One fully packed day

Puyang and I had the day off today, and we felt that it was a great day to clean and work on our cars. What seemed to be an excellent day ahead quickly made a turn in the opposite direction, I'll list them as I write.

We began with a very nice car wash and interior vacuuming. I took some extra time to clean off the gold BBS wheels from all the brake dust generated by the Hawk HP Plus racing brake pads. During the wash, I had my hood opened, and for some reason I placed my sunglasses near the hinge of the hood. Later when I closed the hood I crushed my sunglasses. Don't worry, the car was not hurt in the slightest, but my sunglasses on the other hand... (Disaster #1)

Puyang vacuuming the interior of his 2012 VW Golf GTI.

If you don't already follow us on Facebook, please do, we post mini updates on our weekly shenanigans and crazy banter. If you indeed follow our feeds, we found this very nice unpaved parking lot this weekend. It is laid with dirt, gravel, and rocks. The shape of the parking lot was very odd as well, and by odd I mean awesome, it looks like some of the twisty areas in rally courses seen in Croatia. Long story short, I took it for a spin and practiced some dirt drifting. It was so fun! It was so addicting that I wanted to do it again, so I've asked if you guys were interested in seeing a video of it. Most of you guys said yes, so we'll be making a video on the STI going sideways!

Some dirt that clung onto the wheels from the drifting.

After we've washed our cars, we took our cars out for a nice photo shoot to really capitalize on our hard work. You know, I was so addicted with the drifting, I attempted some tarmac drifting after the photo shoot too! However, the weather was so hot, the very sticky Bridgestone Potenzas clung to the ground like glue; I couldn't really get the tail out, just lots of understeer, sadly.

I really wanted to take advantage of this fantastic weather that the Lord has given us, so I wanted to do some modding and filming. The autumns and winters here are very wet; I mean rain nearly every day. The hood liner gets wet from time to time, and mold begun to develop. Today was the day I decided to just remove the entire thing.

Hood liner is super moldy!

Hood liner removed!

The hood liner is designed to keep engine noise to a minimum. You can do this research online, but removing the liner will not add any negative effects to the car. Check out the built rally cars and other race cars, they won't be sporting a hood liner. The hottest part of the car will most likely be the turbo charger not the front of the engine itself. (Observe the hood liner location.)

While I was removing the hood liner, I got clumsy and dropped one of the retention clips into the engine bay. Not like that little plastic clip could mess up my car, but I just didn't like the idea that I lost something in there. I looked around, and after fifteen minutes or so I found it. It was caught between the subframe and an axle. I got it out after a couple of minutes, poking at it when a stick. (Disaster #2)

There was still a couple of hours in the day, so I decided to get to my rear differential fluid change. As always, we were filming an episode as I was working on the car. I cut myself during this, stupid on my part yet again, and bandaged myself up; you'll see the bandaged hand in the video. (Disaster #3)

I bought a $10 pump to get the fluid into the differential, and that thing broke on the second pump! LOL.(Disaster #4)

If you have read everything up to this point, I applaud you, because as I'm writing this, I'm laughing on the inside. It's just too ridiculous. The story isn't over yet though. I finally get the fluid in there, everything seemed to be coming to a close. I got the fill bolt plugged up, and I set the torque wrench to the service manual's specifications: Tighten, tighten, bam. The bolt shears off. (Disaster #5)

O__________________O

At this very moment, the car is sitting in the garage waiting to be fixed. I have to give Subaru a call tomorrow to order the part. It will be around $100. What? For a fill bolt? Well, I didn't tell you the entire story. When you replace your differential fluid, you can either use a 30 mm wrench to remove the fill bolt, or a 19 mm wrench to remove a rear differential temperature sensor which is embedded into the 30 mm fill bolt. I didn't have a 30 mm wrench handy, so I went with the sensor route.

Oops. My mistake just costed me $100. Ouch right? Expensive mistake. :(

At the end of the day, did it suck? Yeah, pretty much. But I thank God that this day didn't get any worse than it was. I'm talking about losing a limb or something. lol...

Getting started

We have started planning the episodes sponsored by Apex Performance. As you have seen from our new line of mods video montage, we have quite the variety of installations to do in the time to come. Some installations are simple one off installs, while others require much more planning. These plans all revolve around how much time we can dish out every week. Due to work, and other personal life situations, it's sometimes hard to get an exact schedule for modifying and video making.

Hopefully you guys will really enjoy the next stage our the STI's transformation chronicle. I personally love seeing the process of a project car slowly come into fruition.

Anyway, with all the explanations out of the way, take a look at some photos we took while working on the next install.

Puyang assists in removing the top mount intercooler.

The forged pitch stop mount is installed!

Yes, that's right, we installed the Beatrushed Forged Aluminum pitch stop mount. It looks like a beauty, and so far it makes the car a lot better. I'll get into the details on the product when the installation video is released.

I have to plan the rest of the installs for a later time, but man, I really love working on this STI.

New mods revealed

I have been so excited to show you guys what our sponsor Apex Performance has sent us that I have made an entire video on just that! To be honest, I was surprised that I could even keep the excitement to myself. I was itching to reveal this video much sooner, because I wanted to share my joy. However, for the sake of the show, and a slight virtue of patience, I decided to wait.
Hopefully you guys enjoyed the video as much as I'd enjoyed making it. The entire video from shooting to editing took over 40 hours to complete. Filming took around two and a half hours to complete. Puyang was helping out with moving certain aftermarket parts to locations I had envisioned. This project took a lot of premeditated planning and vision. After shooting the footage, the editing process was broken down into several processes as well. The video itself is broken up into three major themes: What the car possessed from factory, the modifications done to it so far, and the parts that will be the next stage of the STI. Each clip had to be re-timed to give that slow motion to quick pan feel. Then each clip was camera tracked in 3-D space so that the lines and points could be set in 3-D space as well. The text that labels and describes each part was also set in 3-D space via camera tracking data. I felt that this gave the entire video much more entertainment value than without. Could you imagine the film being just me shooting car parts? Boring.
As I have always thought, "If the content itself isn't interesting, make the video interesting."
That was the entire push behind this video. After all of the technical stuff had been done, I proceeded in adding the tint of the film, including the lens leaks and certain lens flares. Marry all of that with some nice music, and you got yourself a film that stands firmly on its own, even without seeing cars going sideways.
The modifications shown in the video are as follows (In order of appearance): Crawford Air Oil Separator DEI Titanium Exhaust Wrap Kartboy Exhaust Hangers Kartboy Short Throw Shifter Kartboy Front & Rear Shifter Bushings DEI Reflect-a-Gold PTP Turbo Blanket Beatrush Forged Pitch Stop Mount GrimmSpeed Turbo Heat Shield Invidia V2 Bellmouth Catless Downpipe Invidia G200 Cat Back Exhaust
We would like to thank our sponsor again for putting their faith in us. If you didn't trust us with our work when we first started off, we wouldn't have gotten to the quality we are at today. Thank you guys who watch our videos as well. Your feedback and support is always warmly welcome here. We will continue doing our best, Lord willing, and bring you guys better content as time goes on.
Please check out Apex Performance, and contact them for your modifying needs. They carry over 150 of the most popular aftermarket brands, and will match or beat the competition in price. They will take good care of you.
Hope you guys stay tuned to Machine Zealots!

The STI Chronicle continues

We received a large shipment of upcoming modifications for Machine Zealots' 2006 Subaru STI a couple of weeks ago. Of course, this lovely shipment was proudly sponsored by Apex Performance; we've been partnered for two years now.

We have revealed that we received the Invidia V2 Downpipe and the Invidia G200 Exhaust System. However, there are many other items that we are extremely excited about.

That being said, we made a new video montage of what's to come, and we wanted to take this time to thank our sponsor as well.

I've been personally playing a lot with the new DSLR camera, always pushing the quality of our videos. When I showed this video to Puyang for his input, he said that this video deserved a 10/10. He isn't usually this generous either. I personally give this video 8.5/10, but it did take a lot out of me. I spent over 30 hours on this video, and spread out the work through an entire week.

I'll get more into the video making later, but I am very excited to show you guys the finished video. I can't wait. Stay tuned!

Final AutoX. Or is it?

The STI has truly been a great car to drive. I was glad I didn't begin autocrossing this car when it was fully built; I love to see and feel improvements over time. I attended the local Corvette autocross this time around, and the STI really held its own. It was pitted against a fierce competition, but it came out as a pretty fast car. Sadly to say, as mentioned in the video, this will be the very last autocross session for the STI at this current stage.
If you have been following our videos, or even the blog, you would know that this STI is pretty much stock with only an off-the-shelf tune to Stage 1 from the Cobb Accessport, upgraded brake pads, and stainless steel brake lines. With minimal modifications, I saw some major improvements; I can't wait to see what this car can do with a few thousand dollars worth of upgrades. Right?
Puyang accompanied me this time around, as seen in the first three runs. He has never been in a car running in an autocross session. He wanted to get a feel of the g-force generated from the acceleration, braking, and turns. He also learned about some driving techniques such as best lines and brake timing.
Puyang will be attending his first autocross session in September, at least that's the plan, where he will be pushing his 2012 VW Golf GTI to the limit. We'll see what the car can do.