I've been driving the car as much as I can since I got it. I took it for some spirited driving and was surprised at how well the car handles.

The previous owner had mentioned that he would like the car to go to someone that will enjoy driving it and as we discussed. I was looking for a car that I could enjoy driving. So after a couple of hundred miles of driving the car, I decided to go a more street/track version of the car in order to be able to enjoy as much as possible. So I have since sold my CSi wheels to a happy tii owner and bought a set of 14x7 enkei RPF1 wheels for a miata. The wheels don't fit perfectly in the front and I had to ad a spacer. I'm running dunlop z1 tires for grip. I'm happy with the look as I wanted a retro/modern look for the car. Hence why I decided to run a 14" rim. Not to mention the rim only weighs 8lbs! I noticed a good amount of difference under acceleration.

I also added some cibie headlights with yellow vintage h4 bulb covers to give it a more nostalgic look and bought some good condition driver grills for the car. I'm very pleased with the look at this point.

I've also decided to rebuild the shifter, which made a huge difference in driving feel. Using the z3 shift lever with new parts from IE, the car feels much more solid when shifting.

before

after

I've also realized that the car came with tii struts/brakes. Which was great! I cleaned them up and refreshed them.

So I started to piece together the e12 calipers so I can do a big brake upgrade. But as a working student, I decided it might be better for me to build a non-tii coilover setup over the tii struts. I then sold the tii struts to fund my coilover setup. I was able to acquire a Ground control/koni suspension. I thought this would be a better setup for what I wanted to do.

Since I was about to upgrade the struts, I thought I might as well upgrade other parts of the suspension with what I had saved up. I started with the front first and will do the rear suspension later on. So I got urethane bushings, Steel braided lines, new ball joints to refresh the front suspension.

Since I was refreshing the front suspension, I decided to take off the sway bars, control arms and tension rods. After measuring, I realized I had 25mm sway bars up front and 22mm in the rear. So I decided to get them powdercoated along with the tension rods to refresh them up.

The only left is to complete is the brakes and coilover springs. I ordered some swift coilover springs to see how well they would be for the car setup I'm planning. Swift's coilover springs are one of the most accurate linear springs available.

Here's a dyno test explaining by a privateer.

http://www.northamericanmotoring.com/forums/suspension/157535-swift-springs-dynoed.html

Which translates to a more predictable and comfortable driving feel. I'm hoping this well yield a pretty comfortable ride yet aggressive enough for maximum handling capability. This has been pretty successful for the japanese tuners who have tried it. I'm hoping I could accomplish the same with a 7kg/mm = 391lb spring.

I'm still waiting on the front calipers I ordered through my uncle's shop. I've ordered a set of porterfield rs-4 brake pads for the girling volvo calipers. I will update as soon as I complete the setup.

I've also signed up for a track day later this may to do some testing, I'm hoping to finish the front suspension and brakes by then to do some shakedown testing.