'01 Silver - The daily commute smile machine! (Turbo build)

[shnazzle]

Been a bit of a while!
Drove down south to pick up my mother to bring her round ours for Christmas. My ever leaking rear left wheel needed filling up and something didn't feel quite right the whole way there and on the way back I had the pleasure of being in the fast lane and have the rear swerve out and wobble!

Managed to dodge some cones and inspect in the emergency lane.

Turns out I had a snapped wheel stud and the other 3 had worked themselves loose on the rear left!   
Had a good inch of play in it.
Managed to jack the car up (with mother still in the passenger seat staying remarkably calm) and tighten the remaining 3.
Stayed at 50 the whole way back without issue.

SOOO... I will be replacing ALL of my wheel studs.. This is the second one that has broken in my tenure. So I guess a suggestion to others is to seriously consider replacing yours..

Don't think your mom was calm. She was probably motionless in fear haha

[jvanzyl]

Crikey, that must've been incredibly scary. I'm glad you are both ok and the car of course.

Was QUITE off putting.. so the whole thing is going up on the lift and I may as well do the front left hub at the same time..

[Ardent]

 

[jvanzyl]

So it's been a while but finally!
Err.. it's up on the lift.


The culprit:

I plan to replace them all really..
Having been out of work since August has provided a real mental challenge to doing much these days.

[jvanzyl]

Ok back left done.




Just need to do the brake now and then I can pop a wheel on.

[jvanzyl]

So I've been battling what I currently think is a cold starting issue... 2 mapping sessions with RRR and we're currently trying to resolve why the ECU loses connection whilst cranking.

I've been suspicious of my battery for a bit, and today decided to swap my battery out for a standard lead acid whatever the normal 11kg thing is. Started up no probs.

Tried charging the lifepo and it's currently not charging past 13.6V.

Been on jack Webb who I bought it from and they're going to take a look at it.

[jvanzyl]

So I tried to start the car this morning using my mom's battery. No probs, fired straight up.

Confirms battery as the issue then.
Cast my eye back to the lifepo and lo and behold:


Huh... So.. the battery is able to hold enough charge.

Popped it back in and it was able to fire the car up no probs... Took it for a few spirited drives and the charge was sitting around 13.8v... which now leads me to think that my alternator is not up to the job.. I shall have to test it.

[jvanzyl]

Right!

So I managed to tackle the mess that was the garage and binned an load of rubbish and cleaned up everything. I even vacuumed.

I then swapped over the suspected bad injector into the next one along to see if the problem pursued it. I did test the injector via powerpack and it seemed to be working.

Fired the car up and it sounded as before and it was the same cylinder that was the problem! 😔 Soo.. That meant it wasn't the injector.. on a whim I swapped out the coil pack.. and guess what? IT FLIPPING WORKS FINE NOW.

So.. even though I had lean conditions it was because the coil pack had failed.. which does make me wonder if the ECU saw a problem with the resistance in the coil pack maybe and didn't inject fuel??

Either way.. Very happy!

[jvanzyl]

Took the car out yesterday to do the shopping. It's working faultlessly at the moment which is great, it's possibly a blessing in disguise that I don't seem to encounter any "racers" though I did have a bit of fun keeping up with a Taycan as they were joining the local dual carriageway.

Will likely start on doing all the exterior stuff that I've accrued shortly. I've not fitted a fibreglass body kit before so this will be a new learning curve :-)

[jvanzyl]

I'm loving the "shopping runs" at the moment. I am going to have to do something about the HEAT though.. my IATs hit 60 when giving it some spirit and they seemed to "settle" around 45 when cruising!

I'm thinking of dividing the issue into 3 parts. Aero, shielding and ECU.
Aero-
shave down front number plate and or get a stick on one so it's on the actual bumper.



I'm planning on fitting the TRD stage 1 bumper but I don't think it allows any extra air in.



I appreciate there are things I can do to the bonnet.. I'd like to retain the storage so maybe @Topdownman version with I think the Jag vents might work to pull more air though?

The other thing to is for the c one side vents to shove more cold air into the back... But I have a slight mental block with fitting them..

Shielding
This little sucker and setup neede to beb protected.. I suppose some malleable heat shielding material may help added to the side vents..

ECU
I think there's a setting in the software where I can pull timing when IATS get too high.. whilst a good idea it's not really solving the problem.

[Ardent]

+1 to the stick on plate.

Have never liked the oem plate holder.

[jvanzyl]

+1 to the stick on plate.

Have never liked the oem plate holder.

cool - any recommendations on where to get them?

[Ardent]

I will try and back track my last one, but somewhere from the bay of E

[Joesson]

+1 to the stick on plate.

Have never liked the oem plate holder.

Referring to the front plate my (oem, well like it when I got it) comprises of 2 self tapping screws with black caps that are fixed into the dimpled, dark grey of the front moulding.
Totally lightweight PFL!

[jvanzyl]

Referring to the front plate my (oem, well like it when I got it) comprises of 2 self tapping screws with black caps that are fixed into the dimpled, dark grey of the front moulding.
Totally lightweight PFL!

Interesting- do you have any pics of what it looks like?

[Topdownman]

I always thought the bonnet vents helped as the air passing over them must draw air through the vents and as long as you do not have the frunk plastic cover, it must increase airflow over the radiator.(Do you have a larger radiator fitted?) I always thought it reduced lift at high speed too.

I have smaller plates on my, ahem, other car and love them. I bought both ends as there was no postage if you bought two and love the look of them. Buy the borderless ones and you can also shave a bit off if you need to (I did this to add a UK badge and to make sure it fitted the space I had neatly. They have legal font size and the necessary markings.
Pro plates

For best cooling though, you should buy my top secret front bumper which should still be in the for sale section somewhere! The vents are huge.

Perhaps you could have a summer engine cover so you could cut out that too for additional airflow?

[jvanzyl]

I always thought the bonnet vents helped as the air passing over them must draw air through the vents and as long as you do not have the frunk plastic cover, it must increase airflow over the radiator.(Do you have a larger radiator fitted?) I always thought it reduced lift at high speed too.

I have smaller plates on my, ahem, other car and love them. I bought both ends as there was no postage if you bought two and love the look of them. Buy the borderless ones and you can also shave a bit off if you need to (I did this to add a UK badge and to make sure it fitted the space I had neatly. They have legal font size and the necessary markings.
Pro plates

For best cooling though, you should buy my top secret front bumper which should still be in the for sale section somewhere! The vents are huge.

Perhaps you could have a summer engine cover so you could cut out that too for additional airflow?

So I just have the standard (albeit new) radiator fitted, in front of which is the fiat cinquento one for the charge cooler. Sounds like your vents work ok with the frunk box still in place?

I will have a look at the smaller plates link you provided - thank you!

- erm... I have a few too many bumpers at the moment.. thank you though!

Now that's not a bad idea about the summer engine cover.. obviously it's a bit of pain with our slightly random weather at times - I have considered the additional fan in the cover as well..

[tets]

is your charge cooler working properly?
With my intercooler under the car at ambient 19 / 20 degrees I'm hitting 28 / 30 tootling round but then it drops to 24 when I give it some
something doesn't seem right there
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[Carolyn]

I agree with @tets .  Something isn't right.  Your problem is inlet air temperature, not coolant temperature.  Messing with the radiator won't make much difference.

The charge cooler should be doing the job.  Are you sure the charge cooling circuit is not air-locked?  Have you got the filler at the highest point? Do you have an expansion tank in the system?

[Joesson]

Interesting- do you have any pics of what it looks like?

https://www.mr2roc.org/index.php?msg=909382
Enlarge pic 3 or:


I see now that these are white caps, black caps on my daily. Just depends on the plate letters and numbers and of existing where the fixing holes are.

[jvanzyl]

is your charge cooler working properly?
With my intercooler under the car at ambient 19 / 20 degrees I'm hitting 28 / 30 tootling round but then it drops to 24 when I give it some
something doesn't seem right there
You cannot view this attachment.

Well.. I assumed it is/was.. I have double checked and coolant is flowing round the system. @Carolyn no airlocks that I can see, it has an expansion tank and it's at the highest point of the car. How do you realistically test your charge cooler? I'd need an extra sensor between the turbo and the charge barrel I guess? Don't have that at the moment.. the other option I guess would be what threepot did on his channel with the remote temp sensors monitoring the charge coolant before and after the radiator.. hmmm..

Just for clarity - my comments in response to @Topdownman were because he asked about the standard radiator, but my thoughts were if I can get more air flowing freely through the charge cooler (via vents in the bonnet) it would help the whole thing.

I did find the temp in the engine bay to be way hotter than normal - the temp here hit 33C today and I reckon the air intake and filter housing just got utterly heat soaked? The charge barrel did not feel "fridge-like" the way I know it can, feel a bit like the turbo manifold was just giving off so much it overwhelmed it maybe.

I have noticed that the heat wrap on the exhaust system was black to start with and is now taking on a white colour in certain areas.. does the exhaust wrap expire after a certain time?

[Carolyn]

A fan in the engine lid is a good plan.  Some wrap does get old quite quickly.  The heavy duty 'titanium' wrap seems to last well.  Another layer wouldn't hurt. 

[Ardent]

For what it's worth on the fan front.
Regards the tte  Mr T had the fan blow external air in to the boiler room not extracting heat out.

[jvanzyl]

For what it's worth on the fan front.
Regards the tte  Mr T had the fan blow external air in to the boiler room not extracting heat out.

Really? That doesn't make sense to me.. would have thought pulling it out would have been more effective..
I'm looking at making my own version built into the the drip tray.

[Carolyn]

Really? That doesn't make sense to me.. would have thought pulling it out would have been more effective..
I'm looking at making my own version built into the the drip tray.

Whether you suck or blow depends on the layout of exhaust and inlet in the engine bay.  If the heat source is below the inlet tract - blow down, as that blows hot air away from the inlet.  The idea is to blow the hot air away from the bits you want to keep cool.

On the supercharger car, the exhaust was above most of the inlet tract so we sucked the air up.  In Jase's TTE turbo the hot bit is below the inlet tract, so it blows down.