Don't you think the passenger is goingto want more padding than what you have showing in the pictures? Light weight is one thing, but geeze...there is an extreme...

Is there anything else left to gut? The Lotus is so minimal to begin with.

Never thought of WD-40. It is more solvent than lubricant, so makes sense for small areas. Concern is there still is some lubricant to it and curious if that attracts and holds debris. That's got to be why you make sure you clean it off so well.


BTW...the pics are of a 25 year old engine bay of a car that actually gets driven. Over 115k miles to-date.

Sorry, have not tried any Griot's products yet. Neighbor loves them for his BMW & Audi. I need to hit him up. He set me up with their catalog and I am very interested in giving it all a shot. I too need to do some wheel well work.

As for the overspray...you missed the Skillman tour. They actually use an airbrush to get the factory overspray correct when they restore. You may think twice about that on your 308. Could impact resale.


I'm running a discontinued set of Bridgestones now and love the heck out of them. Lost one to a flat last year and got the last one available from Tire Rack. RE950's on 15x6 stock rims. All weather tire which is silly for me since I only drive in the warm.

For me, the best way to get a clean engine bay is to start with one and keep it that way with constant cleaning. Never let anything build up. Get a leak, fix it.

Everytime I clean the exterior, I clean the engine bay. I bleed everytime I do this trying to get into all the nooks. I prefer old rags that I can toss when done. Sponges tend to hang up too much and be too thick. Take you time and go at it. Detail brushes and a tooth brush will help you in the small places where dirt starts to build. Watch filling up your disti with water. You can use a leaf blower to speed up the drying process and get the standing water out of the nooks and depressions.

Only time I'll use Gunk is when I am looking at a mess. Not great for your wires and hoses IMO. You can try something like Simple Green if you want less toxic. Any solvent runs the risk of removing paint or clearcoat.

Some of what looks like bare metal will have a clearcoat, zinc oxide coating, or is anodized. Once you damage the coating, you are stuck with polishing or refinishing. There are kits you can buy to redo the zinc oxide coating if interested and you get to play with electricity.

Removing undercoating from under the hood is a bear at best. I'm about to try Stoners Bug & Tar Remover. Will report back after I've tried it. I experimented with gasoline on a small section followed by immediate washing and waxing of the spot. Its held up well. As you can expect, working with gas is dangerous to your health and to your paint.

Strongly suggest you wear Nitrile gloves to protect your skin from the nasty chemicals that like to soak through your skin and attack your liver. Latex gloves will NOT protect you from most chemicals you will use on your car.

Wendol makes some good polishes. A Dremel tool helps for the tight places. For larger areas, use a drill. Better yet, you can make a polisher/grinder from an old washing machine motor and a flexible line for your bits. Harbor Freight is your friend. You can use this to port & polish your heads. Just the thing all newbies should try on their own. LOL!

I use Mothers Back to Black on a problem area of my bumpers. I am not pleased with the outcome. I have not tried it under the hood. I'm hunting for a different solution that includes a full repaint to get rid of the black for good.

I do use CD-2 Engine Detailing spray after I have finished cleaning the engine bay. You can spray everything. On very humid days, you need to wipe it down. On dry, it will dry itself very well with minimal wiping. It causes evrything to look wet clean. It evens out the colors of plastic and hoses. It also does wonders for the metals bits. Look at the attached photos. See the shine and even look to the color. These were taken at a show. This stuff can make the difference between first and second place a the shows I attend.

Always have a few rattle cans around so you can do touch-ups of painted parts. Remember this is a high-temp area when you buy paint. Also make sure you go for the right gloss that will match whatever else you have under there. I usually always have black in flat, semi-gloss and gloss.

Bill...Griot's has a Under Carriage Spray for wheel wells. Have you ever tried it and how did it work? I assume no to those since you are doing something different.

Also, looks like you have cracks happening in your tires in the first pic. Time for new horse shoes for the dancing pony?

and today/tonight it snows...

Only you Subie guys don't care about that. The rest of us hibernate.

Thoughts:
1) What type of boost controler are you using? Electronic or manual? If Electronic, check your wires, splices, etc. Makes sure they were soldered and shrink wrap was used to seal. You don't want moisture or loose connections. If manual, make sure everything it tight.
2) Have you traced every vacuum line to search for loose connection, split line, crimped/kinked line/etc? Also make sure any T-Connectors are not the source of a leak. Don't look at just those connected to the turbo. Vacuum leaks elsewhere will impact you. If any connection seems questionable, just replace the line. Be very anal about doing this one at a time. Do not cross lines or you will hate yourself in trying to straighten it out later.
3) Not sure if it will help with the Subie, but with older EFI Z's, unplug the wiring harness from the ECU, clean the connectors and plug them back in. It works like a reboot on your computer. You can get the cleaner at RadioShack.
4) Subie guys that like mud, snow and water: Check every last connector under the hood. Clean all of them. Same cleaner as above. If you want to continue to drive in mud, go by a truck.
5) After all that, you could start looking at MAF/AFM/whatever is on a Subie.
6) If you haven't done so, get onto a good Subie forum, do a search for BOOST LEAK or BOOST STUMBLE. Post the some info there and hopefully someone will have had the same issue and get back with a good solution.

As you work through this, make sure you get us some good notes back so we can rule things out. Keep us updated! Good luck.

I have a Craftsman Tool Chest. Its the lower priced home model. Tehy run deals on them for $200 and toss in an extra middle box with the sale price.

Quality: Good Durability: Fair for slides Price: Excellent

I find the slides are not strong enough. I bumped one draw while it was partially out, now the drawer doesn't open/close well. I wished I had looked at the next model up to see if it might have been stronger. I'm in my tool chest weekly, so I may have screwed up by not thaking that into consideration and bought too low on the durability spectrum.

I also have a Craftsman Tool Bench with a back board. Its the 4 foot version with drawers and cabinet underneath. It was cheap on sale and has held up well. It has a metal counter top. Have my bench grinder and drill press on it. The vise is mounted on a homemade wooden bench beside it.

I have open shelves in the garage and wish I had cabinets to close the stuff off from view. Also have one of those wire shelf racks that fits on the back of a pantry door. It holds all the car cleaning stuff. It was left over from another project and I just stuck it on the wall for lack of a better place to put it. Now its getting use.

My garage walls are mostly peg board. Insulated behind it. I also have a walk-in closet in my garage. I put up the heavy duty wire shelves floor to ceiling in there. Lots of car parts, tools and lawn stuff. Sometimes the floor gets stacked with stuff too and you can't move in there. I need a Yard Barn to get the lawn stuff out. Bikes are on hangers on the wall. Full size Frig/Freezer in the garage too.

I really want to do something to the floor to control cement dust and put up cabinets to reduce the cluttered look. Yard Barn for the lawn stuff. That should reclaim some space and make it look better.

FYI...Craftsman has a Tool Club. Free to join and they send out mailers for extra discounts on tools and other stuff. Has saved me several $$ over the years. One of my buddies says it looks like I'm sponsored by Craftsman. I have some Craftsman tools that belonged to my grandfather that passed away in 1964.

Rick...beautiful floor!

How does the drywall cope with the spray? Did you use a special paint to resit moisture?

Looks really good!!! Nice work guys.