Hello all - new to the boards here, and to Evo's (although I did lurk and read for a few weeks prior to my purchase. I just picked up an '11 Octane Blue GSR with 17k miles in decent shape.

A bit about me - I'm very into road racing, and I intend to do so with this car as well. My other car is a 2012 Boss 302 with race goodies, and I've tracked at several venues around the midwest and great lakes area. I generally run with NASA, although I've done SCCA events in the past.

Thanks to reading up on the car, I've done a few "basic" things that I got the impression I'd better get to. Among them are:

- zip-tied the fuel pressure regulator hose
- replaced the fuel relay with the proper black one
- replaced all fluids in the car with fresh, race-grade fluids

The car drives and handles quite well - I really did miss AWD. I'm completely impressed with how it moves. The previous owner put on an AEM intake and a fairly crap Magnaflow catback, but stopped there. Still has stock Advan tires with some life left, and brakes with no Brembo discoloration, so he didn't push it very hard at all. This does raise a few questions I'll ask in the appropriate forums.

In any case, I've noticed a few small things, so in no particular order:

- car does get a small bit of a smell to it when I push it hard. I don't know what to call it. It's faint and goes away quickly. It's not clutch or brakes, I know exactly what those smell like. I know others have said their cars do this, maybe mine does as well. I've no leaks or drivetrain noises/whines, and the smell has perhaps lessened in the past few days since I did the fluid swaps, so maybe it's just droplets of various oils burning off. Time will tell.

- I must take care of my glovebox rattle - driving me nuts.

- most annoying seatbelt chime and logic I have ever seen in a motor vehicle.

- I pulled the backing plates off of my hood vents, and I have noticed my motor runs a bit cooler, and my stability at higher speeds is a touch improved as well. The motor has significantly less "smell" afterwards when I've been flogging it, too.

- the fluid checks on this car are quite strange. When checking basically all of them cold (as is proper), they read perfectly. When checked hot (within 1-2 minutes of shutting down), the oil level is way up, and virtually every other fluid you can check under the hood is a fair bit down. I walk away for an hour, though, and all is perfectly normal. Have not really seen a car that bipolar in this sense.

- I'm not unimpressed with the stock shocks per se, but the springs are garbage. Likely I'll get the GTWORX springs in Spring of next year and see how that goes before I look hard at coilovers. I expected to want to ditch everything, but that's been a pleasant surprise.

- I see the Recaros in Evo's were made for little people. My Recaros in my Boss are quite comfortable, but these are killing me. Yes, I am a wee bit tubby, but to be fair, I'm also much harder to kidnap this way, so I have that going for me. Not super tubby, mind you - I'm no 300-pounder or anything - but I find the seats only barely tolerable. They'd be getting replaced with race seats for next season anyway, so no biggie (HA!).

Anyway, loving the car so far, and I've found the forums here to be extremely helpful. Glad to be here!