2023 Toyota GR Corolla Core w/ all 3 pkgs. #GreatGazoo

10K maintenance this morning.  No one had any input good or bad on Walker (by my house) or Voss (Xenia) so I went with Walker that's about 5 miles down the road.  I skipped the tire rotation since I just put the snow tire wheels on a few months ago, and save some time.  So basically oil change and inspection.

45-50 minutes, not bad.  Wagner Subaru had me spoiled so I wasn't sure what to expect.  They had free coffee and hot chocolate, but no free snacks, just a vending machine.  Minus one point...  Also no charge service so that was a bonus, she said she thinks that runs out in January, so likely a 2 year deal?

Holiday weekend and I spent most of it not feeling well.  But by Sunday I felt a little better so I managed to get myself collected and installed the Forge Motorsport short shifter kit that was on Black Friday sale for $86, vs the Coolerworx that I wanted at $900 including shipping.  This does almost the same amount of reduction, way easier to install, and as mentioned much cheaper.

You can adjust the pin when it's inside that black piece to get between 40-60% reduction if I remember correctly, but if you go full 60% you have to trim some stuff.  Recovering from this cold I had no interest in that and set it in the middle for about 50%.  Once it was installed I checked the shifting and could tell the difference, everything seemed to move correctly, so I put the CAI back in.  That took longer than the short shifter, even with my triple checking the PDF and install video.

Today I finally drove it, and with the 2" extension on the shifter & carbon fiber knob, it feels really nice.  Not as crazy as the Coolerworx would be (or the IRP I had in the BRZ), but I'm happy.  And saved about $800 and probably a few hours of frustration.

Some more random E36 M3 over the last few weekends.  Mishimoto tow hooks for the front and back.  I ended up not using the hole saws I bought just for these, and instead moved up from 1/16" to 1/2" bits in the general area, then Dremel'd the openings a little at a time until they worked.  (The back of the front tow hook cover is very irregular and the hole saw kept jumping around.)

Took advantage of Black Friday sales and splurged on some underhood bits, mostly caps for various fluids.  Also bought an aftermarket dipstick handle but it sounds like a major hassle to replace and likely reselling on the forum unless I get real bored over the holidays.  I also bought the two fender shrouds from Racer-X, aluminum and powder coated.  I don't know why, I just thought they were neat.  (Might add the Tanabe cooling plate that replaces the big one up front, also red and adds another air flow spot.)

And Walker Toyota just called to say they got the only dipstick in inventory in the country in today.  I had tried to order a backup just in case.  Guess I'll try it after all, nothing to lose now but time and maybe $50 total.  (Requires burning or cutting off, then cutting part of it, multi drilling, etc.)