Well I never got around to messing with hood vents this week. The wheel stud thing got more complicated than I expected
ARP Wheel Studs:
Pros: ridiculously long - way longer than the Nismo 60mm (I'm sure they'll stick out of any wheel, which makes lugs very easy), well-made, and have nice bullet noses for easy threading.
Cons: the ones made in our normal thread size (that e.g. Z1 sells) actually don't have the correct knurl pattern for our hubs. They *will* go in, but it requires a ton of force because you're basically destroying the knurl pattern on the hubs or the bolts or both.
I thought it was going to be a quick job like my last stud replacement: press them out with a ball joint separator thingy, and then press them back in with lug nuts and a stack of washers (and/or an appropriate socket as a spacer). However, because of the force required to press them in, you end up partially damaging the threads if you apply enough torque to seat them. So the only reasonable way to install them is to use a hydraulic press, which means taking the hubs off the car to carry them over to the press, adding a ton of labor and finagling to the process.
Because of that, I only did my front studs today. I didn't have the necessary socket + puller handy to pull the rear hubs off the car. The studs are pretty awesome once installed, but grrrrr at having to pull off the hubs to install them.
Pads:
Other than that, replaced front rotor rings and swapped all my pads out to Hawk DTC-70 front + DTC-60 rear as a temporary setup for now. I'd rather still be on Carbon-Lorraine, but Essex still hasn't even gotten back in touch with me about a shipping estimate for my front pads (it's been a month since the order, and I've emailed them about the order twice and gotten no response
). Could be 6 months out for all I can tell at this point. I absolutely *love* the CL pads, but if I just can't reasonably source them, I may have to try something else. I've heard Cobalt Friction is similar and made in the states, but I'm not sure they yet carry the shapes I need.
Charity Race Tomorrow
So I'm basically as ready as I'm gonna be for the Charity Race tomorrow: new studs in front, old studs in rear, some super-hardcore Hawk pad compound I've never tried before all around, and oh yeah unlike the CL's they need proper bedding, and I have no idea if I'll be able to bed them right during the first practice session in the morning or not. Sometimes you have to learn to embrace the unknown and wing it I guess
