My Sable 2005 MR2 - shnazzle

[MrT]

Hey Pat what's this valve noise you describe? Are the lifters hydraulic? My engine sometimes ticks noisily, I'm sure it's only a single tick and after a bit of a run it stops (warms up?) But doesn't always happen either. Do you have this issue?

PS, I'm nearing 130k miles, lots of motorway though...

[shnazzle]

Front Brake lines aren't horrendous and even easier if you don't try to replicate some of the stick bends. I was fortunate to have a FB member in Palmersville lend me a decent quality flare maker, but it should be less than £40 all in to replace both front lines yourself.

Excellent! I'll be giving you a shout in due time then haha

Hey Pat what's this valve noise you describe? Are the lifters hydraulic? My engine sometimes ticks noisily, I'm sure it's only a single tick and after a bit of a run it stops (warms up?) But doesn't always happen either. Do you have this issue?

PS, I'm nearing 130k miles, lots of motorway though...

It's just a tickety-tickety. It's nothing horrendous but definitely a sign of some generous clearances.
They're not hydraulic, but use little buckets that should sit very very close to the back of the cam lobes. So that when the lobe turns it smoothly "picks up" the bucket and pushed the valve open. If there's too much of a gap, the lobe taps against the bucket at first contact, causing the ticking noise.
It's nothing to worry about, just, noisy.

If it doesn't happen when the engine is warm I'd be tempted to say you're well within tolerance as the metal expanding is probably covering the gap enough to prevent ticking.
My cleaeances are clearly much more off as no level of warm gets them to tick less

Sent from my ONEPLUS A5000 using Tapatalk

[shnazzle]

Dev's door shut bushes went on today. Very pleased indeed. No more door rattles.
I'd recommend them but I think this was the last batch

[delhusband]

Dev's door shut bushes went on today. Very pleased indeed. No more door rattles.
I'd recommend them but I think this was the last batch

Read your feedback on these with interest - I have some days off next week - looking forward to fitting them myself and a little test run.

[shnazzle]

I reckon it's very car-specific. The night /day difference for me was the lack of rattling over bumps now. But you probably don't have those anyway on stock suspension.

I'll let the handling side of things settle in for a while to make sure I'm not imagining things. All I know is that I have a very good feel for my car's handling and something isn't the same now. Need to figure out what.
I'm about 65% certain it's my wider front wheel base vs rear leading to a resistance to steer in

[shnazzle]

Car's finally in to replace my cracked manifold with my beautiful Zero manifold and a new custom cat to replace the knackered and leaking cat.

Dropped it all off with fresh Toyota gaskets and a long o2 sensor for the bank 1 sensor 1
Once this is done, I'm going to start taking better care of my car again. It'll get a fresh service before the next MOT and potentially a couple of cans of EGR cleaner, new Toyota power steering fluid, brake fluid and maybe an engine flush with some diesel engine oil.

[Joesson]

@shnazzle - Further to your reference to diesel engine oil as a cleaning agent:
For the last four years I have been using a Mobil oil that is specified by Mobil as suitable for everyday use in my 2 and similarly in my daily Ford Diesel.
This means that I only need buy/ keep one type of oil. I usually buy it from Wilko at £26/5L
Links to Wilko and Mobil

https://www.wilko.com/en-uk/mobil-super-3000x1-fully-synthetic-motor-oil-5w30-5l/p/0342808?nst=0&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI-9Gb65mv4AIVF5zVCh1CIQKVEAQYBSABEgKgE_D_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds


https://lubes.mobil.com/uk-english-lcw/carengineoils_which-oil.aspx

[shnazzle]

That's interesting. Sounds like a good candidate then!

[shnazzle]

Bad pics but you get the point.
Zero manifold and brand new custom built cat
One happy bunny.

[cptspaulding]

Looks the bob 

[shnazzle]

Couple more

[s12vea]

Looks very well made, what's it sound like?

[shnazzle]

Fantastic. Particularly around 4k rpm or so. Actually all over the rev range
The cat just made it a bit louder but actually a lot less than I thought. Mind, I drove it around with knackered flexis and cracks in mani for about 6 months.

Really really pleased with this. And, it's made a rather unexpected difference to performance lower down.

One downside... I think I now need to adjust my map as there's a bit of a flat at about 5k in 3rd.
Need to reset my ecu as well though. I had a knackered o2 sensor before as well.

[1979scotte]

Knackered flexis cracked manifolds broken O2 sensors me thinks you need a better maintance regime

[shnazzle]

Knackered flexis cracked manifolds broken O2 sensors me thinks you need a better maintance regime

Correct sir.
And I do believe I have covered that a few posts above this one

There's a plausible story behind all of it.
Last cat no longer worked. Got a 2nd hand cat off Tricky to get me through MOT. Unfortunately it had knackered flexis and the cat was juuust good enough to get me through two MOTs.

The manifold cracked on Tom's Yorkshire run when piling through some massive potholes. Possibly aided by the fact that it was wrapped.

The above two items are rather pricey to replace. So had to save.
Then Zero took about 8 weeks longer than advertised. So there's 2 months.

The o2 sensor, well, come on.. They go ALL the time! Haha

[1979scotte]

Knackered flexis cracked manifolds broken O2 sensors me thinks you need a better maintance regime

Correct sir.
And I do believe I have covered that a few posts above this one

There's a plausible story behind all of it.
Last cat no longer worked. Got a 2nd hand cat off Tricky to get me through MOT. Unfortunately it had knackered flexis and the cat was juuust good enough to get me through two MOTs.

The manifold cracked on Tom's Yorkshire run when piling through some massive potholes. Possibly aided by the fact that it was wrapped.

The above two items are rather pricey to replace. So had to save.
Then Zero took about 8 weeks longer than advertised. So there's 2 months.

The o2 sensor, well, come on.. They go ALL the time! Haha

So what we are saying is that is Tom's fault?
Fair enough.

[shnazzle]

Knackered flexis cracked manifolds broken O2 sensors me thinks you need a better maintance regime

Correct sir.
And I do believe I have covered that a few posts above this one

There's a plausible story behind all of it.
Last cat no longer worked. Got a 2nd hand cat off Tricky to get me through MOT. Unfortunately it had knackered flexis and the cat was juuust good enough to get me through two MOTs.

The manifold cracked on Tom's Yorkshire run when piling through some massive potholes. Possibly aided by the fact that it was wrapped.

The above two items are rather pricey to replace. So had to save.
Then Zero took about 8 weeks longer than advertised. So there's 2 months.

The o2 sensor, well, come on.. They go ALL the time! Haha

So what we are saying is that is Tom's fault?
Fair enough.

It is!

[shnazzle]

Captain's log.
Service 80% done today. New plugs. Went for plain old NGK BKR5EYA-11. Had the BKR6E-11 in this year because I had some, but thought I'd revert to stock. Looked perfect when they came out so, no harm at all running one step colder on my setup.

MAF cleaned. Air filter cleaned and pipes covered in fresh heat reflective tape.

Sprayed a good amount of carb cleaner through the intake VSV tube and blasted that through the engine. Hopefully cleaned the plenum and intake valves a bit.

A bottle of injector cleaner in the tank.

Just oil and oil filter left to do and then the valve clearances are being sorted as I'm sick of sounding like a tractor

[s12vea]

Not a bad mornings work

[shnazzle]

I lied. They weren't bkr6e-11, they were actually Densos, which have code K16R-U11. The 6 threw me off.
And frankly... They could look better.
Bear in mind that this is with completely off fueling due to the massive exhaust leaks. So, all things considered not horrendous

[shnazzle]

Thought I'd try some different stuff this time

Motul oil. Can't be bad can it?
K&N waste of money filter, but looks cool... To me..
And a universal Denso o2.

Very pleased with the o2 sensor actually. It comes with everything you need and instructions! Saves a lot of money

[Carolyn]

That's interesting.  I use the punk shrink-fit connectors too.

Used them to extend JZV's Densos for his Zero.  Sixteen of the buggers!!

[shnazzle]

Universal o2 works a treat. One thing I noticed is that my new o2 picks up voltage very quickly on a fresh cold start. From the second you turn the key the o2 voltage rises very progressively.

My bank 1 sensor was just flat and didn't start to read voltage until the new bank 2 was up to temp.

No code on the bank 1 so it just goes to show the difference between an old one and a new one. The heater on the old one is clearly on the way out

[1979scotte]

Universal o2 works a treat. One thing I noticed is that my new o2 picks up voltage very quickly on a fresh cold start. From the second you turn the key the o2 voltage rises very progressively.

My bank 1 sensor was just flat and didn't start to read voltage until the new bank 2 was up to temp.

No code on the bank 1 so it just goes to show the difference between an old one and a new one. The heater on the old one is clearly on the way out

Proof yet again that just because something works doesn't mean it works properly.
Like suspension with 100k on it or 8 year old tyres.

[shnazzle]

Had a fantastic drive in today after I fettled the piggyback a bit last night.
Fueling good again and tons of torque back. Happy days