[Mike]

Here we go again

I was bored and thought I'd post up a timeline thread, hopefully I'll be able to piece together all the photo's I have to show all of my mods from what the car was to how it stands now. Then when I add more modification I'll just update this thread rather than making a whole new one.

So:

Before I even bough the car it looked like this ( I can't even remember how I found these pics, lol):

Here it stands just after I picked it up (few little differences):

First thing I done was replaced the 40mm lowering springs with Koni coilovers, I have no pics of that for some reason.

The next was a sealed raid hp carbon max induction kit with Vectra C diesel intake pipe and Piper Fast road cams:

I then painted up my engine covers, I aimed for piano black but missed, lol:

I had it remapped by VTune in Aylsebury, it then run 136.9BHP:

Then painted up my engine caps silver:

Then I replaced my interior with that from an SXi+ (thanks to Chaz) no door cards yet though...:

Az's white MFD conversion:

My girlfreind then bought me some HID's for christmas:

Then we have new Corsa D SXi optional 17" courtesy of Wayne:

Then I bought a dbilas inlet manifold, as seen being fitted here, standard airbox went on for the time being:

And a Weischer front upper strut brace:

Then bonnet lifters:

DBilas flowmaster and flowpipe although I can't find a pic...

Irmscher matts and steering wheel, leather door cards have snuck in there somehow too:

Retrimmed my interior ceiling in black fabric with leather A and C pillars:

Dimpled and grooved discs with uprated pads:

Updated EDS software to take the rev limiter to 7500, she then rolled 160 bhp :

Irmscher B pillar trims and new custom CC|UK stickers, lol:

White dial and panel lights conversion:

Burg decals, pressed metal plates and grey opel blitz:

280mm VXR brake upgrade courtesy of the legend that is Warren:

Lightened and balanced flywheel:

Old:

New:

and a much needed new clutch, lol. (mmmm, clutch dust!)

I have a whiteline rear anti roll bar on order as well as a Piper exhaust manifold and full system with a few custom bits :dance:

To be continued...

 

[Mike]

Exhaust now fitted My god it sounds mean :twisted: lol

Shame it was hammering it down last night so couldn't really open it up too much. Definitely a noticeable difference, more powerful and also where I think my old system was starting to struggle at lower revs this feels a lot smoother, I'm thinking maybe my old cat was blocked up or something :shrug:. Louder than I expected it to be but to be honest I've fallen in love with the awesome f*cking noise!! lol

Anyone wanting a new manifold/exhaust should definitely get in touch with Piper, the craftsmanship is spot on. You can tell it's really well made, all of the welds are perfectly neat. Even my mechanic mates who helped me fit it who love giving me a hard time (i.e. when it first arrived tried to convince me it was made of mild steel :roll: lol) they even had to buckle and say how good it was and how good value for money it was. Brilliant customer service from Piper throughout :yes:



Thanks

I had my whiteline adjustable rear anti roll bar fitted last night and oh my god it makes such a huge difference!!

I'll see if I can get some pictures up later.

If you care at all about the handling of your car you HAVE to get one of these, well worth every penny and the lengthy delivery time :yes:

Breather hoses...

Coolant hoses...

Ancillary hoses..

I can't wait
And some pics of the RARB

lol..

Most of my silicone hoses are now fitted, there are a couple that won't go on without a little adjustment but I'll do them another time

Here's the pics, I hope you likey:

After a long trip to Wigan on Sunday the 17" Corsa D SXi alloys have gone!!

I now have a set of 16" Irmscher softstars (excuse the dirt):

But... they're not the wheels I want

These are the badboys that are going to go on :

16" Irmscher Signas :dance: I've always wanted a set of these!

The idea was that the Softstars were going to get me back home and then I was going to sell them on, now they've actually grown on me and I'm contemplating keeping them as winter wheels (imagine how much of a ******* the Signas will be to keep clean) and then maybe track day wheels....

...

 

[Mike]

Strengthened the engine mounts yesterday at long last, the Flexane is crazy stuff!!

Sprayed up my rear badge and have decided I really like this colour

And the A and C pillars are getting trimmed again, I think this is going to be a true marmite mod, hopefully it will look good though. This is the fabric I'm using

More to come soon

Cheers guys

Just seen this pic which someone took of my car today and I think it's amazing so it's going in the thread lol

( )__ ( )
(. ' . ' .)
('')__('')

BRING ON THE TRUMPETS!

o=iii={(

You is gangsta!!

Little update, nothing much as the snow and cold has hampered things.

Cleaning up the wheels, going to polish, wax and seal them hopefully during the week. My brother's car takes up all the room in the garage though :roll:

Masked up the front end, sprayed the "Irmscher" bit of the front grill in Red. MAsked it up with Blu-tac once dry. Rubbed down the alu strip, primered and sprayed in the same grey as my rear badge. Now covered it all back over as I don't have any lacquer :|

Will know more about my money situation for some other bits on Tuesday :\

...

 

[Mike]

Here's a quick on of the front grille, it's primered but due to the sh*tty weather I've not been able to apply any colour

Spot what's different :look:

Here's one of the first finished C pillar trim, to be honest there are quite a few little creases in it but the material has no flex in it at all. It's in the back of the car and the pattern hides it well so I'm not too fussed. I'm pretty chuffed with it, can't wait to get them all in

And here is clearly the perfect snack for when it's snowing outside :| lol

I hate myself sometimes....

I just bought this, picking it up on Sunday.

It's a TUV/FIA approved Weischer bolt in roll cage.

:roll:

Managed to get the wheels swapped over today

Also got a few pics of the pillar trims but they're really hard to get a shot of as they're dark and inside the car. It's impossible to get a pic of the rear ones, with a camera phone at least.

Put the repainted Opel blitz back on.

Gave the car a good clean as it desperately needed it. Here's some pics

Roll cage being collected tomorrow

I've got the day of work today So I decided it was about time to get the fron grill strip sprayed up. I've masked the front end off and due to the fact I've been driving it before it's been painted and lacquered I ended up with a few stone chips. Quick rub down and some chemical metal so far.

Oh and we decided to start looking at how to fit the roll cage last night so the back of my car currently looks like this.... :\

Not sure I can really call that "progress" as technically I've been taking bits off :shrug:

More to come soon hopefully

...

 

[Mike]

Slight update, nothing to get excited about...

That is all :|

lol

Lol, thanks for all the celebrations. I wish I'd have had more chance to do the same, my work has been hectic!!

Lets hope I still have a job to pay for everything :lol: :look:

Basically:

The filter doesn't fit but with it's position and direction it should be fine to run without a filter, I'll get something made up long term but for now it will do. Alternatively if I get a smaller alternator that should help.
The pedals are out of the car, Motech are currently working on attaching them up with throttle cable.
My clocks don't work as they operate on the Canbus system and the old ECU is now gone. They could have got the old ECU working in parallel with the stand alone but the amount of work and money it would take I might as well get a digital dash.
He's yet to sort out a belt that will fit with the new position of the alternator but that shouldn't be a problem.

He is perfectly happy that everything will be working in order for me to get it mapped on Thurday. I'm excited but with all the complications he's come across slightly scared at what the final bill might be :\ lol. Oh well..... f*ck it :shrug:

BRING ON THE TRUMPETS!!!:twisted:

I get to pick her up in the next 45 minutes :dance::heelclick:

Only slight issue is apparently one of the coils has cracked :| SO I need a new coilpack :| Which ill cost me anouther £150 :|

Good news is.... I already had a spare one in my garage :lol: Fingers crossed it works ok and it should save me some money. Will have to swap it over before I can go anywhere.

To be honest I'm not exactly looking forwarded to driving it on the base map, it will probably feel horrible!! But I can't wait to get it mapped

Sorry all, I was there until 8 last night and it's still not finished, lol. This has been the biggest can of worms ever!!

I felt so ill last night after seeing Warren and Nathan I went home and straight to bed, I don't think standing up in the cold all day helped.

I've taken a couple of pics, couple of vids but can't upload them until later.

I had to drive it to the station this morning and probably woke a few people up :lol: It's actually quiter then it used to be which is good but when you boot it you get all the pops and bangs of a rally car, it makes me want to sex wee!!

Filthy spark plugs after obout 5 miles :lol:

Few niggly bits like I say but getting there...

:dance:

...

 

[Mike]

... will not be coming to the ball

Because they've been trying to get the clocks and power steering working by reinstalling the stock ECU it's not happy. The two systems can't run in parallel as they interfere with each other. They will not share a crank sensor. They didn't know it wasn't going to work until they already had all the wiring half done so now it's in a state where it cannot be driven. Motech are going to ring Emerald on Monday morning to see if there's any other way around it but the most viable solution seems to be to machine a crank wheel and put it on the other end of the crank to run a sensor off so there's a sensor at each end.

In short: I am gutted

I'm sure it will be worth it in the long run but I was so close to having it finished in time for TFS it's frustrating to get so close and not be able to brin git

I'll still be coming TFS but jumping in with a mate and selling my stand pass.

Mike

Just spoken to Steve at Motech, the latest is as follows:

At the other end of the crank there's a (roughly) 56 tooth gear wheel that's not being used. This means that they don't have to machine anything up and should be able to run a sensor off it just fine. They can't tell the stock ECU to read a different number of teeth though so they'll have to put the sensor for the stock ECU back into the original place and move the Emerald sensor to the other end, then they can just tell the Emerald ECU how many teeth to read and it will adjust.

Once that's been done the other Steve from Track 'n' Road will pop back in to up the fuelling on startup as currently it's a ***** to start from cold.

Once all that has been done he'll have hopefully sorted out the air leak between the inlet manifold and cylinder head. I'm ordering an oil pressure gauge today or tomorrow and have it send directly to him for fitting. Hopefully he'll fit the cage too.

Then all I need to do is book it back in with Track 'n' Road so they can finish mapping her and the job's a good'n

I hope it's not going to take too long, I just want my car back

It does indeed mate, sounds immense.

I got some vids but they're all poo and you can't really hear it, lol. they're on Photobucket though so might as well give you the links...

Actual flames spit out of the trumpets. You see what I'm saying? Flames.... trumpets.... now that's f*cking weird! lol

It's still not happy. I do have power steering all the gauges working though which is nice. Taking it to Track 'n' Road for Steve to have a quick look at it, see if he can get it driving better for now. Will have to be booked back in for a serious mapping session another day.

Lol, thanks. I wish I could say the same. It's being a brat at the moment and keeps throwing its toys out of the pram. Still need to sort the air leak in between the inlet manifold and the cylinder head, get the cage fitted and get it mapped up to 7500rpm.

It's annoying that it gets to peak torque at about 4-4500rpm and then you're forced to change within the next 1000rpm.

Got another quick vid (not sure what speed I hit) on a private road (that'll cover me, lol) here it is.

...

 

[Mike]

Little bit more progress today.

At the girlfriends today and she had uni work to do so I thought I'd polish up the rocker cover. Only give it a quick going over but it's come out pretty good so far. At some stage I'd like to have it off again and shine it up like a biartch but this will do for now.

Before:

After:

and on the car:

Would have liked to put the coilpack cover on today but left it in the back of my mates car :roll:

Thanks for looking

Just got off the phone with Motech...

He spoke to the electrician and doesn't seem to think it's a wiring fault. He said the best thing to do would be to uprate the pressure switch to a 25llb one rather than the 7llb one that's currently on there. This didn't sound great to me as I don't think it should be coming on at all. Nothing they've done shoud affect the oil pressure so why should the light be coming on? He seems to think it's something to do with the ECU getting confused because it's not driving the car anymore. As far as I'm aware the ECU has effectively been tricked into thinking that it is driving the car so why should this happen?

I'm dropping the car off again on Saturday so he can replace the inlet manifold gasket to sort the air leak, fit the roll cage and have a look at the wiring. It's starting to do my head in to be honest, if I have to leave the car with them for another week they'll have had it for a total of a month...

I'm paying to have the roll cage fitted but as for the rest of it they can whistle.

A little bit of progress, not a lot but it still counts.

Got some shiny bolts and washers and fitted my spikedjack special coilpack cover. I'm rather pleased with it Still have to try and polish the scratch out but can't be bothered at the minute...

:yes:

Nope, car is with Motech at the minute. They're replacing the inlet manifold gasket to sort the air leak, fitting the roll cage, having a look at the wiring to stop the oil level warning light from coming on and seeing how hard it would be to take out the old fuel pressure regulator. If I can get the old FPR out it will make mapping it a lot easier but would have to more or less start from scratch... :\



Quit making things up you

Om nom nom nom nom

Porsche 944 seats.

I really can't afford them to be honest but I couldn't help it. Like a moth to a flame!!

I'm probably getting the whole rear as well, f*ck knows what I'm going to do with that :| :lol:

I don't even have a bloody car at the moment to put them in!!

Got them off ebay, just waiting for the guy to let me know when I can go get them, should hopefully be fairly local too

Picked the car up from Motech again!

So the air leak from the inlet manifold has been sorted. He said he could see where it was leaking from, very slight but that's now been fixed so no leak at all. The cage has been fitted (the euro way to keep Jack happy) New set of plugs as the old ones got om nom nom nom nommed. Checked the wiring but couldn't find anything wrong with it, put it down to a confused ECU, blanked off the engine managment light.

That little lot cost me the princely sum of....... £0 f*ck all

Pics of the cage (excuse the mess):

That's all for now.

Desperately needs to get back in for mapping, still not running right. Steve is convinced it's the timing as it's not been right since he had to move the crank sensor. Will get it into Track 'n' Road asap to finish it off.

Going to look at taking the existing FPR out of the tank tonight and bypassing it to use the one in the engine bay that's adjustable. If we manage to do it I'll have to guess at the fuel pressure (leaning towartd overfuelling rather than under) to get it to the mappers and then they can measure it and adjust it as necessary.

I'm booking in with Track 'n' Road Monday evening but I have a ****ty meeting to go to that might not finish until 8 so I might not make it

Porsche seats are in my bedroom, will be giving them a clean over the next few days.

...

 

[Mike]

No

Took the standard FPR out and hooked up the FSE one. Now she's not running at all. Initially the battery was flat which needed charging. Then we can just about get it to start but it dies after literally a few seconds. Any blip of the throttle kills it off entirely...

At a bit of a loss as to what's wrong with it to be honest, getting the hump. Seems like it's not getting enough fuel but it doesn't seem to matter what way we adjust the FPR. What I could really do with is a pressure guage to whack on the other side to see if it's making any difference. Seeing as tomorrow's Sunday I'll be a bit hard pushed to get hold of one

Might have to look at putting the standard FPR back in the tank and disconnecting the FSE one if it gets it running, would rather avoid it though.

Having 3.8 bar fuel pressure with 440cc/min injectors make it hard to map.



Flames come out of the trumpets, does that count? lol



Hello matey, sorry I did keep meaning to text you back but just been sorting stuff out after being away for a week and kept forgetting or getting sidetracked. Back to the usual e-mail convos as of tomorrow, lol.

Thanks for being Mr Positive, lol. I was getting really down about it yesterday tbh but it's getting there.

Would be good if you could make it down, let me know if you're feeling any better.

The car is now running again as it should, I even have a short video to prove it, lol. I think the first one is crap quality as it was compressed so I could send it to Solly.




We measured the fuel pressure either side of the fuel rail and it wasn't even making 1 bar, it was about 0.7. The best explanation we can think of is that the pump isn't strong enough to hold 3.8 bar of pressure right through to the front of the car. Hence the standard FPR has gone back into the tank. We left the FPR in before the fuel rail thinking we'd be able to back off the existing 3.8 bar with it before it got to the fuel rail but the screw doesn't appear to make any difference at all.

Should be mapped up tomorrow at around 20:00 so fingers crossed I'll actually have a car I can drive with power figures. I think I'm more scared than anything, lol. I'm fed up with things not working as they should and more importantly if it's all been for not a lot of power I'll be gutted! :lol:

The Porsche seats are damn comfy, I'm sitting in on while typing this message lol Filthy dirt though so in the process of cleaning them.

Epic

 

[Mike]

That was at the fly I'm afraid wally watchers. (Sorry I wasn't all too clear in the text)

It still needs odds and sods doing to get it running bang on right but it got to 12:30 and they'd done about as much as thy could.

As I said to Solly in a text... I've decided, f*ck the figures!! I've just been driving back from T'n'R wih the biggest f*cking grin on my face!! It's a little rocket! I have some videos and pictures but it's to late now and I have to be up at 05:30 (yes kids that's 4 hours time)

All I have to say is a ha ha hha ahahahah HA AH AHA HAH AH AH ATRUMPETS!!

and good night

p.s. Thanks for keping people entertained Jack and Solly, as for Ben I'm sorry if you were upset, I just knew these pair were on a wind up and fancied adding to it :lol:

Before anyone decides to be clever and say "ooh look it's overfuelling there"

Check my curves.

More can be done still to bring the peak torque in earlier but that can be later. For how accurate this rolling road is this is epicly smooth. I've seen a car with a bad map on thier rollers and it looked more like a lie detector test (ask Nathan D)

Remember people, this is done on the most accurate rolling road in the country, 1 of only 4 of it's type in the world! The transmission loss is not guestimated or calculated it is accurately measured.

Where I was with my baby until 01:00 this morning...

Oh and I found a short tunnel on the way home, can't hear it in work, how does it sound?

and a short stretch of private road (with traffic lights at the end... how strange :\)

...

-

So, as you may have noticed my car's been up and running for a while now but the wiring, although functional, looked like it had been done by someone wearing boxing gloves and an eye patch.

Warren offered me an oil and filter change for less than it would cost me to do myself so I couldn't refuse. He also supplied me with a coolant pipe from a Z20LET to tidy things up round the front end.

We removed the redundant fuel pressure regulator and replaced a split fuel hose.

The throttle cable that was cable tied to the strut braced has now been rerouted and supported elsewhere.

The earth cable that was attached by method of "pin the tail on the donkey" has been relocated to a more sensible place.

The wiring was all stripped back and covered up with some nice neat black conduit.

I'm well chuffed with the end result to be honest, I was previously embaressed of my engine bay but now I'll show it off with pride All I need to do now is sort out the carbon fibre coilpack cover from Jack and give it all a good clean.

This is an old pic of how it looked before we started:

Here are some pics taken along the way:

And here is the final result:

HUGE thanks to Warren!

 

[Mike]

As you might have seen I ended up with a set of softstars. The purpose of said wheels was to get me back from Wigan and then steal the tyres and sell on the alloys. But being that the Signa's are such a slut to keep clean I thought it worth while keeping the softstars as winter wheels. Winter wheels soon became track wheels and so here we are now...

To say they were in sh*t condition is a bit of an understatement. We found a fair few layers of different paint and lacquer and one had some nice filler action on the go.

How they were at 08:00 tonight:

Close up of the nastiness:

MMmmmmm.... filler:

And the last picture I took was mid primer:

I'll admit I'm no Jamie Sharpe and these are not going to come out factory standard. All I want is something fairly presentable that doesn't matter too much if they pick up some chips or take a knock. I'll also be using one of these as a spare in my wheel well as my current steel doesn't fit over my brakes

Tomorow night, they get colour

-

Got a few snaps this morning of them finished (primered). One of the centre caps has gone epicly wrong so that will need redoing. It's the fact the irmscher "i" is metal and the cap is plastic they always end up showing through.

This one's ok though:

Wheelage:

 

[Mike]

Firstly needed supplies

This one's for the scots

And some OM NOM nom nom nom action

Then the white base coat went on (I actually reather like them in white :\ lol)

Then this stuff came out to play :twisted:

On it went like so :dance:

Then a few coats of lacquer :heelclick:

Like I said before they're not going to be perfect but they don't have to be. Had a couple of suicidal flies donate thier bodies to art and a few cracks here and there but certainly a darn sight better than they were.

Here they are while the laquers still wet They won't stay like this for at least another few coats but will get somewhere close

-

Wheels in the light after final coat o lacquer and drying:

Getting rubber fitted this afternoon.

Eric (ktl) is currently out the front with the porter cable giving her a good polish

 

[Mike]

ktl polished my car up today and the job he done was fantastic, well worth the money. After my mates saw it and I told them how much it was I think he'll be coming back to do theirs :lol:

Here are some pics, well chuffed with how it's come out.

Bra on to try and keep it fresh

Reflection of my mate's CRX

-

Quick one of the new seats thanks to 1ross8 :yes:

-

Then these bad boys went on

Love this rolling pic

-

 

[Mike]

Washed the front end of the car today (100mph+ picks up bug splats rather quickly) Just used clean water and quick detailer so as not to take any of the polish off.

Then went to work on the engine bay with degreaser, carb cleaner and autosol. So much dirt come out it was untrue. I polished everything in there I could see that was metal :lol: I even took a wire brush to the engine mounts, come up a lot better actually

Pics:

Carbon fibre coilpack cover is now fitted properly (and straight) with a Jenvey decal to cover the scratch. No pics of that yet but I'm sure there will be loads tomorrow. :dance:

-

And here's the track vid

http://www.corsa-c.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?p=3946884#post3946884

-

Trumpets

-

 

[Mike]

I ordered some stickers for my centre caps from Magoo off the site. Really good price, very speedy service and he even threw in a spare in case I messed one up without me even asking. Couldn't recommend him enough :yes:

Here's them going on.

And here's after a quick coat of lacquer.

The Signas have gone back on now, I'm sure many of you will be pleased to see. Unfortunately the plastic spinny thing that keeps your spare in has scratch a circle into one of them ever so slightly

Also, the track wheels took a beating from the locking wheel nut key and now everyone has a bolt hole with paint missing but.... f*ck it, they're track wheels :shrug:

Just a quick shot to show you how much of a munching they got on the track, I'm so pleased I bought an extra set of tyres instead of using my road ones.

I picked up some wheel spacers from Nathan on Wednesday for use with the track tyres, set the back ones out just a little

I also picked up an entire set of spare arches, I'm going to have a crack at colour coding them myself. If it come out sh*t I'll just send them off to get done :shrug:
I'm sure everyone knows what they look like bu I had the camera out anyway so :shrug: lol

-

Spent a good 2.5 - 3 hours tonight just rubbing these ******* things down. Not even finished with the p180 yet, still trying to get rid of all the texture. For anyone that's not done this before I think you really have to give it a go to realise how much of a ball ache it is :lol:

-

Arches currently filler primered...

Roughly sanded down the spare bump strips I have and primered them too. :thumbs:

-

Grey primered:

Cheeky pic of the softstar with the new centre cap :

-

Jenvey delivery just kicked in y0!!

Amazing considering I only ordered them late yesterday and they had to get them on the lathe to machine them down for me, now that's customer service!! :yes:

 

[Mike]

:x

This stonking great big piece of wood, which has probably sat exactly where it was for about the past 10 years + without a problem. Now, for some unknown f*cking reason it decides to fall from the rafters and straight onto all of my spraying!!! To say I'm pissed off is an inderstatement! It managed to knock on piece completely over and onto the newspaper and take massive great gouges out of another 2 arch pieces.

I had just about enough black spray left to attempt to hide the damage but I think they're going to end up looking really sh*t now. Gutted, all the time and effort pretty much wasted by one poxy bit of wood!

-

Against my better judgement went down to the garage to asses the damage after the paint has dried a bit, without meaning to get my hopes up it doesn't look too bad. You can clearly see where there's been damage but I think I'll get away with it. Here's a close up of the worst gouge, the white bit isn't a scratch it's the light reflecting off it.

I brought an arch up from the garage into the sun to see what it looked like and it's not too bad.

Lined it up against the car to get a rough idea of colour match, bearing in mind this is without any lacquer I'm hopeful it will look good. By the time it's had a few coats of lacquer and has a nice shine it should hopefully look the part (providing nothing else goes wrong)

-

Bodgily fitted catch tank without the gauge. Obviously not permanant but will do the job for now and also I'll know what lengths of silicone pipe to order. If SFS or Samco can do next day delivery then it'll be sorted in time for the shoot.

Test fit of one arch after the first coat of lacquer.

Since then I think I've gone a bit overkill with the lacquer and made the cloudy :x These arches really are causing a rollercoaster of emotions :lol:

Orange matching track bumper strips, just for giggles

Put the carpet and loading edge trim in the back too in order to make things a bit tidier but forgot to get pics...

Going to be spending the rest of the day cleaning and polishing it methinks.

 

[Mike]

piece of cloth cable tied into place to stop it banging/rubbing as well

job done

i cant work out whether that was a compliment or an insult :lol:

Meh take it as both :shrug: lol

Ah I see, you made a suggestion without the use of cable ties and it felt odd didn't it, had to find a way of working some in there, lol.

Cheeky rear interior pics:

Shame the carput is cut for the split rear bench...

-

Didn't realise before how much aggro fitting those rear arches would be :| lol

Nathan left here about half hour ago after kindly helping me, thanks again matey :thumbs:

Here's a few quick work in progress snaps and some shoddy finished article ones

Far from perfect but all in all I'm pretty pleased with my DIY job

 

[Mike]

Just got back from the photo shoot at Bluewater. Bumped into Nathan and his other half while we were there too so he come over and done a bit of media schmoozing :lol:

Really nice people that come to take the shots and write up the feature. Took us a while to find each other around the maze that is Bluewater car parks and nearly took out a canadian goose in the process :lol: Took a fair old whack of time but will be well worth it, I can't wait!

Here's a few cheeky pics I took of them doing their thing

Photographer Matt:

Papparazzi Grant:

And this is the shot I got told off for as my hand me down poverty spec camera set of the flashes, whoops :lol:

-

Epic picture of track action from Lydden Hill

And my car in the background of this pic lol

And this is Bill Richards, the guy that come out with me, top bloke :yes:

 

[Mike]

Lined the carbon fibre rear door cards up and realised that they wouldn't fit over the seat belt Have to move a lod of clips and wiring as well. Now I see what Gazz meant when he said it's a ballache. Started doing what I could with clips and wires but run our of time to fot them properly so they're just held in place with some velcro for now, just to hide all the crap. Also took the sound deadening off as the cards wouldn't fit over them.

Popper down to Burtons for a way around the seat belt issue and came back with these

Epic mess while fitting them

And here they are fitted

And the door cards, temporarily held in place.

Bed time now, have to get up at 4 :|

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So, tonight I swapped my 40mm trumpets that were dirty, dented and had been cut very roughly for some nice, new, clean, properly lathed down to size 60mm trumpets

Old ones coming out

The difference, a lot more than I first thought

Fitted

Look MILES better IMO and will be better for performance hopefully. Unfortunately rather tight on the conduit on the left and coolant pipe on the right (as you look into the bay) hopefully won't touch. Have given it a little rev and it cleared both but not sure how much it's going to move under load, may have to start moving things :\

Also, after seeing how Gazzareth Parkinson had mounted his harnesses I decided it was clearly better than my rush job so changed mine

That's all for now. Getting the map tweaked tomorrow night and adjusted to allow for the longer trumpets.

 

[Mike]

Finally got round to uploading some pictures off my phone. All I've done is take the asbo wheels back off and tucked them away for a while.

Recieved at fitted my harness pads which make a big difference

Have ordered the polishing kit that Az linked me to and also 2 Dremel type tools to polish up the rocker cover. I bought one for me and one for my Dad to use on his kit car.

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Went to get the little beasty weighed today just out of curiosity to see how much I've lost/gained from the various things I've done. My model standard weighs 1082kg out of the factory and mine weighs...

Lols :lol:

Having said that I literally had just filled it up with petrol, using the calculation if 1 litre = 0.72kgs that's roughly 30kgs just in fuel. I'm fairly certain that when they weigh the car from standard they do so on an empty tank. Add on another 5kgs for random stuff in the car at the time such as sat nav/cd's/large socket set/drink etc... and we're looking at having lost about 37kgs putting me at around the 1045kg mark which isn't too bad. I'm aiming to get her sub 1000kg

Set at the rocker cover with my new mini drill and the million accessories I've since purchased. Gave it a spruce up in the hard to reach places and dusted over some flat areas to get an idea of the difference it will make.

Lopped off that annoying nobble and the clips at the front as well. Wasn't particularly accurate with the junior hacksaw and slipped once or twice with the drill but getting there.

Still doing it, just come in for a sarnie and a cuppa

-

Annoying nobble gone now, what a f*cking pain in the arse that was to get rid of :lol:

In for a pint of Guiness, back out to carry on in a minute

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Stole Jack's idea from PVS, only just got round to going and grabbing one from Halfords.

£9.99 well spent I think, just a bungee cord cargo net to stop things flying around in the back

Only lobbed it in there quickly for now, not taken any of the excess hooks off or anything.

 

[Mike]

Turkey:

Dog the size of a bear:

Horsey:

Chicken:

Oil cooler, Aeroquip hoses, -6 fittings, thermostatic control valve etc:

JDT logo and M4 :look:

Oil cooler being lines up:

First bit of bracket making:

Italian police style Scirrocco (sp):

Attempted weld until Dave realised the crash bar was made of cheese, I mean ally:

Old skool Golf on Porsche rims with R32 Turbo lump:

Which is clearly:

Cooler in place with 2 out of 3 brackets. Crash bar had to be drilled and tapped instead of welded:

More amazing bracket making:

Lunch time car-b-que :

Mike's car-b-que skills kicked in y0!:

Om nom nom nom:

Amazing brackets hanging up to dry after bing painted:

Ceramic wrapped oil lines to stop the exhaust heathing the oil up:

Garry (PiperRS) trying his best "I'm cool" pose sporting a lovely JDT T-shirt:

All fitted looking lovely:

Finishing touch:

Behind the bumper:

Shiny new -6 Mocal fittings for the fuel rail to replace the cracking oil line and take the nasty kink out of the line:

All in all a good day and I'm well chuffed with my new 16 row Mocal oil cooler The standard of Dave's work is probably the highest I've seen. He makes it look easy but doesn't rush a thing. The way he knocks up a professional looking bracket out of a sheet of steel is brilliant.

More to come soon