{"id":702,"date":"2015-12-15T01:59:44","date_gmt":"2015-12-15T02:59:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/howtokauai.com\/?p=702"},"modified":"2025-01-21T18:00:03","modified_gmt":"2025-01-21T18:00:03","slug":"the-replacement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/howtokauai.com\/index.php\/2015\/12\/15\/the-replacement\/","title":{"rendered":"The Replacement"},"content":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s really no good time to have your daily driver wrecked, but right after having minor paint issues fixed, redoing the air management, and detailing the car bumper to bumper has to rank up there with one of the worst.\u00a0Unfortunately for me that\u2019s the exact point my last car was written off<\/a>\u00a0via the blight of everyone\u2019s daily commute, the dreaded Toyota\u00a0Corolla.<\/p>\n

Luckily I\u2019ve made a world of awesome friends through this blog who were able to help me get that car put back to stock before insurance took it away preventing\u00a0me from\u00a0losing much<\/em> more than just the shell.<\/p>\n

\"sie-ms3-mtechnica-airlift-taylord-customs-1-web\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Left with a pile of parts \u2013thanks to an epic one\u00a0day tear down at Miltowne Auto Collison<\/a>\u2014\u00a0and a not too insulting pay out, the challenging\u00a0task of quickly finding a reasonable daily driver on a new dad schedule lay ahead of me.<\/p>\n

Budget, along with\u00a0a request from my wife to not buy a car older than my last, meant I didn\u2019t have a lot of options for practical and fun daily driver unless I made the false promise to myself that I would keep it stock.<\/p>\n

\"sie-ms3-mtechnica-airlift-taylord-customs-2-web\"<\/a><\/p>\n

While a van was the obvious choice to my not so car-centric co workers I avoided them like a plague and ended up test driving a MK6 GTI, a couple of Audi\u00a0A3s, and a high mileage STI\u00a0before sitting down and crunching the numbers.<\/p>\n

Yes I could<\/em>\u00a0have made a different car work but it probably would have pushed purchasing a project back six months or more so I \u2018compromised\u2019 with\u00a0a reasonably low mileage, well maintained, 2009 Metropolitan Grey\u00a0Mazdaspeed3.<\/p>\n

\"sie-ms3-mtechnica-airlift-taylord-customs-9-web\"<\/a><\/p>\n

After a surprisingly refreshing six months driving a completely stock car \u2013there\u2019s something to be said for flying below everyone\u2019s radar\u2013 my initial plan was to install the air ride and put a 9\u2033 wheel on it at about 40-45 offset. Though somewhat conservative paired with a 225 or wider tire a set up like that would allow me to split the difference between function and form right down the middle.<\/p>\n

Of course that all went out the window when I started talking to Mtechnica\u2019s<\/a> Chris Bernado who pointed me to an extremely reasonably priced set of used 9.5\u2033 et30\u00a0Mtechnica Directional wheels that we both agreed I needed to own.\u00a0After selling a few of the salvageable parts off my last car, and my beloved Work Equips said wheels were on their way to Canada from California.<\/p>\n

\"sie-ms3-mtechnica-airlift-taylord-customs-7-web\"<\/a><\/p>\n

A quick installation of my air suspension\u00a0set up\u00a0at Taylor\u2019d Customs <\/a>and fender roll by Righteous Garage<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0the wheels\u00a0just about fit.<\/p>\n

Generous amounts of\u00a0heat, modified fender liners,\u00a0a little\u00a0clear bra on the inner fender lips for protection, along with\u00a0a hair over four\u00a0degrees of camber at ride height and I was able to get the car to sit down fender to lip in my garage.<\/p>\n

\"sie-ms3-mtechnica-airlift-taylord-customs-6-web\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The 215\/40\u00a0Nankang tires that came on the wheels do protest a bit at when I find myself deep in the loud pedal, but I\u2019ll sort that out once they are burnt out with a better set of rubber, or, a more drastic\/costly approach of lipping the wheels down a half-inch.<\/p>\n

However the car is still far more usable than one might assume at the ride height in the top photo for everything I put it through including it\u2019s most important duty as \u2018Daddy\u2019s Car\u2019.<\/p>\n

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On my second go round doing the hatch install\u00a0I was able to shave one inch\u00a0off the overall stack height which means the factory floor is only raised half an inch in total allowing\u00a0me to use the hatch like a hatch<\/a>\u00a0when I need to, and take off the covers and show off the hand painted tank when I need to.<\/p>\n

\"sie-ms3-mtechnica-airlift-taylord-customs-10-web\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Project Why Wait<\/a>\u00a0consumes most of my vehicle resources these days, but this car should see a few bolt on modifications as the years tick by and I get the itch for a bit more get up and go.<\/p>\n

For now the HKS intake, TWM short shifter, and motor upgraded mounts I have to install will keep me honest.<\/p>\n

\"sie-ms3-mtechnica-airlift-taylord-customs-8-web\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Part of me will always wish the story of the white car ended differently, but here\u2019s to many more years with the replacement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s really no good time to have your daily driver wrecked, but right after having minor paint issues fixed, redoing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":704,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured-ride"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/howtokauai.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/howtokauai.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/howtokauai.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/howtokauai.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/howtokauai.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=702"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/howtokauai.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/702\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":716,"href":"https:\/\/howtokauai.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/702\/revisions\/716"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/howtokauai.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/howtokauai.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/howtokauai.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/howtokauai.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}