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Felt like we made some real progress and didn't have to run the propane heater nearly as much today to keep the garage warm. I hear it might be 50's next week so nice change of pace from the cold and wind for sure! Up first today was the angle drive. Figured easier to get that done prior to getting the new exhaust in. Pretty straight forward once you get it in your hands and see where it's going. This is the ZZP angle brace and feel better about having it to get me through until I get to the quad conversion.

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I'm putting on the ZZP rear turbo exhaust - figured it made sense compatibility wise since the turbo is ZZP etc... I have to be honest though I don't have a solution, but not a fan of how close the downpipe is to the frame/coolant line. It fits don't get me wrong and it's up above the frame this way where it avoids damage so totally get it... just figured we should probably wrap where it's going to touch so went to work on

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Well there was some good today and some challenges, but like anything else I expect ups and downs. I'll leave it there and just get into it.

The Good:
Just how many times are we going to have to take the radiator, intercooler, etc....off? While I maybe frustrated my buddy is very meticulous and wants to make sure this is 100% done right and to his standards. I can totally appreciate that and noticed today just how meticulous he is when all the hose labels are facing so you can see the brand and are right side up. I don't think people will be asking about who's parts these are with DDM and ZZP labels all over! That said the radiator fan air box came out and got trimmed. Instructions say you can do this in the car and you could have but wanting to keep the nicks on my pipes and stuff to a minimum we pulled out.

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With that done, we

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I think today was a pretty productive day. Started with a good church service in person for a change as we were there for my nieces baptism and then raced home to change clothes and head to my buddy's place! First on the agenda today was to finish the oil pan swap. So far I think this is the hardest part mostly because you need to raise the engine up a few inches to get it out. Bottle jack and some blocks, looked sketch but worked! Also found out pulling the radiator and draining before you do this step is also a good idea as that extra room in the front was a good thing. Buddy had some steel tubing so made for good spacers to hold the motor up making getting the pan in/out a lot easier. I was happy to see no metal in the bottom of the old pan so that's always a good thing!

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It's been a long week at work this week with not a lot of time to work on the sling by the time either I or my buddy got off work. That said me and my buddy did make a little progress on it this week and plan to put in some real time into it this Sunday. I should be clear about that up front... His garage, and he's the mechanic. I can change the engine/angle drive oil, the mods up to this point...but not sure I'd try this on my own without his help

Before I even got off work, he had it jacked up and the oil drained. Pulled the tires and had the side panel off to get to the exhaust easier. Helped him pull the old exhaust out and while he messed with cleaning the new oil pan (keep in mind I got this ZZP stage 1 used) I disconnected the lights so we could get the hood and front clip off. One thing I hate is ordering parts for the sling's 2.4 motor.... most auto part stores don't have the slingshot as an option so I end up using a Solstace or Cobalt and while that works most of the

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While I do think the stock power of the slingshot is good enough...it's not good enough when you ride with a few other slingshots that are boosted. It all started on a trip with my 14 yr old and on the "run" home we hit a tollway where I found out just how fast a stock slingshot is. Needless to say this was the first trip we lost portions of the group, us included. This ended up working out as we would of split anyway some just split from the group way faster than others! As soon as I got home I started looking at options to boost my sling. I also had a conversation on the subject with another local slingshot owner who goes way back with some prior employers and after some research I was pretty set on a ZZP stage 1 setup for the price point and what I read is a reliable way to add power.

Almost as if it was a sign Dave from DDM works had listed a used turbo for $1600 that had come off a customers sling. Black Friday deals aside, I thought this was a smoking deal on getting into the

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If your one of those rare breeds that kept your slingshot 100% stock and/or simple modifications... I applaud your level of self control! For us the desire to modify things was balanced with my personal trait of being a cheap ass. While I'm cheap, I've learned over the years it's also better to buy and cry once when it comes to certain things. I also had to try to balance my desire to really focus on performance with the wife's desire on how it looked. Here's our mod list so far, you can decide who's winning on the performance/looks battle!

DDM Swaybar - 1st mod as I didn't like the way the steering felt in the front end on some mountain curves

DDM Coolant tank - the start of adding RED to the engine bay and I was already ordering from DDM

Hood Vent - Replaced the oem one with a functional vent to reduce some heat

Twist Valve cover - starting to like the red look in engine bay

Interior floor mats - another attempt at helping with heat

DDM short shifter / new knob - I didn't like the

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I don't know about you all, but when I get something I tend to go a little overboard on the research side. Maintenance, upgrades, reviews, etc.... Ironically a lot of my google searches brought me to threads on this site! The other thing that research lead me to was local groups in Colorado that had slingshots. I don't know why I was surprised after all the motorcycle groups we rode with, however it was nice to see some locals that road slings together and we joined the group for our 1st ride.

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I think we've done 4-5 group rides now and the sling is just about to hit 5k miles. We love the group rides and the only problem is the wife and 14 year old having to decide who's going. While the wife will drive it, she prefers to ride it seems which is fine with me! It's been nice though having the slingshot as something we enjoy together as a family.

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May of 2020 with covid going and the restrictions going full bore, we had just sold our 5yr old to us, used boat for 2k more than we had paid for it originally. Having bought a new boat and finding out we wouldn't get it till November we were looking at buying a motorcycle again. I had a few different ones when we were first married and sold them all when our son was born 14 years back now. I was looking at trikes and sending some to the wife when she stumbled across this 2018 SL slingshot in Daytona yellow. It had 1850 miles on it and the previous owner was selling as unfortunately his wife was sick and not able to use like they had when they first got it.

15k later and I was driving it from Denver back to Colorado Springs and got caught in my first rain storm literally 10 miles or so from the prior owners house. Stopping at the mall to wait the worst of it out and then taking off I learned about how slick these can be in the rain, my first donut! Made it home in one piece and got

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46.jpghere is the new look

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Not really a build, but a posting that is worthy of a blog entry, at least in my humble opinion.

Slingmods responded to a post here about the newly released Pedal Commander offering us group pricing if we got at least 20 people who said they'd buy. I think we got 30+ interested in the thread within a week or two. I tried to get them to give out a demo unit to someone, they declined, but I spoke up and offered to buy a unit and let anyone borrow and review it if they wanted. So far, no one has taken me up on the offer, but I figured I'd try to do an honest review.

I tried to use the app that Edward Neal had found for iOS that would give you timed speed runs, but the app didn't seem to be reliable at the time of this review. I'll continue to work with it and the author. I did buy the suggested Skypro XGPS 160 that your phone connects to via Bluetooth to enhance the GPS signal (basically a bluetooth GPS modem).

I did some timed runs first, without the Pedal Commander on, to get

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