Dyno Day!

Had an awesome day at the dyno thanks to some friends. had a full day tuning taking it from barely ticking over to running like a beast! :) 

Had a slight issue with the exhaust because of where it came out would of blasted straight at the dyno unit. We twisted it around and pointed it up and away. Made 114 at the wheels so happy with that, probably more to get out of it but running good so not worried about that yet.

Fuel Gauge

Trying to set up the fuel gauge on the speedo and realised the fuel sender wouldn't work with the gauge so we bought a new sender. We had a bit of trouble figuring out how to fit it in the tank and it still didn't really work properly with the gauge when the sender was half way up the gauge says empty so we had to bend the float arm to make it work right. Seem to have it bang on now the gauge seems to match the fuel level.

Finally An Update - Side Repeaters & Filler Tether

Bought these little side repeaters a while ago and finally had chance to fit them. We decided to mount them on the rear arches after a bit of research to see where is best to put them. They look smart and are super bright!

Another little job I wasn't looking forward to turned out quite easy. For the IVA test we have to tether our filler cap as the key can be removed when the cap is not in place. We used a bit of bike wire crimped and soldered some ends on then managed to use the bolt on the back of the filler and one of the mounting bolts for the filler plate on the body.

Aero Screen

Bought an aero screen from Tiger Racing to fit on the scuttle. It was a real pain to fit and seemed like it was not symmetrical we got one side perfect then the other side was out so just had to settle for a happy medium. Put the wing mirrors on too and one needed bending a bit to make it sit right. also got the interior mirror on we had to cut a hole in the aero screen for it to go through and mounted it to the scuttle seems to work pretty good and looks good too.

Out of the garage again looking good nearly there now the end is in sight!

Rear Arches Again

Finally finally finally got the rear arches we've been waiting ages!

So we fitted them and put the rear light pods and reflectors on too. They're really nice and fit perfect.

 We chopped the bolts down after to make sure the tyre doesn't touch.

Tuning The Map

Got to get her out of the garage again and managed to get an engine map that was nearly drivable so we had to have a quick blast down the street! It was really exciting to have a go and it felt awesome to drive and slightly terrifying too ha ha ha.

Rear Lights

When we put the rear arches on we spotted that the wheels were sticking out a bit too far but we didnt think anything of it as we just thought the wheels were bigger than usual or the offset was different. Anyhow when we tried the rear light pods on the arches they too hung over so wouldn't fit on! This made us measure the arches and it turns out we have the narrow ones..... D'oh! So we took them off and are now waiting for the wider ones to be made.

We fitted the fog, reverse and number plate lights as they go on the rear tub not the arches. Also straightened up the fuel filler so it looks loads better.

Bought a wideband lambda controller and sensor from the states a company called 14point7.com took a while to arrive but saved us about £40 over the UK equivalent. This will help us fine tune the car and let the autotune in tunerstudio work properly.

New Engine!

When we had the car out a few weeks ago we knew there was something not right with the engine and not just the ecu map. The problems we had were different every time we started it sometimes it would idle really fast other times it wouldn't idle at all. It sounded like it was running on 3 cylinders when it was revved up and also got really hot quickly. We wondered if one of the injectors was not working properly so we took the inlet off to check and they were fine so shoved the inlet back on tried it again and it ran better like all 4 cylinders were working. This made us check the inlet more closely and realised 1 of the seals for the injectors was missing and another one was damaged. This meant air was entering where it shouldn't which made it run badly. Dad got hold of some new seals for the injectors and re worked the inlet too to make sure it was all air tight. We took all the coolant pipes off to re seal them as well because they were a bit leaky and wanted to make sure that was all working well to keep the temp down. But having tinkered with the current engine loads and scratching our heads why it still isn't running properly we have decided its knackered. So out it comes and we got hold of a new one to put in. Didn't think we would be changing the engine already lol. After reading a bit more into the problem it turns out the Zetec engines are quite sensitive to what oil is used. Because they run quite hot they need the right oil 5w30, we had been using some stuff dad had lying around lol 10w40 at a guess. Bought the new engine from a local scrap yard for £90 2.0l zetec 99 focus. We set about stripping it and tidying it up.

Maiden Voyage!

Finally drove her out of the garage all be it in 3rd lol. Got it started and running but realised we could'nt change gear when the engine was running (somehow never tried before lol). Dad managed to get it in 3rd so that's why it sounded like granny driving pulling out. Once we figured out we couldn't get gears when engine was running dad started it in 1st and went down the road but got stuck at the end trying to turn around ha ha ha. We turned it round and i drove it back and shes a beast!!!

Had some nice sunny days was nice to work on it out of the garage :)