For anybody that looks at this thread lol...




Side splitters off for adjustment, wing, and F1 mirrors on.

 

I love the mirrors! From the front angle they add so much to the car.

 

Hey...
What size rim and tire are you running?..
Any rubbing?
Looking good!

Edit... Just saw the others pics showing flares... Nice job!

 

18x9.5 with a 38mm offset and 265/35/18 tires. It took a lot to make that fit stock body and I still had a little rub on the left rear on really hard cornering. You can see evidence of that in the flare progress pictures where there is a groove about an inch in that isn't supposed to be there hahaha.

To fill out the flares I am running a 32mm spacer in the rear and a 25mm in the front, respectively making the offsets a 6mm rear and 13mm front. No rubbing with this set up. Next year I will order a set of 3 piece wheels to not have to run any spacers at all.

Thank you for the kind words good sir

 

One word... Awesome!

 

Thanks man!

Stay tuned lol

 

Pretty bad ***. You said the sway bar addition changed everything. How's that? Did you post this someplace?

 

I had Carolina Swaybar Manufacturing make the sway bars for me. I made a thread about it on the forums but didn't really find much interest. They don't want to do single one off pieces they only want to do 5 piece minimums of both front and rear so 10 pieces total. I couldn't find enough initial response to make the rather large investment so I gave up on pushing them.

On top of the price that they would cost to purchase, the labor to install the front is way too advanced for the driveway mechanic lol and to pay a shop to do it would be outrageously priced. Additionally, I had the rear bar designed to accept the Mazda 3 end link which is a huge upgrade over stock so you would have to purchase those as well as Focus ST front end links. These sway bars would blow apart a stock end link in one hard corner lol

Seriously nothing on the road that I have encountered will outdo this thing through the roubdabouts.

 

Old compared to new

 

I see what you did... Reeally nice. The pictures tell it all. I also see you insert poly bushings on the front control arm - nice. She must handle like no other. Sweetness.

I'm on my way to my mechanic's now. He's finishing up the front struts / mounts, and replacing all control arms, sway bar links, the lot. (I'm taking the sleeper angle - more my style.) Can't wait... for the bill

 

Yeah it handles extremely well, very surprisingly well to most people who get in it. I can now 4 wheel drift it on pavement because of how stiff it is lol.

Buuttttt... That type of driving has blown out the seal and bearings at the output shaft of the transfer case.

Race break fix repeat...

So what all have you done so far to your x type?

 

X-Typementality Did you used a piece of lawn edge for the front air dam? Just kidding LOL

 

Lol yes! No shame in my game 😆 I really like it though, it matches the whole battle ready bolted on look...

Instead of $500 shipped and painted for the lip, I did this for free and used that $500 to go towards connecting rods haha. Priorities priorities priorities lol

 

I need those sway bars for my phase II project.

BTW I updated my original post with the upgrades I've done so far.

Later

 

Hey -

Which brand forward upper control arm did you purchase?

And the brand of the other linkage pieces - don't think I've seen those?

 

Sorry man, I guess I didn't realize you had asked me a question! They are Godspeed Project uppers, which have a ton on camber adjustment to them. Massive Speed Systems toe arms and front sway bar end links. Whiteline rear sway bar end links from a mazda speed3.

 

X-TypeMentality, Thanks for the detail. I am just know getting to the front lower control arm, and other bushing upgrades. I'm saving up for phase II of the suspension project. I am slow to document phase I progress.

For now, I'm focused on maintenance

• servicing the breaks (looking at BrakeMotive and Centric blanks, EBC pads) 150-300
• upgrading to stainless steel brake lines 100
• Fan controller replacement repair 100
• TC and TA oil flush 50
• TC bearing grease injection 20
• Aftermarket LCD stereo install 100
• Complete sound deadening 400
• Headliner repair or replacement 25-100
• replace analog lighting in cabin, trunk, blinkers, with to LCD 40

That's (another) grand in parts right there. I'm doing the work, so its all kinda slow.

Including the above, I have about 5K invested in this car. It's crazy. But now it runs and handles much better then when I got the car.

Taco later

 

Just wanted to leave a general update on the X...

This car has given me a level of excitement that I never thought would have come from this thing but, I have had a few issues pop up since the rebuild last spring. The major issue being the transfer case but I'll get to that in a minute.

First issue being my rear calipers always working themselves loose so I've gotten used to crawling under it every so often to give em a snug up. Since the regular torquings they have not come loose. I attribute them coming loose to the polyurethane bushings everywhere transferring the vibrations rather than soaking them up, the super stiff sway bars and my rather aggressive driving style lol. They are new calipers during the rebuild (5000 miles ago) with new grade 8 or better hardware everywhere so I don't think the bolts have stretched?

Second issue being short term and long term fuel trims being outside of normal parameters. I've always been told, you don't want the ecu conpensating + or - 10% from 0 compensation at all and you don't want the stft and ltft levels adding up to more than 10%. Both banks long term fuel trims hover at like 11-14% given throttle positron and both banka short term fuel trims hovering around 5-9%. I've read that a spike of over 25% + or - will throw a cel which I havent gotten any CELs but I have gotten a few very random bank 2 lean codes? I clear it and is gone for a long time? Since these stft and ltft numbers are based on exhaust gasses, I'm attributing the higher than normal numbers being high because of the excess amount of O2 being introduced from the short ram, plenum spacer, upper to lower intake port matching and intake inlet porting, the headers, and there only being one performance cat rather than 2 oems with both bank #2 O2 sensors mounted just after the cat. I do believe that my ecu is adapting fuel trims to compensate for the added oxygen. To me, this is a good sign, although my injectors are working harder for longer, it tells me the system is very adaptive and our computers do in fact adjust for mods.

I'm pretty sure I am at limits for the factory ecu adaptations and that if you guys out there wanted to copy these mods they are feasible on the X type! The headers were a complete pain in the *** to install but worth every knuckle/arm scrape and swear word and doable by any confident driveway mechanic.

The third, and biggest issue, is the transfer case. For most of the time owning this car I kind of babied it by not doing dead stop to full throttle pulls, rarely used J gate and certainly never downshifted to 2nd from 4th coming in hot on a corner and 4 wheel drift it high in the RPM range lol but this year I have done all of that on many occasions and I pretty much never drive in auto anymore, Jgate all the way regardless of driving style...

Anyways, I have changed the tc fluid out twice since ownership and never had any issues until the end of this season when the bearings and seals on the output shaft decided to take a poop and fling gear lube literally everywhere lol. I'm glad I caught it and put it away for the winter... this makes me think that the case can handle A LOT of abuse because god knows I dished it out. I will flush it out again and replace those bearings and seals and see if it'll handle boost next season.

The jag has taken a quick backseat to my Lincoln LS build. Long story short, I need a new daily driver because the jag will be MUCH too aggressive for daily use and I can't drive stock so plans for the LS are full OE suspension replacement with coilovers, Magnaflow catback, K&N CAI, 8.8 swap with Mark viii housing, 4.10 gearing and an SCT tuner, staggered 19's and a whole lot of fun. Guys on the LS forums make dyno'd reliable 400hp+ all day. That sounds good for a daily. 😊

Anyways, that's "currently" where the x type is at these days.

 

May I suggest a matching red hat?

As Alfadude said:

 

Thanks for responding to a post over a year old 👍

Comments like that make me question why I frequent this forum anymore...