PROBE GT GLOSSARY -- Back Q R Ross' Page THE performance page for 2nd gen Probe fans. Turbo, NOS, and more. http://www.oocities.org/MotorCity/5335/ Rotors From the Taurus SHO FAQ comes this enlightening information on cross-drilled and performance rotors. http://www.c-edge.com/shotimes/brakes/part2.html Using larger rotors and retaining the stock calipers is one way to achieve greater stopping power. First, the larger rotor will be able to absorb more heat, and less pedal effort will be required as the  caliper is using a longer lever arm to stop the rotation of the hub. It has been said that the Mitsubishi 3000GT (a.k.a. Dodge Stealth) uses the same hubs and offset with larger sized rotors. A bracket  similar to the one shown below could be used to mount the caliper around the larger rotor. S SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) A lot of people have been trying to get a hold of this! The 1992 SAE  paper on Mazda's 2.5L KL03 engine is below... Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Alternatively, you can look at the HTML version by Howard Chu... http://highlandsun.com/hyc/sae920677 SAE papers are available through www.sae.org  , or your local engineering library. Shifter Here is my shifter knob and shift boot. The shifter knob was made a friend  (thanks, John!) on a lathe, and the boot was purchased through J.C.  Whitney. By the way, the thread required for the knob is M10x1.25mm. Springs See Eibach Springs Strut Bar, homemade A small number of companies manufacture front strut tower bars. My first attempt at a front strut bar illustrated how little clearance there was under the hood. The space is so tight that nothing  bigger than 1/2" piping will fit. For this reason it is easy to end up with a strut bar that looks great but provides no benefit to chassis stiffness. A rear strut tower bar has proven to be very beneficial to handling for me as well as others. Some have said that squeaks and rattles were reduced also. The ultimate rear tower brace should be made from square tubing and should connect diagonally to the floor of the trunk. In the spring of 1999 I intend on making a rear brace like this, and a square tubed front brace also. Sway Bar My first sway bar modification involved making a dual 12mm rear setup. I took two stock sway  bars, and using some creativity bolted them up. Performance was better, but only slightly. You can see how the second bar piggy backed on the first using a pair of stock bushings placed back to back. I junked this set-up in favour of the Addco 22mm bar. The manufacturer part number for the bar is  699. By far the cheapest source is J.C. Whitney ( www.jcwhitney.com ). I got my bar for US$95 plus a 10% discount. Performance  Much improved! Flat cornering, minimal understeer! The front end really grips! In terms of oversteer, the car will never do so unless provoked by the driver (i.e., braking mid-turn, etc.). The  Addco bar takes some getting used and some practice to relearn the limits of the car. Even so, this is by far the best handling modification value around. Installation  Not too difficult if you follow these tips. The end link nuts will likely be rusted on nicely. Use a dremmel, hack saw or nut splitter to get them off. Replacement nuts can be purchased at a Mazda dealer for less than $1/ea. Before putting the bar in the bushings, wrap it with Teflon tape. You might also try scoring/scuffing the inside of the bushing. It has a very smooth surface that says "binding!" all over it. By scuffing it  up and using waterproof grease, you should have no problems. My bar has been squeak-free since January, 1999. One more thing, don't tighten the bracket bolts too much -- the bushings will be  squeezed to death and you may also begin hearing a funny click/clunk when the bar moves. When bolting in the brackets holding the bar, if you can't get the bracket to fit over the bolts, use a 'C' clamp to help you out. One thing about the Addco polyurethane bushings is that they use the small stock brackets and are therefore very thin. Some have reported the bushings disintegrating. If this happens to you, Addco  will send you new ones for free. Better yet, buy decent sized replacement bushings and brackets at J.C. Whitney for US$10. Bracket/bushing combinations with grease fittings are available through Summit Racing ( www.summitracing.com ) for $15. Sway Bar End Links Whether you hacked your rear sway bar links to death when installing your Addco rear sway bar, or they simply died from stress, instead of forking over US$80 per end link, order some of these  Summit rod ends. For each side, buy one female and one male rod end and screw them together. Another Prober has confirmed that this solution works, and has eliminated some of the clunking noises that the stock end links made.   T  Timing See Ignition Timing Timing Belt In an attempt to change the water pump, I goofed up and had to reinstall the timing belt. It's really  not that bad a job. However, a servce manual is a must to know the procedure for aligning the timing belt correctly. A couple of tips to help you get the crank pulley off: 1) use the starter motor to  break the crank bolt free, and 2) make a pulley puller tool using the crank bolt, a 1.5"diam. washer, and one of the bolts from pulley tensioners. 1: Water pump. The disc at the end is where pulley bolts up 2: Timing belt 3: VRIS resonance tube location 4: Engine mount (removed) TPS (Throttle Position Sensor) A This little device is a variable resistor located on the side of the throttle body. It allows the engine ECU to monitor the throttle position. If the TPS is out of adjustment, part throttle applications will  result in jerky acceleration. Full throttle will also be affected as the ECU may not activate the VRIS butterfly valves as per the full-throttle VRIS map. The service manual states a rather complicated method of adjusting the TPS. I accidentally found a really simple way. With the car already warmed up and running, locate the little black plastic box  beside the battery and fusebox. Connect "TEN" to "GND". Second, loosen the two TPS mounting bolts.  Third, nudge the TPS to the point just before the cooling fans come on. You'll know what I mean  when you try it. Finally, tighten the bolts, and you're done! The reason this technique works is because the ECU is setup such that if you try to drive the car  with TEN connected to ground (a.k.a. GND), as soon as the ECU detects that you are applying the accelerator (i.e., not at idle) it turns on the cooling fans. I don't know what the purpose of this  feature is but it makes adjusting the TPS a snap. Transmission Oil Tough shifting into and out of 1st and 2nd gears is a trademark of the Mazda tranny we have. The situation can be improved greatly by using a thinner transmission oil like Redline MTL or better yet  GM Synchromesh. The GM Synchromesh I used was listed in the catalogue as being for all front wheel drive manual transmission vehicles. No viscosity rating was given on the bottle or in the  catalogue. It's a relatively low viscosity oil similar to ATF. The lighter weight of the oil may mean that it is unsuitable for very hot weather as its film strength may become too low to protect gear surfaces. My previous fluid was 2qt Valvoline Synthetic 75W90 + 1qt Redline MTL. After changing to Synchromesh ,I found that my shifting did in fact improve. For a given amount of shifting effort, shift  times went from 0.8s to 0.5-0.6s. These of course are just estimates. Considering GM Synchromesh is just CDN$6.99 a bottle at any GM dealership, it's a very good investment. Turbocharger Numerous people have made their own tubocharger kits for their 2.5L V6's. ATS Turbo is the only company at present that makes turbo and supercharger kits for the 2.5L V6.       Counter installed April 1, 1999