Apparently you could smell the panic on the m25.
Was I that worried on the voicemail I left you? haha.
So, a little update for you folks. I've been slack taking pictures, because frankly, I got bored of it.
After a chat with PT, I decided to fit a shim in my DV with the forge yellow spring.
DV all cleaned out:
And shim installed (my god this is interesting stuff
)
later that evening Andy came round in his cupra to go for a spin:
And then to my garage for him to try out his new seat I've got for him:
Sadly, the light in the above picture is provided by my headlights, and then my car wouldn't start, so the lads had to push me in the rain to bump it:
I had the morning off on Monday, so decided to fit my 3'' exhaust.
For those of you that don't know about these yet, it's a full 3'' turbo back system for a ko3/s mk4 golf, downpipe, decat, and full turbo back exhaust all in 3'' TIG welded stainless steel. it's got two straight through resonator boxes, no baffles, no restrictions, just lots of flow.
It's also rediculously expensive, at just £220 shipped from the states!
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/99-04-VW-...42205982747496630&pid=100 011&prg=1005&rk=2&
Got the car up on the ramps:
And laid out the new exhaust to make sure it's all there:
After MUCH struggling with the miltek system, it simply refused to seperate at the axle pipe - back box joint, so sadly, I had to cut it off. I sliced the axle pipe as it's the cheapest part to replace!
I removed the decat section of my relentless downpipe too, as this would need adjusting to suit the ko3S fitment exhaust.
The relentless has always had a bent in the decat section, which I think is to aid clearing the prop on the S3, but it made the system hang VERY low, and it was forever catching as can be seen:
Luckily, the new exhaust came with two tailpipes, one of which was the perfect length to replace the bent section of the relentless decat!"
Perfect, and it now maintains 3'' from the turbo to the tailpipe
I just had to cut this lip off
At this point I got bored, because time was moving on, and I had to get the car finished so I could drive it down to cornwall as part of my running in mission, so I just finished it off without taking any more pictures.
The tailpipe still needs trimming down, but it was originally about 9'' longer than this to suit a bora! Work in progress
I then drove 200 fault free miles down to cornwall to Mum and Dads, where Big Bad Dad and I got to work on changing the hot oil as soon as I arrived, at this point the engine had covered 280 miles, and was feeling great.
We filled it up with fully synth, and settled in for a few beers and Ham Egg and Chips, BBD style
Tuesday morning I went to Truro to look at some concrete, you don't care, but I'm including it anyway!
Lovely moulds for pre-cast units:
And the finished product, we have 124 of these units coming at work, and this was the first
After looking at grey stuff, I headed back to mum and dads, packed my stuff, and jumped in the track car to drive the 200 miles home.
All was going well up until exeter, I was on the phone to Frenchman who was asking how the exhaust sounded, so he listened in as I pulled away from a set of lights on the A30.
Through 1st gently, no trouble, into second and full throttle, pulling like crazy, into 3rd, and NOTHING. ZERO psi.
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm, this seems odd. No lights come up, no visable oil behind the car, no smoke, no smell, it sounded perfect, dipped the clutch and revved it, it revved just fine too.
What the FECK had happened? ARGH.
I pulled off the A30 and found some street lights near exeter airport and using the light from my iphone started having a look over it.
All the boost hoses were fine, the TIP was still on tight, I pulled the front bumper off and checked the hoses under there too, all tight and fine.
I went over the hoses again looking for splits, nothing. I looked down the back of the turbo with my iphone light and saw the retaining nut for the actuator rod tight up against the wastegate arm, all looked well.
Argh.
I tried to call Dan (Beachbuggy) and got no answer, tried again and left him a message asking for some advice.
I prodded a few more things, took it for a drive and it was OK, but zero boost. ******.
I parked up again, and called Tuffty, he asked all the usual questions, hoses, actuator etc etc, all looked OK, so we decided it'd be best to pull the TIP off to see if the turbo was spinning freely or not.
I pulled the TIP off, after burning myself a lot, but couldn't put my hang inside the turbo - too hot still.
Picture attempt #1:
I appear to have missed my target. haha
Attempt #2
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm, all looks well. ****** it, I'm burnt already,a little more won't hurt, so I stuck my hand in and grabbed hold of it.
No play, left, right, up, down, in out, it was perfect, and spinning freely too.
Hmmmmmmmmm, but this time things had started to cool down, and Dan called me back having listened to my worried answerphone message.
He was adamant it'd be the actuator, despite my protests that I'd already checked it. I checked it again, and D'oh! The nut had come loose! letting the wastegate blow open.
With the problem found, i set about refitting the TIP, which took AGES because the 80mm TIP is very tight against the gear cables on a 5 speed car, that took about 40 mins to shoe horn back on, then I started winding the actuator nut up again.
After about 15 mins of winding it with a tiny ratchet spanner, I got fed up, and tried to remove it to check it out.
To my surprise, it just pulled straight off!
Ok, it all makes sense now. Stripped thread.
New nut was found in my socket set case, wound on with the pre load guessed, and off I went, and my god was it good! Actuator pressure was up to 15psi, and the car felt AMAZING!
All worries over, and I continued on my journey about 90 minutes later, burnt, oilly, and tired, but happy it wasn't something more serious!
If you actually bothered to read all that, you must be REALLY bored!
Roll on Bills RR day next weekend