In reply to sethmeister4:
Yep that's where I'm headed.
Sounds good, let me know if you guys get a date together. If it's not until August I can probably make it. Will likely be busy most weekends until then. If I can make it you're definitely welcome to a co-drive!
Cool looking car. I bet its a hoot to drive!
Looks good on those TRMotorsports wheels. Those were my first choice for my '10 Accent (also black!),but were on back order. So I got the blingy Dragvwheels from Discount Tire. Does the 2 have rear drums? I find my rear drums to be a big limitation. I already get brake fade on the street, so track days are out of the question.
In reply to chestertiger:
It does. Honestly the few B-spec racers I've talked to(Corksport, Dynotronics, and one other I forget) they all use factory drums and shoes with no problems at all. The rears just don't do much work.
The fronts are honestly really really good in stock form too. I have no need to upgrade before I wear them down. I'm definitely not wanting to switch to 4 wheel disc either, more weight.
What is interesting is even with the drum/disc setup, it has a cross-split hydraulic system(LF and RR on same circuit, RF and LR together), it is really touchy about having the shoes adjusted evenly. I never noticed anything before the new suspension, but it pulled like HELL to the right under HARD braking only. I found it did the same when pulling the e-brake but not as badly.
Adjusted and now stops great. Hopefully this bit of info helps someone in the future. It's very unusual for a rear brake to cause a pull, but I guess the short wheelbase and now stiff suspension makes it way noticeable.
In reply to 92dxman:
Thanks! I've been having some fun with it :) I wish I had put sway bar tabs on the strut housings now to have something else to tune/play with. I'm thinking about making a clamp-on mount temporarily to play with tab positioning + height until I can disassemble/weld permanent tabs maybe this winter/off season.
Well made it the ~600mi trip here, then 100mi per day commute to work for the last week. Here's some pics from the drive here:
The car beats me E36 M3less on I64 around the HRBT area... Holy crap the roads are horrible here. Never had any complaints in Dayton!
So fiddled with shock settings and tire pressures all week to get it acceptable throughout the week.
Then today I swapped my snow tires/wheels on, rides much nicer now! Albeit all steering feeling is gone, with about a full 1.5sec delay between turning the wheel and actually changing direction, I'll burn these snow tires on my commute until they're bald then replace with something equally numb all-season.
Also signed up for an auto-x event next Sunday with ODR SCCA at Pungo so I can finally test my suspension out! I'm anticipating I'll find I do want the front sway bar added again, so afterwards I'm likely going back to stock suspension so I can disassemble/tear down/weld sway bar tabs onto my housings to keep body roll in check.
I'm excited my wife and son will finally make it here tomorrow, been missing this little guy all week:
Sweet ride man, I appreciate you sharing.
wheelsmithy wrote: Sweet ride man, I appreciate you sharing.
No problem!
So auto-xed yesterday, finished 10 in PAX, 23 in raw time of 46. Very happy with that.I need about 2 seconds more to get top PAX. With zero tweaking to the suspension done yet, zero engine/power mods, and zero lightning I'm pretty sure its doable.
It handled very well, no oversteer, no understeer, just went where I put it. You can get on the gas waay early with no front bar. Unsure if adding it back will b good or not, only one way to find out though. The alternative is a bit more spring up front, maybe 600-650.
The best thing is it was a very bumpy ass lot, I didn't feel a thing... The suspension flat worked. I just gotta milk a bit more speed from it now.
Also I'm on ZIISS tires, not the Jesus finding RE71Rs so there's time there too potentially.
http://www.odr-scca.org/component/option,com_docman/task,doc_download/gid,239/Itemid,29/
My fastest run: https://youtu.be/327wedwOltA
Just so you know, my 2 wants to be just like your 2 when it grows up. Excellent build.
Nope not yet. The car has a ways to go before anything like autox. It has recently developed a lovely grinding noise when shifting. Getting a dd at the end of October so it just has to make it until then. Awesome progress and welcome back to the area 
Thanks guys!
Small update: have put 4500mi on the suspension with no problems aside from it being rough as crap on the bridges/tunnels in the area, commuting 100mi/day. I think I'm going to try getting some 300lb 7in springs and 600lb 6in springs so I can swap the rears easily for DD/auto-x mode.
I have stock suspension on right now to get a state inspection with no hassles and to keep some miles off my $$ strut cartridges commuting.
Been blowing through the miles to work and back. Put 6k miles on it since the move already.
Next autocross I'm running is 9/20 at Pungo.
Also officially a VA resident again.
Auto-xed last Sunday with the TSCC, had a great time, 35th in raw time and 18th in PAX of 76.
http://www.tidewatersportscarclub.com/results/2015/150920_results.html
Felt good, need to up the shock valving front and rear. Closer to dialing it in so I can feel comfortable looking elsewhere for time(power mainly).
Ran last weekend with the TSCC again this time at ACU-4... by far the most scenic course I've seen!
Also got magnetic numbers finally! From IZoomGraphics. They were great to deal with!
Results: http://www.tidewatersportscarclub.com/results/2015/151018_results.html
Paxed 26/103 and raw timed 49/103.
Cold temps didn't help me running early in the day but it is what it is. I was super happy with results of my raw time vs a lot of STX and STU.
Also this was my first event with a DDMWorks short ram intake... Makes a big difference above 3500rpms.
Makes me REALLY want an exhaust and moreso a tune.
And video of fastest run:
https://youtu.be/UzSZ3uZAdBc
How are the brakes? I noticed that you have drums on the back.
I obviously can't speak for flatlander937, but with mine, the car is so light, and you don't have very much power anyway, so the brakes don't really have to work that hard to haul the car down.
I'd obviously have preferred the car to come with rear disc brakes instead of drums, but the lack of braking power isn't really the main reason. For me, it'd be more for the ease of monitoring pad use and for looks.
I concur with Traum.
They work. VERY well.
All the B-spec teams run stock drums and OEM shoes. IIRC Corksport has had the same rear shoes for 2 seasons with no signs of significant wear. They just don't do much.
I'd say that discs will weigh more and not perform any better. I'd certainly never waste money converting.
As for fronts, they're more than adequate.. They are bigger than Miata 1.8 standard brakes and smaller than the 1.8 OEM big brakes IIRC. 10.0 vs 10.6, Mazda2 is 10.2in roughly.
They stop you in a hurry.
I will probably buy some Hawk 5.0 HPS this winter to try.
Got my UOA results back!
This was on Pennzoil Platinum 0w20 with a standard Purolator filter. OEM air filter and all. I wanted a baseline for silicone levels to see how well the K&N filter really works.
I'll have another one done in a month and a half with 5k miles on the new filter setup.
super cool car, seriously. i love how "90's" the car's mechanical purity is, really takes me back to an era i loved but in a modern package.
that's about an uneventful an oil report as you're going to get, which is a good thing. any wear metals that would indicate an issue are null and those potassium numbers are probably nothing to worry about (that element can indicate coolant). viscosity for a 20W is excellent. that engine is super easy on oil apparently. you could probably run it out to 7k miles or so without even giving it a second thought.
Not to detract from Tony's thread, but any guesses as to why the 2's engine is so easy on oil? We all know that the engine is not at all powerful, and it needs to have its revs kept north of the 3k mark at a minimum to have any semblance of forward movement.
In reply to Traum:
25hp per cylinder is pretty miniscule, plus higher RPM = more oil pressure may be a partial reason? Makes sense in my head. Low redline may also help?
ScottyB wrote: super cool car, seriously. i love how "90's" the car's mechanical purity is, really takes me back to an era i loved but in a modern package. that's about an uneventful an oil report as you're going to get, which is a good thing. any wear metals that would indicate an issue are null and those potassium numbers are probably nothing to worry about (that element can indicate coolant). viscosity for a 20W is excellent. that engine is super easy on oil apparently. you could probably run it out to 7k miles or so without even giving it a second thought.
The modern 90s car is EXACTLY why I love it so much.
I'll watch the potassium level, but not concerned for now. It uses no coolant that I can tell. I did find an old post on BITOG saying living near a coast may cause small potassium traces from ingesting airborne seawater. I drive over the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel 10x per week and live 3mi from the beach, so its certainly an interesting theory.
Anyway, event last weekend I PAXed 9/40 and 23/40 in raw time. Super happy with that. Mostly regulars came out for the last ODR SCCA event of the year. No video, forgot my gopro. 
http://www.odr-scca.org/component/option,com_docman/task,doc_download/gid,247/Itemid,29/
Last event for me this season will be 11/15 with the TSCC. WILL get video next time!
wOW... i've not seen a blackstone report in a long time....
The main answer is most modern oils are going to hold up to what we do. I ran the Forte out to 9k miles on walmart synthetic 5w20 and could have gone longer. Since oil analysis is what I do.... Here's my take on your report:
wear is perfect. No contamination to worry about, but I would have rerun the fuel dilution. I guarantee that there is fuel in that oil, but because the viscosity is still in range they don't test it. Overall, with no base number, oxidation or nitration numbers we don't know how long you can stretch the oil. THOSE are the important numbers for stretching OCI's.
Bobzilla wrote: wOW... i've not seen a blackstone report in a long time.... The main answer is most modern oils are going to hold up to what we do. I ran the Forte out to 9k miles on walmart synthetic 5w20 and could have gone longer. Since oil analysis is what I do.... Here's my take on your report: wear is perfect. No contamination to worry about, but I would have rerun the fuel dilution. I guarantee that there is fuel in that oil, but because the viscosity is still in range they don't test it. Overall, with no base number, oxidation or nitration numbers we don't know how long you can stretch the oil. THOSE are the important numbers for stretching OCI's.
Thanks for the input!
I have a 50mi commute EACH way so my oil gets up to temp regularly for a good period of time, I doubt there's any problem with fuel in the oil. Note I did my oil change/sample after said 50mi drive as well.
I'm not worried about extending OCI, I like 5k for a good round number, plus gives me an excuse to piddle around outside 
Are you planning to be doing any national Wilmington auto-x events in 2016 in the Kia? I'll be codriving Jeff's STF 2 from New Jersey if all goes well. We've been going back and forth hashing out setup changes. I'm not willing to run 700-800lb springs due to my commute, so his car will be getting campaigned at as many national events on the east coast we can make it to. If all goes well, maybe even Lincoln for the big show.
Edit: on a side note I've put right about 10k miles on the suspension already 
Trust me when I say there IS fuel in the oil. There is in all vehicles, just not to a degree that causes issues. 
Yeah, going to be getting the SooperKia finally fully prepped this year. Looked at seats, but the stock seats (with airbag) only weigh 28lbs. So, header and cat and tune, filling some new engine/trans mounts and replacing the worn out compliance bushings on hte front control arms are this winter's project. There's not much more weight I can really remove so this car looks stuck at the 2700lb mark, but I should get this thing in the 170-175whp, 170wtq range with another 500 rpm's up top.
Would love to find a co-driver for next year, but I know that until it starts finding itself on the pointy end of the STF field, I'm not going to have anyone seriously interested in it. Kind of a catch-22 because I'm not fast enough of a driver to get it there. Fast drivers have driven it and beat me bad on good tires.
Open to any GRMer:
If you want to CODRIVE this 11/15 at Pungo, let me know! I'm hoping to have a "tire warmer" for the last event of the season with cooler temps. Registration is already closed but if you show up at 7:00 and have $35 in hand you should be good.
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