fiestaturbo.com

[jonyb4]

ha is it one of them yacht's with a garage? be handy

[~nomad~]

nice car!

[- Danny Boy -]

So, I have a small update. As per the new title states, the K&N banana pipe is back, but with a difference!

It is now internally reinforced with aluminum tubing. So now it is solid internally, doesn't suck itself shut or anything which is a good thing. I have been testing it for about an hour now and all is good. It pulls very hard all the way to the limiter and it looks good too... well compared to the last pile of s**t that was bodged on there

I was on the lookout for a standard crossover pipe to begin with as some will know, but while out on the look for jobs I saw a load of aluminium tubing on racks in this building in an industrial estate. So, I popped in, asked if he had any thin walled tubing which could be shaped/squashed easily but still retain its regidity... he asked why, so I showed him why - had the K&N pipe in the boot for a backup incase the bodge failed...

After a little chat, the guy went off for 10mins and came back with a few different sizes of pipe (diameter wise) we sat there and squeezed them, put them inside the K&N pipe and eventally found one that worked pretty perfectly. So that got cut in half and squashed very slightly, then we put one half in one end, the other half in the other end. Job done... and being offcuts, he didn't want a penny for them. So I was happy!

So this will probably stay now.

Thats it for the update.

Heres a crappy picture of the pipe back on the engine. It all needs cleaning and polishing I know.. I'll do that during the week!

[Dave5300]

looks good mate, good idea reinforcing it

[- Danny Boy -]

Random quick video of the pipe, it's mainly just showing that I haven't just stuck it back on there without it being modded.

Been out all morning driving it under loads of conditions - motorway, town, fast, slow ect ect, overall torque has increased as it pulls harder throughout the rev range under all conditions of driving.

So overall I'm pretty happy with it being back on the car.

[- Danny Boy -]

I don't think I updated on here, but the silicone hoses and chrome piping did come through the post to make the induction kit up, but I couldn't shut the bonnet with it all in place. The idea was to get smaller sized stuff, so I sent it all back and got a refund, but I used the monet for other stuff - more important life essentials.

So, from that point onwards I had the intention of putting it back on there, or a standard crossover pipe just so I could get rid of the s**t bodge.

Spoke to an old boss of mine to see if he had any ideas for making it more 'solid' and he suggested a strip of aluminium plate, but the only problem with that, is the fact it could fall over on its side... so tubing was a better option to keep it open

[- Danny Boy -]

Decided to pull my finger out today and crack on with my camber adjustable lower arms, they have been sitting there for months so it's time I did something with them

Quick pic from my phone:



I'll be making a quick guide on how to do it for people who have no clue - even though it's a fairly simple straight forward thing to do.

In other news, my insurance ran out at midnight. Boo! And my MOT runs out soon too. So over the next month or maybe 2, depending how long I keep the car off the road for I will be doing the usual stuff which I do every 6 months, which is:

- General engine service - oil, filter, spark plugs, check and replace/top up other fluids where need be.. ect.
- Engine + engine bay clean up session, plus re-paint anything that needs doing.
- General maintenance of the car; check all parts of the car top to bottom and replace any that need replacing.
- Rust hunting. There's not a great deal of it. But it'll get sorted one way or another if it's there.
- Re-underseal the underneith of the car.
- Re-underseal inside the arches.

I think that's pretty much it. Basically in short, give the whole car a general once over

Aaaaand I'll give the car a damn good clean inside and out so it'll be nice and clean for when it comes back out to play. Lots of polish and wax

The next update on this will probably be the camber adjustable lower arms. I won't be polybushing these ones due to lack of money, so they will just get the camber treatment for now. Then with my old lower arms that will be coming off, they will get camber treatment and probably polybushed too. Maybe even spherical bearings

[- Danny Boy -]

Another quick picture from my phone. 1 down, 1 to go.

[jayrs]

how come you didnt just use frst ball joints? there 10mm longer than the ones you have

[- Danny Boy -]

Because I'm trying to reduce the camber not increase it

I have too much as it is being slammed on coilovers, and the inner edges of the tyres wear down a bit too quickly

As they are so far, they will pull the wheels in by 5mm each side, it's not a huge amount, but it should help slightly I could shave some metal off the outer edge and increase the lengh of the holes further, that would give me anywhere between 5-10mm each side depending how much I take off.

I will probably go down that route thinking eventually. But before I do, I will see how close to the 'standard' degrees of camber this gets it, if its within a few degrees then I will leave it, if it's still miles off, I'll get modifying some more

[jayrs]

yeah my bad, just looked at the pic again and seen the holes are slotted to move it inward not out, should pay more attention

[hb69]

From what I understand its more the toe that wears out tyres rather than the camber isnt it?

[- Danny Boy -]

If you are running standard suspension where the tyres are more or less flat on the floor, then that would be the case yeah. But with the tracking perfect and the car lowered, it rides on the inner edges more than the rest of the tyre so that wears out quicker.

[jonyb4]

why dont you just raise the car? no need to have it so low imo just wearing things out, damaging the car on bumps etc

thats my "grandad" answer

[- Danny Boy -]

Because I don't want to.

Damaging what on what bumps exactly?

[jonyb4]

would save your money on tyres and maintenance like ball joints, anyway

splitters, chassis and floor pan, coil springs and dampers, your double ARB will sit low, exhaust, cross memeber and lower arm subframe
would handle better if it sat higher too

[- Danny Boy -]

The reason for camber adjustable lower arms is to save the tyres while its this low. Even a slightly lowered fiesta will eat the inner edges of the tyres more so than the rest of the tyre just because of the way the suspension and chassis have been designed.

Ball joints aren't expensive either, plus you can replace just the ball joint rather than the whole lower arm if it does go with them like this. Which is unlikely as I have never had one fail.

With regards to the other things...

- Splitter - made of plastic and costs £15 new. Not bothered. It rarely scrapes the floor either.
- Chassis and floor pan - doesn't touch over bumps.
- Coil springs and dampers - well being coilovers they are designed to go that low, they never bottom out either. So again, not a problem.
- Twin ARB - yes its low, but it doesn't get close to the floor.
- Exhaust - never scrapes on bumps. The only part that does is the bracket because the bolts are rediculously long.
- Cross member, lower arm subframe - again, no problems at all.

If you are refering to driving fast over bumps ect and it causing damage over a long term period - then it is true, but what dickhead in a lowered car drives fast over bumps

It wouldn't handle better if it was higher either. The rear end with twin arm setup, coilovers, plus strut braces and polybushes ect ect, makes the rear end fairly stiff - especially being a fixed axle. By stiff I am not refering to the ride comfort as thats lovely and soft... But raising the car would mean higher centre of gravity, that would mean the rear end would be very tail happy, that results in a car which will want to spin around on the spot, not literally but more so than it should do - high speed lane changes if I ever needed to do it in an emergency would then be dangerous.

You have never been in my car so you can't even comment on how good or bad it handles. All I can say is it handles very well in my personal opinion. Other people who have driven my car or been in the passenger seat say the same thing too. Around track, on motorways, down country roads, wherever you drive it, it handles great

[jonyb4]

no need to get in a huff, im just saying my opinion, relax mate

[jonyb4]

FYI i knocked my splitter on a kerb driving too far into a parking space, i forget i have it, and now its scratched showing its yellow primer

[- Danny Boy -]

I wasn't getting in a huff, just explaining

You'll remember that you have the splitter now, won't you

[jonyb4]

haha i dunno its worrying me lol, need to touched it up now!

its not even that low but it will still hit a kerb


whats up withy uo job wise atm may i ask? last i heard your van broke so id imagine doing the mobile mechanic business is taken a blow?

i need to get on the job hunt soon as ive had this operation

[- Danny Boy -]

Van and mobile mechanic... jeez that was like early last year

Not technically employed at the moment, doing photography work here and there. But putting in for jobs all over the place. Hopefully going to get a mechanical aerospace engineering apprenticeship in september though. See how things go.

[jonyb4]

theres no shame in saying your unemployed dan

[Minstral]

not low enough

when i had it i remember once hitting the rear beam on a speed bump, and the middle exhaust bracket always use to catch like Danny said miles to long the thread on it and the wheels used to hit the arches all time on the front. was why i sold the dished wheels because if i raised it up it would have never looked as good as it did. so just bought some cheap replacements.

[- Danny Boy -]

I would go lower, but at the height it is at the moment with the dampers set up to how they are its pretty perfect. I don't get much scraping, only over big bumps when I'm going fast - and thats only on the front arches, the rear wheels clear fine. More poke and it wouldn't

Its roughly 90mm down on he front, and roughtly 100mm on the rear. Got someone on fsi to measure their standard suspension on some 15" gti's from the highest point of the arch to the highest point of the rim, so that's how I know

I did lower it a bit more the other day for a laugh, but the wheels became unturnable




I was tempted to wind the coilies down even more so the splitter was on the floor dub style

[- Danny Boy -]

As you know, I have been making some camber adjustable lower arms.

These will pull the bottom of the wheel in by 5mm. So that's 5mm less negative camber essentially. In terms of how many degrees that is and how close that is to standard I am not too sure at the moment.

I will probably modify them more in the future to allow between 5-10mm of movement, but for now, these will do and will help prolong tyre wear on the inner edges slightly. Also I will replace the rubber bushes with polyurathane ones, or spherical bearings at a later date too.

A few pictures:

[Excursion]

Nice work, Danny. Looks like you did a nice accurate job there.

[~nomad~]

The lower the better.

[jonyb4]

good job

[Dave5300]

looks great danny, that picture from the front of it nearly on the deck looks epic

[- Danny Boy -]

Cheers guyyyyys.

I should hope they are nice an accurate Mark, I took my time over them making sure they was perfect. The ball joints move in and out quite freely but aren't loose side to side or if you twist them if that makes sense. So the fit is good

[- Danny Boy -]

Basically over the last few days I have been busy! I don't have pictures of everything because I just wanted to get through it all. I will focus on a few things below in the update.

This is the list of stuff I have done!

Rust hunting/ Smashing the f**k out of bits with a hammer and screwdriver. No holes made. So under side is solid still. Win.
Got rid of scabby surfact rust/bubbling paint on front panel. Then undersealed it.
Re-undersealed the whole under side of the car - inside the arches to do another day.
Stripped down front suspension for a clean up and inspection.
Greased up all the poly bushes at the front as there is a annoying as fudgekin squeeking noise.
Changed lower arms for camber adjustable ones.
f**cked a lower arm pinch bolt.
Temp adjustment on tracking.
General check of bolts here and there for the sake of it.
Made a s**t cold air feed to help combat heat soak.
Replaced lower arm pinch bolt.
Fitted standard crossover pipe and whacked the K&N on it.
Broke a gearbox mount.

Later this weeks jobs are:

Strip down and clean rear suspension.
Paint/underseal all the arches.
General clean up of the engine bay.
Give it a service - plugs, oil, filter ect.
Replace gearbox mount.
Clean header tank.

I think thats it.

Lower arms:

So, the lower arms! I fitted them the other day. I had a problem where I stripped the thread of the pinch bolt, so had to pop to ford to get a couple of new ones, only cost £4.82 for both.

Test drove the car today, it was sunny at one part and raining the next so it had a good overall test. Now they have less camber, it make a difference to traction in the wet for sure!

Before hand where the wheels would be running on the inside of the tyre they would just spin up all the time and loose grip around corners, now I can floor it everywhere and the tyres grip!

So that's a possitive mod!

Also visually the camber has decreased slightly too.

Few pictures of them on the car.










Rust hunting and Undersealing:

So I do this once a year. Go on a massive rust hunt, see if I can make any holes ect. I didn't go easy. Two tools: hammer + sharp screwdriver. I looked under the car and saw the underseal from last year was still intact, so that was already a positive sign, But I still went poking for holes. I made none. So thats good!

The front valance had a bit of scabby surfact rust on it from where I quickly sprayed it last year and it had oxidized (sp) under the paint. So I scraped that off and undersealed that and then did the rest of the underside of the car too.

I will do all of the arches later this week.




Standard crossover pipe.

Now before some of you fuckers say "I told you so"... I know you did I wish I had listened!

Jay sent me a crossover pipe which I put on the car after a quick clean up. It makes so much difference! There is more power and more torque now. I wish I did this sooner rather than f**k around. I kinda like the look of it now I'm used to it too. So thats always good.

On a down side, because it now has 1 million torques (as Jeremy Clarkson would say) I launched it a bit too hard down a road and broke a gearbox mount. Fail. So that will be sorted later this week.

The header tank is going to get a good clean don't worry. And I'm going to sort out the intake > maf piping soon with some silicone or something.





Other bits I have done.

I had an annoying squeek coming from the front over bumps ect. So I decided to see if it was an anti-roll bar bush. So I took them out and lubed them up, while I was there I did the top mount polys and stripped down the front suspension for a general clean up being coilovers. I will be doing the same with the rears too.

I think thats it for the update. Not a lot in pictures. But meh.

Comments welcome as always.

[jonyb4]

Before hand where the wheels would be running on the inside of the tyre they would just spin up all the time and loose grip around corners, now I can floor it everywhere and the tyres grip!

sorry what? and people say i over aggregate my engine power
guess your running extreamly crap tyres then


the only time ive ever had mine spinning around a corner was going round combe, and thats because i was giving it all it had to give




ncie to see the arms in use and effective ont he camber, personally would have rose or atleast polybushed them first though, makes more sense in my head


no one wants rust so thats good

[jonyb4]

did you say your going to rs combe/FF for track this year?

[- Danny Boy -]

Read it properly?

Now they have less camber, it makes a difference to traction in the wet for sure!

Before hand where the wheels would be running on the inside of the tyre they would just spin up all the time and loose grip around corners, now I can floor it everywhere and the tyres grip!

Your engine does have 8000bhp though, we all know that!

No money = No polys or spherical bearings at the moment. I have my old set of lower arms to do that to in the future. These will do fine for now.