Last night was busy!
I picked up a used (but good condition) Magnaflow catback from Ron @ RS Motors (off of his X) on wednesday. This thing looks identical to the Buschur Crossflow catback I had my heat set on--it even has the neckdown near the cat cut off for full 3" pipe all the way through.
Also picked up a megan testpipe from MAP. I've been reading on the X forums a lot lately and it is insane the amount of newbness that people pride themselves in. Preferring to pay for quality and guaranteed fitment over price, blah blah blah. Some parts are kinda the exception to the rule, and this is one of them. $130 on MAP's site, I got a package discount with a few other things, insane bang/buck:
While the exhaust was off, I slapped in my Beatrush rear diff bushings from my crashed evo8. Beatrush lists the same part number for both, and voila, they fit great!
Beatrush on the left, stock on the right:
10 minute install, very worth it:
Next I scooted forward and ripped out the stock driveshaft bushings and replaced them one by one with the Beatrush propellershaft bushings I salvaged from my crashed flipmobile:
Little bit of lube on the hangers and everything was snug and fit perfect. This exhaust curves down ever-so-slightly to provide more clearance for the carrier bearings, but as luck would have it, it slightly scrapes ever-so-slightly in my tiny non-steep driveway, despite missing the big muffler right in the middle.
Next, around to the front of the car:
AMS Front motor mount insert (street, 70 durometer). No press needed, just a sawzall to cut the old bushing out and a 5 pound hammer (with TKR driving it!)to get the new one in. The car was already in the air, literally 5-minute install once the bushing was in the mount, 3 bolts.
Lastly a quick oil change (for good measure, enough else has gone wrong on this car) and then off for some testing! Ended up turning the MBC down 1/3 of a turn for ~26psi peak. The front motor mount and bushings made a pretty insane difference, the shifting feels fantastic. There is a *tish* more vibration in the cabin but it is hardly noticable. I ended up bumping up the idle by 100rpm just to see if I could get it to go away, and it helped. Anna commented, but said she didn't hate it.
I also deleted the rear o2 sensor and installed my wideband sensor from the LC-1 (again, from the crashed 8). I'll wire that up next week, for now its just plumbed in and no CEL yet (I disabled ecu options #2, bit 1), we'll see what happens in the future. The ability to log right through the ECU will be way worth this!