Last Monday packed the bags and left for vacation.
Drove to Wilmington, North Carolina ( Roughly 400 miles ) and spent a couple of days there. Then left mid-week and drove to Cape Charles, Virginia ( Roughly 300 miles ) and then after a couple days there back to Virginia ( Roughly 250 ) miles. While at these destinations, put roughly another 250 miles driving the car. In the end put on about 1200 miles on the car and rolled over 177k.
Took my toolbox and extra engine oil/coolant. Car has not been using any extra oil after the ccv rebuild with the O2 pilot mod. Still on the original radiator but no leaks to report. Overall a successful road trip.
Things to note though:
1) Slight steering wheel shimmy which I believe is the tires needed to be balanced ( have not done it since they were mounted ). They have been wearing evenly but the rear tires are getting close to the wear bars. Mileage on the set is roughly 19,000
2) Clutch/Flywheel/shifter rebuild - no issues to report and everything is working as is. However I finally heard the famous gear chatter from the transmission. After a couple hours of driving and the transmission getting hot, the noise sounds like there is straight cut gears inside of the transmission. Sitting at idle in neutral with the a/c is when the noise is most audible. However my hunch is the type of oil that is inside the trans ( d4 atf mixture ) which I think is personally to thin of an oil when heated up inside a manual transmission. Plus I am not a big supporter of using ATF inside a manual vehicle.
So I will be doing a drain and refill and going with Redline MT90 which has a higher viscosity grade.
Otherwise no complaints or regrets going to a single mass flywheel and a spring clutch disk. Pedal feel is great, easy to manage and consistent.
Will report back when I will swap trans fluid.
-Vas