegrated)

Productive Day 2:

• Bought and replaced my steering u-joint
• Siphoned out some oil (a little overfull)
• Welded a newly broken exhaust bracket
• Replaced a hose clamp to the heater core
• Painted the notched ends of my Cusco lower control arm brace (needed modification to fit a Legacy)
• Drove to work with a crooked steering wheel 
• Got home from work and readjusted the steering u-joint so my wheel was centered
• Changed the rear differential fluid (getting those damn plugs out, what a pain! Fluid was black. O_O)
• Tapped the holes for the Cusco brace and installed it

Not Productive Day 3:

• Overpaid for 6 year old snow tires, because I am a certifiable moron/nice guy

New steering u-joint. After I installed it my steering wheel was cocked to the right, haha. It took several attempts to fix that because I turned it the wrong way one of the times.

Cusco rear lower control arm brace. I had to be notched to fit the Legacy subframe, so I painted the cut parts to prevent rust. Yes, a genuine Cusco part that's merely steel...

Installed. I changed the rear differential fluid before I installed it since the fill plug can't be accessed with it installed.

You can see the edges of the original holes on the right. The subframe is so rusty that I think this brace will actually help. The holes for it are threaded from the factory, but I had to run a tap through them for the bolts to fit.

As for what's next, I'm leaning toward engine response. I recently realized that a lightweight pulley frees up almost half as much as a lightweight flywheel, which is pretty significant. I'm still considering a MSD coil pack, and might install a gutted muffler, which we did on Squarebush's car. It's not very loud and works well; modest power gains about 4,000 RPM.