It's been awhile.
The wiring to the rear right taillight socket came apart. In an attempt to not buy another yet since my plan for the car was to do something different for the rear I wired it up to use these magnetic lights I have for my car dolly. Unfortunately it would have required buying an adapter to wire in the 4 pin harness so I just used both lights on one side. The inside is the brake light and the outside is the turn signal, just like the OEM housing has it. The left (driver) side is working fine so I am fine legally.
Haven't done much with the car. I am/was trying out a flat drag spoiler (name?) It seems like it might be helping a little bit, but I've only tufted it and it seems the air is too turbulent to really get any good attachment. I was going to try out a separation edge on the top and sides to hopefully clean it up enough for reattachment, but haven't gotten around to it yet. I didn't originally have the metal on there. At first the tufts were wrapping around and I remembered that adding the plastic on the taillights was enough to get separation so I tried that. It didn't seem to make a difference in this case. Maybe because I sealed the plastic on the light whereas this isn't and still gets a lot of air from around it.
I put some dry ice on the passenger floor board and found several holes as well as the connection to the rocker is mostly gone. Still pretty solid though. I can put all my weight on it and it not flex. I have been re-thinking the long term viability of the car. However, I haven't had to choose which route I want to go yet so it's still up in the air. Give up on the FE project, replace with a car with less rust, or get practice repairing rust on this in prep for the other cars. Second pic is behind the driver seat.
I got another job too. Pay increase of 32%, first engineer position since graduation. Excited for that. It's in an area that I've had some experience through internships, and have a personal interest in (machining).
As far as the commute goes, I haven't found my favored route yet. I can take the main roads and go ~28 miles or I can go the country roads for ~32 miles. I've been taking the country route for the peace, but it's got more traffic than I would have expected. I got 35 on the way back today. Partially because I haven't got my coasting distances down, but mostly traffic. If that is a typical number I would be getting that's ~50% increase in gas usage. So now I really want to start tinkering again.
I did also get the car weighed. 2,371 lbs without me in it. Listed curb weight is 2404, but someone pointed out that could be dry weight. I do have 120 lbs of batteries behind the seats so I am only slightly disappointed in the weight reduction.
I got a mini knee-mill. Not one of the bench units. This has a decent capacity/table size. Enough that I think I could shave the g13bb (4 cyl metro engine) head on it for better compression. I haven't finished the stand for it yet, or ran a circuit to the garage for it either. But I'm excited to have the capability. I also bought a small sheet metal brake. A harbor freight one. The jump in price from this to a quality unit is ~$700. Enough that I think it will be worth my time to modify this rather than buy a nicer one. I watched for a few months and had no luck finding a used one that wasn't over $800. Paid $257 for the HF one.
