Project "true Blues"

Brake job complete. Went smooth as butter, and I'm now about 100 miles on the new pads and rotors, still doing the light braking duties till I hit 500 miles. I'm really liking having the safety of fresh pads back on the car. I think I can notice a difference already, but that could just be caused by having something new on there, regardless of the pad upgrade. I have only had two moments where emergency braking was necesarry, and unfortunately, I noticed mad fade in those two moments. Hopefully I didn't glaze the rotors or pads, and the break in can continue under the best of circumstances.

Well, the 1lugloose handle will stick around, though all 20 nuts are securely attached to the car. Hooray, I'm track-day legal now!

Anyone know why the inside pad of my driver's side caliper wore so much faster? Is the caliper maybe starting to get a little slow or sticky? Or was it from the bad alignment I used to have?

Here are the pics of the brake job:

So I got the job in Hot and Sunny Phoenix. I'll finally be on a relatively 9-5 mon-fri schedule. No more living check to check either, and of importance to this thread, I'll finally be able to afford to be more proactive with my car, instead of my reactive attempts to make things better.

But everything comes with a catch. Coming home from the airport a couple of days ago, I get on the car a little after its fully warmed up, and I blow the heater core to intake manifold hose off the passenger side of the intake manifold. It was only a hose clamp that slipped, and was tigthened and refilled on the spot (still have leftover coolant from my last flush in the car, thankfully). No big deal really.

Now, the car is coming with me to Arizona (by trailer). I'm just beginning to wonder besides my recent coolant flush and thermostat replacement, do I have to do anything else to get the car ready for the extreme daytime heat? I'm still negotiating the salary and bonus.

The top radiator hose was replaced a little more than a year ago, but I haven't done the bottom hose as there does not appear to be any bulging.

The A/C really seems to be of concern, though. It always blows cold just fine, but the compressor has a hard engagement and the drag on the engine at street RPMs is so terrible that I hate using it. Sometimes I think I can hear a whine, but not always. Thankfully, so cal is never that hot for that long, but when I'm sitting in traffic, I still hate using the A/C because of the heat soak and power loss that is already a serious effect without adding additional strain to the engine. Anyone else live in the heat with these issues?