The Adventures of Expatboy

So today was the day I install my 3.0 Racing Stage 1 Bracing. Its been
almost 2 months so the anticipation had become unbearable. I had gone
through all of the install guides on the 3.0 Racing website in
preparation. They were very good, but still there were a couple of
"gotchas" for the idiot audience. I’m not going to go into a lot of
detail, as the 3.0 install guide .PDFs will give that detail to you.
However, I’m going to focus on the aforementioned "gotchas" that a
novice installer would scratch his head at while an experienced
installer would automatically know how to work around.

Rear Strut Tower Brace

The
picture below is of the RSTB. I was amazed at the lightness of it. I
knew it was made of aluminum, but still. I tapped it a couple of times
just to make sure it was not hollow. It is much, much lighter than my
TRD braces.

Tools:

Ratchet
14mm and 10mm sockets
Torque Wrench (in foot/lbs)
Breaker Bar
Pliers
3.0 Racing Install Guide PDF ( here: http://www.3point0racing.com/guides/rstb.pdf )

First,
remove the nuts and bolts on the stock brace using the 14mm socket.
Unless you have never used a screwdriver before, you know that
loosening means twisting counter-clockwise. Use the breaker bar to
loosen the nuts and bolts and the ratchet to finish up. This is my
first time to use the breaker bar. It is the most amazing piece of
equipment ever! Everything gives on the first try!

1 nut on each
of the strut towers (that is, the black round thing on either side of
the car) have washers. Remember that they belong to the bolt closest to
the diagonal brace bar. You can leave the 2 big washers in place.

Remember
where the the nuts and bolts go. Some people use envelops and write on
them, I use a mental image instead and place the bolts at the position
of the mental image like so:

Now, this step is important, as it is not in the install guide.
You will have to re-orient the right-hand side battery lead, as it will
be in the way of the 3.0 RSTB! Loosen the battery lead clamp with the
ratchet and 10mm socket and twist it counter-clockwise until it looks
like the picture below. Take care not to touch anything else as you
could get electrocuted! I almost was! Remember to put back the red
rubber cap after tightening the right side battery lead again. You must never EVER let your RSTB and the battery lead touch else sparks will fly! (ask me how I know)

Now
ease the RSTB into position. Which side is up? Well, look at the RSTB
edgewise. It should form a slight U (convex), if it looks concave you
have it upside-down.

It will be a bit tricky to install it when
solo. Rocking the chassis around while you slip it in place worked for
me. Just remember never to hammer it into position, as you will ruin
the threads on the bolts!

At
this point, you should be able to easily screw in by hand the nuts that
you removed. Remember that the one with the washer is the one closest
to the diagonal bar.

For
me this was the most difficult part, putting back the bolts on the apex
of the RSTB! You have to try as much as possible to hand-tighten first
so as not to ruin the threads on your chassis. This means a lot of
pulling and twisting on the braces, as well as rocking the chassis. I
was doing this solo, so this was what worked for me: I humped the bumper doggie-style while trying to hand-tighten the bolts.

Reduced: 96% of original size [ 800 x 600 ] - Click to view full image

At this point, everything should be in place, and all you need to do is tighten and torque to spec.

Strut tower nuts: 59 ft/lbs X6
Apex bolts: 55 ft/lbs X2

A couple of idiot things I discovered:

First
is that the way the pictures and the words on the 3.0 guide were set
up, you can easily be confused by what is torqued to what. The 6 NUTS
are 59 ft/lbs/ The 2 BOLTS are 55 ft/lbs

Second is that when you
apply a lot of force to a torque wrench, it’s very easy for you mar the
paint given the small spaces to work with. So a rule I quickly put in
place is that I will never place any exterior body panel along the
plane of movement of my torque wrench. In the picture below, for the
right hand side strut tower, my plane of movement never crosses the red
line.

Third
is that the apex bolts (the bolts closest to the passenger cabin) are a
lot harder to torque to spec because of the limited angles of attack.
Specifically, the right one is the hardest, as the clockwise motion and
angle of attack only allows you to pull the torque wrench upwards.

Here’s the finished product. REMEMBER TO PUT BACK ON THE RED BATTERY LEAD CAP!

Finally,
here’s a close up of the separation between the battery lead and the
RSTB. Almost nothing. I’ll have to put electrical tape on the RSTB in
the morning.

Thoughts on installation
If
it were not for the playing around with the electricals, this should
have been the easiest install hands down. The only other difficulty was
the limited angles of attack for torquing to spec. If you didn’t know
what you were doing (like myself) it would probably take an hour to
thoughtfully install..

And my damn cheap made-in-china torque wrench disintegrated on the last bolt!!!!

Driving Impressions

Note that I have an RMB and an FMB already installed. Your experience may differ based on your current setup.

I
went out for some ramen in Manhattan, so that allowed me a nice long 2
hour drive. The roads were of various quality, from smooth to
bone-jarring, and whatever corners existed were long and sweeping. On
the way to the ramen joint it was raining really bad, so most of the
driving was done at around 45mph. On the way back, it dried up a bit
and my average speed was about 65.

First the bad news. In terms
of NVH, my butt registered almost no improvement. There were some
moments of genius where the rest of the car was terribly unsettled by
bad roads while the rear was as composed and tranquil as Neo stopping
bullets with a wave of his hand. But aside from these isolated moments,
it was as if there was nothing other than the stock brace there.

In
terms of handling it’s a different story. At 40-45mph, the impression
was of a force like a rubber band tied to my rear axle, keeping the
rear firmly behind the rest of the car. Even in crazy torrential rain
there was never the usual Spyder feeling of being able to slide the
back out with the flick of a wrist if I willed it. It must have been
understeer, and lots of it. It was very strange really, to have the
behavior of a car change in my opinion so drastically. I didn’t like it.

Once
I hit 60+ however, it was a different story. The feeling was as if
there was a hand pressing down on the rear deck, keeping the rear stuck
to the ground. There was extreme driver confidence that was associated
with this feeling. At these speeds, it was definitely a good thing.

Now,
was it worth it? A couple of people on the board said that you could
think of it as "how much are you willing to pay to keep your bracing
on"? For my FMB and RMB, they can take it out of my cold, dead chassis.
But for the RSTB, its a different story. For NVH reasons, its worth
almost nothing. Maybe $50 tops. For handling reasons, depending upon
how you drive it and what you want out of your car, it could be worth
the cost, maybe more.

Breastplate

Along with "gut your ‘cats" and "lose the whip antenna", the legendary
Corky’s Breastplate is one of the mods that people in SC proclaim you must perform
on your car. It supposedly cures more ills than snake oil. Because of
all the hype, I am quite ambivalent on this mod. There’s so much hype
around what amounts to an aluminum tray that it could never live up to
expectations. Or could it? I found out today

Here’s the
breastplate. Its slightly larger in dimensions than a FedEx envelope.
Hard to see how this could have such an effect on the car.

Tools:

Ramps
Ratchet
13mm sockets
Torque Wrench (in foot/lbs)
Breaker Bar
Pliers
3.0 Racing Install Guide PDF ( here: http://www.3point0racing.com/guides/bp.pdf )

Procedure:

First,
put the car on ramps. Always remember to have a spotter and never go it
alone. For me, it also helps to have the handbrake on, so that I dont
slide back while I do this maneuver. You’ll smell your brakes while you
do this but it should be OK.

From
the side of the car, look underneath. Locate the stock BP. It will be
in 2 pieces. The first one is right behind the front wheels, the second
one right in front of the rear wheels, both along the center line of
the vehicle.

Unless you have really short arms, you can
perform most of these operations here single-handed by reaching out
from the side of the car underneath. Using the breaker bar and ratchet
with the 13mm sockets, remove the bolts on the first one by turning
counter-clockwise.

There
will be 3 plastic clips holding the stock BP to the body. Remove the
plastic clip on the driver side by using pliers. You can keep the
others on the BP. Pull the BP, remaining clips and all off.

Note:
this procedure is different from the 3.0 install guide as it instructs
you to remove the clips first before pulling the stock BP. This is
almost impossible to do from ramps, thus this alternative

Using the breaker bar and ratchet with the 13mm sockets, remove the bolts from the rear stock BP by turning counter-clockwise.

You should have all of these taken out from underneath at this point:

Install
the clips you removed from the stock BP on to the Corky BP. Keep the
flat side of the BP up. This will also be the orientation of the Corky
BP when you install.

The
next procedure is 2-handed. With one hand, place the Corky BP into
position, lining up with the holes for the stock BP. Hand tighten the
screws (don’t forget the washers!) on one side, then do the same on the
other side. After all bolts are hand-tightened, re-connect the plastic
clips to the body. Once you are completed, it will look like this:

Torque the Corky BP to spec (28 ft/lbs), using an X-pattern.

And you’re done!

Driving Impressions

For
perspective, at this point I already had an FMB, RMB and RSTB at the
time I installed the Corky BP. If your setup differs, your experience
may vary. Also, this is all seat-of-the pants testing and pet theories.
Please feel free to post your own opinions.

Stiffer Steering
As soon as I pulled out of the driveway, the first thing I noticed was that steering effort had increased again!
This was a meaty, pleasant feeling. The steering effort was very close
to a Mazda 3, and strangely, was very much like my first car, which had
no power steering! This was something I had never expected, but with
hindsight was probably inevitable. Linking the FMB (which also gave a
heavier steering feel) with the BP could theoretically increase that
effect.

Reduces NVH, but its no Lexus
I should never
have gone into that fool’s errand of using bracing as the cure-all for
NVH. Although it now felt like there was total serenity underneath the
floor of the car, the rest of the vehicle was still rattling on very
bad roads. Thinking back on it, it was obvious. The car doors would
still shift under its own weight, as much of the interior trim. All the
member bracing in the world could not cure that. The main difference
now is that my mind now differentiates the NVH from a bottom-to-top
basis, rather than a front-cabin-rear basis.

Weird Feeling of a Smoother Engine
This
was a complete surprise - there is this strange feeling that the engine
revs smoother. There is no reason that could explain this other than
the RMB hooking up with the BP, sharing the vibrations usually only
noticed around the rear to the rest of the car - in effect reducing
perceived vibrations! This was a most welcome feeling, as I had always
viewed the engine smoothness of the Spyder as on of it’s low points.
Now I love it!

Supernatural Handling - Freddy vs Jason Levels
At
this point, I was almost disappointed at the BP. It just did not live
up to my expectations. Then something happened. I hit a piece of bad
road that slided the rear sideways. The usual reaction of my car in
this situation was to "skip and recover". But this time it was
different - so totally different that my eyes popped and I yelled "holy
sh!t!". The rear end bounced as usual, but when it hit the ground it
recovered so quickly and with such confidence that it felt that I had
spikes on my tires! This was practically defying the laws of physics!
There could be no other explanation for this except that somehow the
RMB, RSTB and BP were working together in such a fashion that the
suspension absorbed the entire shock (transmitting no almost flexing to
the chassis) and was able to recover much, much quicker. I shook my
head smiling and said "this BP is fcuking worth it!"

Thoughts on the BP and Bracing in General
As
you probably have noticed, the BP in my situation really did not do
much on it’s own. Rather the most noticeable effects where when it
worked in tandem with other braces, dramatically magnifying
their effects. Now that I think about it, it makes sense. Really,
there’s not much going on under the seat. The real action happens where
the wheels are. My pet theory is that the BP on it’s own help improve some of the behavior in the front and rear. But where it really shines is when it is in conjunction with front and rear braces.  The whole is definitely greater than the sum of the parts.

That being said, as more and more bracing was added to my car, after the FMB and RMB, you had to push
the car to start feeling the additional effects. I have described it as
"moments of genius". Otherwise in pleasant driving, it would be hard to
notice anything after the first few. Is it worth the money for these
"moments"? Depends on your priorities.

Front Strut Tower Brace

This
piece of bracing, I didn’t like at all. You either have to lose or
mutilate your frunk plastics. It produces oversteer. It’s unsightly.
But I at least have to give it a chance. Who knows I might like it.

Tools:

Breaker Bar
Ratchet
12mm Socket
Screwdriver (or any pointed object)
Torque wrench (in foot/lbs)
3.0 Racing Install Guide ( here: http://www.3point0racing.com/guides/fstb.pdf )

Procedure:

First,
open your frunk and remove the bin lid. If you’ve ever opened your bin
lid, chances are you’ve also accidentally removed the lid.

There
are mored than a dozen plastic pins that will need to be removed before
you can take off the plastic shroud to get to the strut towers. I’ve
identified them in red:

For
a while I tried prying them out (destroying all in the process, theyre
very brittle). Then I accidentally discovered how its done: Here’s a
close up of one of the pins:

Push the center in with a pointed object

You’ll
see the center depressed. This means that it’s loose. Do not take it
our. Rather, once all of them have been pushed like the above, take out
the plastic shroud, and all the pins come out with it.

Sad, but our nice, neat frunk area now looks like this. See the tops of the strut towers on either side

Now,
some people will cut holes in the plastic shroud in order to keep using
it with braces installed. However in my case, I am still a bit
ambivalent about this whole FSTB thing, so I’m keeping my options open.
If I don’t like it, I’ll take it off and put back the shroud.

Using the breaker bar, ratchet, and 12mm sockets, remove th 3 bolts on top of each strut tower. Leave any washers in place.

Here are the 6 bolts, and the plastic pins for the shroud.

Place the FSTB on the tops of the strut towers, joining them together. Mine fit perfectly with no need to wiggle the chassis.

Hand-tighten the nuts you removed, then torque them to spec at 28 foot/lbs.

Done! This was easier than debadging!

Driving Impressions:

At the time of the installation, I already had the FMB, RMB, BP and RSTB, your experiences may vary if your setup is different.

WTF Lighter Steering?
At
driveway speeds, the first thing I had noticed was that the steering
had gone light, which was quite disturbing. I had thought that steering
would become even heavier, but it did not - it had the opposite effect.
I’m not sure if it was due to the weather or road conditions, but for
most of my drive I was wondering whether or not I had done something
wrong on the install. I didn’t like light steering. Reminds me too much
of driving a CRV.

Something unexpected, reduced NVH
If
there was something I did not expect, it was a quieter ride. There was
immediate, noticeable reduction of NVH, especially with the top down.
Even with the top up the soft top seemed to shake less. I will
attribute this to reduction of cowl shake due to the presence of
bracing quite near the windshield area.

Tracks like a guided missle
Driving
along the undulating roads of Edgewater NJ, there was a noticeable
improvement on how the vehicle tracked. The steering cut the road so
precisely, it was like a surgeons scalpel! My mind was drawing
imaginary dotted lines on the road, and the car followed precisely.
This increased performance I only noticed on curvy roads and corners.

Summary

Well,
it seems like I got all of the main bits installed, FMB, BP, RMB, FSTB,
RSTB. There are more bits out there, but for all intents and purposes I
am done with my bracing project (until someone comes out and sells me a
MSMB and a 3.0 RMB cheap )

I was on the way to my 4-year old niece’s birthday party (I was in
charge of painting faces), when I passed by a Saturn dealer which had 3
Skys on the lot. I’ve always liked the way the Sky looked. It’s
probably the most beautiful non-exotic roadster I’ve ever seen. So on a
whim, I turned a U, and drove into the dealership lot.

I
spoke with a saleswoman shortly, bluffing that I was considering
trading in my Spyder for a Sky Red Line. After less than 2 minutes of
conversation, she threw me the keys, slapped on a dealer plate on the
car, and let me drive the car out of their lot by my lonesome. I kept
my face straight until I left the dealership, then a smile crept into
my face as I took it through its paces as much as it could through the
limited variety of roads near the dealership (I couldn’t take it out
for a longer drive as I needed to be at the party ASAP). So here is my
review.

First off, the general shape of the car can’t be beat.
Long swoopy hood, confident styling, and my favorite, the sharp
blisters behind the seats, they are definitely gorgeous and the looks
could hold its own against vehicles twice the price point. There are a
couple of downsides, like too much chrome. Chrome wheels, chrome
A-pillar, chrome tail light garnish. A lot of these would look much
classier in satin silver or brushed aluminum.

The interior
gets worse. First off, its too cramped! My elbows kept hitting things,
and the transmission tunnel! Driving mid-engined really spoils you in
this regard. The gear selector is placed too high, the seats are either
over-bolstered or lack lumbar support, and the interior plastics are oh
God so cheap looking under the sun and even worse when you touch them.
There were a couple of interesting things like the pop-up cupholders (4
in a 2-seat roadster???) and the correct placement of power window
controls, but if you actually touch and not just look, its a
disappointment - like fake boobs. I could not get comfortable in this
interior. And the luggage space? Worse than the Spyder by far!

Finally
the drive. I first took it through some long straights. I love the
whine of the turbo! Its so.. sporty! From the sound of it, the turbo
kicks in at just around 2500 RPM. IIRC the Red Line trim has a 2.0
liter Ecotec + a turbo making 260hp and 260 lb/ft of torque. Thats like
twice the power of our Spyders, but with a weight of around 3000lbs,
its heavier than my Accord! Still, I liked the feeling of my back being
pushed against the seat when I floored it, although it took way too
long to happen from when my foot mashed the pedal to when my back hit
the seat. It couldn’t be the turbo, because it kicks in so early, so it
must be the damned Ecotec, which seems really, really reluctant to rev.
Nothing like a Honda or even a Toyota engine. And on idle, this same
engine is really rough and noisy.

Then came the corners. There
were no real corners to speak of, so I had to make do by going into
side streets at speeds way above what was normal. I got the tail to
kick out multiple times, but it was cheating as you only had to turn
the wheel hard enough and to press on the gas hard enough to make it
happen. Road feel was also weird. It wasn’t light like an SUV, but it
wasn’t communicative either - even on rough roads nothing fed back to
the steering wheel. It was.. a bit numb

On rough roads though,
it was as quiet as a sedan, maybe because it is softly sprung, maybe
because it weighs 3000 lbs, but this was one factor where the Sky was
superior to the Spyder.

I was able to do a couple of snap lane changes, but the feeling was
entirely different. I didn’t feel I was in a roadster. The only
roadsters I’ve driven were the Spyder and the NC Miata, and both could
change direction just as suddenly lose sideways inertia at will. On the
Sky, I felt like I was in a much bigger car. In fact, it felt exactly
like I was in an Acura TSX, which is a good car, but its no roadster
yes? I could stop the sideways motion immediately, but it wasn’t like
my head was snapped to the side as is common with such maneuvers in the
MR2. Again, I credit it to the extra thousand pounds of weight being
tossed around.

I decided to drop to my niece’s party in the car
anyway, and was greeted by my surprised brother-in-law. I beckoned him
to the driver’s seat and he dropped his garden hose and drove away with
me immediately, no questions asked. His feedback was quite in line with
my own thoughts. It feels like his V6 Accord, he says, but not as
willing to rev.

As I drove back to the dealership, I summed up
this test drive experience. The Sky is the perfect cruiser for the
non-enthusiast. Its comfortable (though cramped), its forgiving on
rough roads and bad driver input, and it’s a damned beautiful car if
you can forgive the gaudiness and cheap-ish interior. But for a person
in the know, he will be hanging his head in shame in the company of real drivers’ cars.