Ok so first things first my car has a Megan muffler and Typhoon intake. I'm not really a huge fan of either so I have ordered a cat-back exhaust and header. I also got myself a stock airbox off ebay. I also resurfaced the headlights and changed the oil. Standard new car buy stuff.

I used this headlight restore kit: https://amzn.to/3BtkcjE

I gotta say I actually do like the way the muffler sounds but I just want to do a full exhaust.

I did the "Spoon" airbox mod and removed all the plastic baffles which I guess is a thing. Just score each side with a knife and then they snap off with pliers really easy and clean.

The other intake tube piece is still in the mail.

I also swapped on my quick fill gas cap from my EP3 (https://amzn.to/2ZxbEeL). I love this thing:

And of course DROP STOP! https://amzn.to/3jOixzc

 

Drop stop?!?! Looks life-changing! I appreciate the merch links!

 

I'm not in the market for either but if you so desire you should be able to sell the intake and back box without much trouble.

 

Yes they'll likely end up on ebay. If anyone wants either one PM me I'll sell them to you for super cheap. The Megan muffler actually sounds pretty good and not too loud.

Huh, that quick fill cap is nifty.

A necessity for E85 life Seriously though I like it a lot have it on all 3 of my vehicles.

 

Huh, that quick fill cap is nifty.

 

agreed. Didn't even know it was a thing. I may get one for myself.

I did the "Spoon" airbox mod and removed all the plastic baffles which I guess is a thing. Just score each side with a knife and then they snap off with pliers really easy and clean.

Did you notice any difference? What is this supposed to acomplish? I've heard of this but never understood what it actually does.

 

My Z already has nice BFG Advantage T/A tires so I'm set for this winter. I will probably buy a set of summer wheels and tires next year and try to get the lightest I can find. I also want to autocross this car.

Right now my biggest gripe with this car is the front bumper overhang, it bangs and scrapes on everything it's kind of ridiculous. My front bumper is pretty beat up anyway compared to the rest of the car so I'm looking at the facelift bumpers and bodykits. Does anyone know what bodykit might have a shorter front overhang? Does the 13+ CRZ bumper have a shorter overhang?

 

Just have to take steep driveways and inclines at an angle. It's basically like a lowered car from the factory; in fact it rolled off the assembly line at practically minimum legal height based on headlight to ground measurements.

 

Not good enough I have driven lowered cars all my life this one is still the worst when it comes to scraping the front. Lowered Civics, Miatas, etc with hardly any travel didn't scrape this bad. This one is stock! It's just got too long of a front overhang. I will remedy, there is always a way!

 

Yep that's where I saw it. The ribs are there for sound reduction not necessarily for guiding the air in to the intake so it's plausible that it makes a difference. Either way it's much quieter which I like and I swear it feels faster than that cheapy intake. I also cleaned my MAF which may have helped.

 

These came faster than I expected! I got a Zeitronix ethanol content analyzer which is a requirement to send the 0-5v signal to the ECU for flex fuel. This way the ECU knows the ethanol percentage and can compensate appropriately and it also displays it on a gauge so I know what % I'm running at the moment. https://amzn.to/3bppYIw

 

Whenever possible I back in this cuts down the chance of rubbing the bottom of the bumper or I use an angle like everyone else has said. Even I being as careful as I can have scrapes on the bottom of the bumper. It was worse with the Pontiac Grand Prix that I had even though it was higher the bumper length front of car to where wheels were was longer. My solution on that car when I was having some paint work done was my body shop added a strip of black what they called "Rock Guard" paint that went from the lower horizontal surface all the way to the back of that flat part of the bumper but it could not be seen unless you were under the car. It was a semi rubberized material and it held up well to the few times I scraped after it was done. I am considering similar for The Speed Bump. Something more resistant to scraping or at least easier to touch up.

I have found and not sure why but there are too many that follow too close lately or drive at a speed that is much much higher than everyone else on the road. I have had a few close calls recently that concerned me.

 

Sounds like you guys have settled on living with this crappy design. That's fine. This is my car and I want to modify it to suit me and my preferences.

 

Your vehicle your choice. All vehicles are a compromise. I do not think it is a crappy design if I did I would not have bought it. That is what test drives are for but I don't buy to modify. I buy to drive. Have fun re-engineering it. I hope it becomes whatever you wanted.

 

Sorry, @Spdbump, but you can't have it both ways. Either I can be different and have different goals or you can come in here and lecture me about how the car is fine and I should have test drove it and I need to drive differently. It'd be like me coming into your thread and saying the brakes are fine and you are moving your foot wrong and your nerves are feeling it wrong. So which is it? Can I be grumpy about the front bumper or not??

 

You can do anything you want and will but anyone can and will say things we will not all agree with. You basically said the whole suspension and car was crappy all I said was I disagreed. If you want create something completely custom to gain a 1/4 inch more bumper clearance by cutting the bumper go right ahead! Maybe it will be cool maybe not. I have been given all kinds of advice when i talked about what I wanted to do and it was not something I was interested in doing. But I read and responded. In the case of the front end of this car we have all scraped a bit and some of the members have lowered others wanted to raise the car for a lot more clearance for really bad roads and off road use. Not many have been successful but as you said it your car. I am not the only one who suggested angling or driving the car differently. I just happened to be your target this time and suggested something I did on my last car and will probably do on this one. You don't want any advice from me then fine I will not respond to you anymore in your threads but please do not single me out because I happen to have an administrator tag. I am a member like all of the rest of the members. I was just asked to help out.

I saw a similar gas cap on my Mother's Fusion. I can see the advantage as long as it fits.

Any owner can do anything they want to their car at any time but as I stated before they will get comments. If you don't want comments then don't post. This is how forums are. Things are posted and they are discussed good, bad or ugly.

 

Today I messed with my new Flashpro and dropped about 1 second from my 0-60 time. This is just running 91 octane premium to get a baseline. I did a bunch of runs to get the best run from each attempt to hopefully get the most consistent results. Right now I have only added 1 degree of ignition timing across the board and adjusted the fuel to be in the 12.5:1 - 13:1 range at WOT from any RPM. I also increased the rev limit to 7500. I am lowering it to 7200 as it sounds like valves are floating above 7400.

I did every run in Sport mode with traction control off and I park and charge the IMA battery to at least 7/8 bars before each attempt.

I am using a Dragy GPS and accelerometer based device that is extremely accurate to measure my results: https://amzn.to/3nJj4Ua The only thing more accurate is going to a drag strip.

Run 1: stock ECU, stock airbox, Megan muffler. No other mods or changes. 91-octane fuel shifting at 6500 RPM
Run 2: Flashpro tune, same otherwise. 91-octane fuel shifting at 6500 RPM
Run 3: Flashpro tune, same otherwise. 91-octane fuel shifting at 7200 RPM

Run 1: 0-60 - 12.96 sec, 1/4 mile - 19.04 sec @ 69.38 MPH
Run 2: 0-60 - 12.25 sec, 1/4 mile - 18.60 sec @ 71.59 MPH
Run 3: 0-60 - 11.91 sec, 1/4 mile - 18.56 sec @ 71.9 MPH

So you can see it definitely picked up some power! It feels much better just rowing through the gears around town also. Revving up to 7k just feels natural and the motor sounds happy, makes 1st and 2nd gear a little more peppy feeling just by revving a bit longer. You can see the higher rev limit does make the car faster to 60 MPH because you can hit 60 MPH in 2nd gear, but the 1/4 mile time is about the same because it's still the same number of shifts ultimately.

The changes I've made are very basic and there is still a lot more to adjust! It immediately feels more lively and spirited to drive.

Run 1:

Run 2:

Run 3:

 

Dat 19 second 1/4 mile doe. Wasn't the Smart Fortwo also 19 second?

 

Be careful comparing published times to mine haha. You will be gravely disappointed. I live at 5400ft above sea level where everything is slow except turbo cars (or EVs).

 

Hooked up my battery to some leads for deep charging/discharging today. Peter's guide was of course useful as always. Got a chance to use my high voltage orange zip ties! Discharging it now with a lightbulb.

Stuck the wire through a rubber hose and then through a hole in the cover so that the wire doesn't rub against the sharp edge. Orange tape to signify high voltage.

 

I scrap in a lot of uneven driveways and steep angle downward slopes.

 

I also am loving the DropStop life!😜

 

Just had my wife's 2012 Mazda2 on the lift. Check out how clean this bumper is. That's the effect of a short overhang.

I'd love to see anyone's CR-Z look as clean as this one

 

Guess a Mazda2 bumper is in your future.

 

Or it is a higher car than a CR-Z

 

You never quit, do you? Shouldn't you be out spraying some bedliner on your bumper or something? lol

Here maybe this will help you understand the physics of it:

 

Treating the wife right with that poly torque mount. Good man!

 

@J1000 really all you've shown us is proof that your wife is a better driver than you are.

 

This is true, she has owned that car since new and look how clean it is.

 

The rest of my OEM intake finally showed up in the mail so I got it installed. The bracket is missing from my car so I rigged something up with some strap aluminum. Gonna do the airflow mod also. I did a couple deep discharge and charge cycles on my battery and it has definitely improved! I have no metrics to go by but it feels like it's got more assist power and it definitely lasts a lot longer. Before in Sport mode it would be out in a few blocks but now I can drive in sport around town and park in the top half of battery.

Also I put a bodykit and lowering springs on my wife's car since we're talking about it again. Converted to E85, lowered, bodykit, new headlight lenses. Man it looks great. It is a great car to drive. The 2 and the CR-Z are pretty similar underneath so they drive pretty close but the 2 is 200-300lbs lighter. The 2 is 5 speed but it is really snappy.

Before:

After:

 

Got a new dogbone mount installed. Just went with an OEM one.

 

Dogbone lol. Where is this mount located? Was the old one busted? Thanks

 

I got my AEM exhaust today and installed it. I went with the AEM for three reasons: 1. it's in stock and available, 2. it's AEM and they should be able to make numbers on a dyno, and 3. it is low profile and not too loud. AEM CR-Z Exhaust: https://amzn.to/3obyHE3

I have to say I really love it. High quality build and it fit on just perfectly. I really like how it's hidden up out of view for the most part, it keeps that Hybrid sleeper look. The sound is great. Just a good rumble and note without being loud at idle and no boominess or drone on the highway. Feels faster too but who knows for sure. I will add a downpipe next to complete the exhaust when it is delivered.

Compared to stock + Megan muffler:

I really love the look from behind. This is a hybrid with attitude lol

 

Subtle looks nice. The downpipe will make it louder though.

 

Compared to when I first bought this car to now it has come a long way! Much more pep in the motor and that 7000 RPM redline is so much nicer in 1st and 2nd gear. And it sounds awesome with this exhaust! The IMA assist is coming on hard and often after I did deep cycling on my Nimh pack. I got @PeterPerkins' OBDIIC&C device and have been learning about how to use that to improve performance. Really stoked on how far it has already come with just a handful of tweaks.

 

Today I did some more maintenance and mods to my Z. A week or two ago I picked up an RB1 intake manifold from the junkyard and cleaned it up and painted it. I also got myself some spark plugs and a valvecover gasket because I thought it would be a great opportunity to replace the plugs and adjust the valve clearance at the same time. Glad I did as all the valves were loose and the plugs were some junk Autolite plugs. Gross! I set all clearances and swapped in NGK plugs.

NGK Spark Plugs that fit CR-Z (BKR6EIX-11): https://amzn.to/3qCbUEa
Valvecover gasket: https://amzn.to/3qGtjeO
Feeler gauge set: https://amzn.to/3or9mGo
Light Grey Wrinkle Paint (for texture): https://amzn.to/3D82gwu
Plutonium Green Paint: https://amzn.to/3wFihaW

Adjusted all the valves. I've been noticing some ticking noise on startup lately hopefully this helps. All the valves were loose, the exhaust not as much but still slightly.

there is this little window for a socket to slip through and spin the crank. Super useful!

Gross! The Autolite plugs look pretty new but you always want to run NGKs in your Japanese cars. Also the plugs were barely hand tight! They were all loose so luckily I caught them before any backed out.

I was going to paint my intake red like @scs.sam did, but then I had second thoughts. This is a hybrid right? It's supposed to save the planet and allow the children to breath free, right? Ok I'll paint it wrinkle GREEN! I think it looks awesome!

Lastly, I replaced the doors checks on both doors. Tired of getting hit in the ass by these big ass doors! 5 minute job that is sooooo worth it!