Finally brought the car up to Boston from NY... the past 3 months I have been only able to see and drive her (Elloise) on the weekends I went back home.
She was fantastic on the 3 hour ride north to Boston. Most of my trip is on the Merritt parkway which flows over and around the mountains. Major elevation changes and lots of nice curves.
I left NY early in the morning at 5am so I would have barely any traffic to deal with, leaving the parkway mostly to myself. With Bilstein Sport shocks and H&R Sport Springs, I was in heaven. The car handles great and it's awkward to not feel the limit of its cornering abilities. I am used to driving a Toyota Paseo up to and beyond its lateral limits, as well as a RAV4 to the point where you think "Man how is this thing not on it's roof?!".
Other than some power oversteer I have yet to feel the cornering limits of my car.. although it has been a few months and I have barely gotten a chance to drive it and still take extreme caution when giving it some stig.
Another wonderful difference from the life of driving 4 banger Toyota's was the smooth and effortless acceleration. I would seriously have to pin the throttle to the ground, going down hill, with the wind, in order to reach 100mph. It was only a matter of seconds accelerating from 80 to 100mph in the 325is. It's a good thing I am already at 3500rpm when at 80mph or else I would get into some serious speeding trouble.
Hopefully I can afford a track day or two this summer to really give her a good run for all shes got. If only I had an endless supply of tires!
Recent stuff I've done:
-Installed new stereo head unit. Sony MEX-BT2500 - bluetooth audio streaming, CD MP3. Use it with my cellphone, works great and no wires!
-Installed new fog lights, no more checkered flags! Only one light works though, need to diagnose the problem still.
-Hard wired my Valentine 1 radar
-Replaced some fuses along with cracked fuse box cover
-License plate holder for the front.
-Armor All'd the shit out of exterior rubber trim. Looks nice and dark now, no more worn old look.
Soon:
-Heat shield for cone air intake(just ordered)
-Replace chrome stripping around windshield and rear window
-Serious photo shoot, still being really lazy during my last semester at school.
-Thinking about
:
-Stiffer sway bars 22/19mm. Still has decent roll when chucking it around trying to impersonate Tsuchiya. Didn't really notice the roll as much when I was driving up to Boston on the Merritt being a smooth operator though. Also not sure if I want to make the ride even more harsh... but I will also still have the RAV4 if I need something a bit more comfortable.
-Bigger basket weaves, if I find a good job!