TDavis' Platinum Warrior build

[TDavis]

On April 20th me and a friend took our cars to Track Night in American at Heartland Motorsports Park in Topeka, KS. Then literally right after that drove to Long Island, NY. Had a BLAST at the track day. Was passing up GT350s, Camaros, Corvettes, FoST's, S2000s, and alot other cars. Many people came up to me afterwards and asked wtf it was and how it was so fast out of corners lol.

 

[M-Sport fan]

COOL!

Did you take on any 86es, and/or any M235s or the like?

I ask because I have some dolt over on faschy BITOG arguing with me that our cars could NEVER EVER show the 'known quantity' RWD cornering machinery type rides the quick way around ANY road course at all, let alone a more 'open' circuit, even if heavily modded for handling/cornering due to beam rear axle and 'wrong wheel drive'. [thumbsdown]

How far out on the Island did you go (you could've gotten an in person, custom tune from Dizzy ~3/4 of the way out )?

 

[TDavis]

COOL!

Did you take on any 86es, and/or any M235s or the like?

I ask because I have some dolt over on faschy BITOG arguing with me that our cars could NEVER EVER show the 'known quantity' RWD cornering machinery type rides the quick way around ANY road course at all, let alone a more 'open' circuit, even if heavily modded for handling/cornering due to beam rear axle and 'wrong wheel drive'. [thumbsdown]

How far out on the Island did you go (you could've gotten an in person, custom tune from Dizzy ~3/4 of the way out )?

Now that you say that, no there where not any 86's surprisingly. There was a couple BMWs. One guy in a BMW the first session was going slow and wouldn't do a point by and got black flagged and immediately pulled to the side in the grass off the track when he saw that. Remind you this is minutes after the meeting we had where he said DO NOT pull off into the grass if you get black flagged. The meeting after the first session we were told that he apparently got mad and left after that

We were in the Mastic Beach area in Long Island.

 

[TDavis]

Ordered my Whoosh 3" catless downpipe! Already have the Thermal 3" adapter

Was a 50/50 toss up between the catted or catless since I don't mind having a cat and just peace of mind when it comes to inspections but I have a way. With the catless, a little extra sound wont hurt and I've heard the catless DP with the Cobb catback and it still sounded tame so I don't doubt the Thermal will still be composed, the extra turbo whistle is a nice add on too. The catless was the only one in stock so I decided to have that coincidence sway my decision.

 

[ranger024x4]

I have my catless downpipe still sitting in the box for the last 2 months or so. Hope to have it on by the end of the month.

 

[Rivy]

Can't wait to hear your impressions. Living in CA, I'll have to go catted for sure - plus I don't want that gas fume smell.

 

[TDavis]

Can't wait to hear your impressions. Living in CA, I'll have to go catted for sure - plus I don't want that gas fume smell.

Yeah it shouldn't be too bad. I think most over exaggerate the smell. Its all relative. My motorcycle has straight through mufflers and no cats so I'm used to the smell and I can only smell it when I rev it at stop lights.

 

[TDavis]

Installed Whoosh's catless downpipe friday afternoon. Took only around 3 hours. Granted I had access to a 4 post lift so that helped enormously. People are right when they say the longest/hardest part is getting the originally cat physically out of the car but it wasn't too bad. My car only has 9500 miles so PB Blaster wasn't needed. Quality of the piece was great for the price you got it for. They say you can reuse your turbo flange o-ring gasket but since I have access to Ford parts I just bought a new one(only $3).

Fitment was perfect, didn't have to fiddle around with anything, its nice that you don't have a big cat in the way so you are able to install the o2 sensors prior to installing the downpipe, just have to be slow and careful when installing it through the exhaust tunnel. I ended up not needing the de-fouler(knock on wood). I re-flashed to the Cobb Stage 3 OTS tune prior to starting up the car and so far I've put around a couple hundred miles on the car since and haven't had a check engine light. I'm glad I can finally use the Thermal DP adapter, its been sitting on my desk to damn long.

Install: Once you get the old one out its a walk in the park.

Quality: Really good for the price point!

Sound: I LOVE IT! I was afraid going catless would ruin the nice subtle sound of the Thermal but it did not. Of course it is louder obviously but its not raspy, or obnoxious. There are moments throughout the rev range where you can here it howl but that may be my symposer as I haven't deleted mine. You can hear a nice turbo spool when revving and if you listen closely you can hear the turbo whistling just cruising down the road lol. It is hilarious because now on decel it just burbles for a bit and if you tap your foot on the gas it starts burbling again and I just keep doing that over and over.

Smell: It may be me still being a youngin(I'm almost 26). But the smell is NOT that bad at all. May also be me being used to it since I have a catless bike with straight through mufflers. All in all it really is NOT that bad, the only time you smell it is when you coming up to the stoplight and actually stop, this is with the windows down and even then its not that strong of a smell. So the "smell" that people talk about does not bother me one bit.

 

[EnthusiaST]

Any chance you could post up a vid of the sound when you have time?

 

[TDavis]

Any chance you could post up a vid of the sound when you have time?

I personally do not like taking exhaust videos because they really don't get the actual sound but heres one someone did. I have the exact same exhaust setup as him and the video does a decent job of capturing the sound, sounds even better IRL obviously but you get the gist.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbrpGtfZ2xI&t

 

[M-Sport fan]

You're lucky that the fumes/smell don't bother you at all, since I was behind an obviously catcon deleted, 5th gen SS Camaro the other day when we were both stuck about 5 cars back behind a frequently stopping school bus, and EVERY time we stopped and then he took off again, the smell was getting me sick.
Of course, he has more than 3 times our displacement, with twice the cylinders, but it WAS overwhelming.

I could not have been happier when he turned off the road a little further on.

 

[TDavis]

You're lucky that the fumes/smell don't bother you at all, since I was behind an obviously catcon deleted, 5th gen SS Camaro the other day when we were both stuck about 5 cars back behind a frequently stopping school bus, and EVERY time we stopped and then he took off again, the smell was getting me sick.
Of course, he has more than 3 times our displacement, with twice the cylinders, but it WAS overwhelming.

I could not have been happier when he turned off the road a little further on.

Yeah if it was a V8 or V6 I'm sure it would be alot more annoying but our little engines don't put out that much in terms of carbon monoxide to bother me any. Also, idk if its the 93 or what but it doesn't even smell that bad, but, thats all relative lol

 

[TDavis]

Here's a picture I took of the output of the Corolla LED retrofit when I was in Mastic Beach in Long Island. Still need to do a tiny bit of alignment adjusting on the passenger side but its really great right now.

 

[M-Sport fan]

Yeah that's A LOT of light!!

That road and house remind me of my long gone days in Montauk, in another life.
Damn do I ever MISS those times spent there in the summer.

 

[alexrex20]

Who retrofitted your headlights with the Corolla LED? Was it blurred that did the work or you just bought the set off him? Those look badass and for the price of the Euro headlights, I'm hoping these Corolla retrofits will be competitive price wise.

 

[TDavis]

Who retrofitted your headlights with the Corolla LED? Was it blurred that did the work or you just bought the set off him? Those look badass and for the price of the Euro headlights, I'm hoping these Corolla retrofits will be competitive price wise.

Yeah I bought these off blurred. I started my own set but decided against it and bought his. I wouldn’t mind doing a retro in the euro ones but this is completely adequate for my liking and plan to have them for a long time

 

[TDavis]

Installed the VuDu short shifter the other day. Wow, I love how it feels now. Its SO much nicer to shift now. It wasn't horrible before but its even better now. I chose to remove the battery tray even though you don't have to because 1. its not hard. 2. it gives you so much more room. 3. I had to disconnect the battery anyway because I had that car door chime problem where anytime I'd unlock the door and was getting into the car it would be doing the door chime for no reason.

The only step I ran into that wasn't mentioned was I had to remove the ECU off the bracket that attaches it to the battery tray to completely remove the tray but it was easy to remove.

You'll see in one picture where the gap between the two pieces is not even. I tightened it down evenly but I guess I tightened one a little more then I should have then the other. I'll fix this later as it annoys the shit out of me even though I know no one will see it. Other then that its a quality piece and I am 100% happy with it and I'm sure the unevenness is my own doing.

There is a TINY TINY bit more effort to shift like people have said but its nothing thats unacceptable. It is VERY VERY minimal. Plus, the short throws are worth it in the end.

 

[TDavis]

Ordered my Damond OCC. [SCAMMER ALERT] a side job for finding rare parts for people so I asked him if he could find me SVT rear caliper brackets for the rear brake upgrade. Turns out I WILL be upgrading the rear brakes to the Focus SVT rears as he found some brackets! Already ordered new OEM SVT rear rotors which are not obsolete yet. Got the brackets at $75 for BOTH and my cost on new OEM rear rotors was $40 each.

 

[TDavis]

Installed the Damond OCC over the weekend. Definitely a quality piece of kit. Instruction on the webiste where very clear and easy to understand. Didn't take long at all!

I like how the blue Damon hoses match my ST inlay and big mouth perfectly! May not look like it in the pictures but it does

 

[M-Sport fan]

The blue hoses DO look cool, but I wanted the 'don't have to remove it when going back to the stealership for warranty work' stealth look, so I opted for the black ones on my Damond.