What have you done to your car today?

Associate
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Had a play with a F430, got up his chuff, smoke was flowing on his gear change lol up to rather fast speeds. Hilarious tbh got to silly speed without a hair in it.

Pulled me over with the thumbs up and had a right laugh at the pub; asked me what I had in my car, his face dropped when I said a 1.5 Toyota engine.

Made all the hard work worthwhile lol, guy was only out for a drive while his dinner was being made and got more than he bargained for lol. Asked If I knew anything about his engine which I politely declined.
It sounded ****** AWSOME. Nobody makes an engine scream like Ferrari.
 
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Kei

Kei

Soldato
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Spent the morning trying to polish out a scratch that some kind soul put on my rear quarter panel between Thursday night and Friday morning.

Before


After two hours of ultimate compound and refining with SRP. It's not perfect, it's unlikely it ever will be without visiting a body shop. I've got no idea how it was done as it's not the usual scratch caused by malicious keying. Best guess was a bike handle bar. Thankfully, it's only damaged the clear coat and not gone through the colour.

 
Man of Honour
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Some of these maps seem a bit sketchy without AFR gauge. I take it the good tuners cut them back a bit to account for fuel pump age etc?

OEM ECUs are worlds apart from what most people think when theyre used to tuning or seeing a standalone being tuned.

Factory wideband which is going to be far better calibrated than any aftermarket wideband outside of something like a Ballenger AFR500 paired with a lab grade NTK sensor.

Windowed knock control with OEM calibrated frequencies and thresholds, and in some cases Ion sensing knock control via the coils too

Every single control system has dedicated monitoring systems, any one of which can apply a cylinder fill, rev limit or other failsafe if something isn't right.
 
Caporegime
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In acme's chair.
Got some MX5 seats off a mate, adapted the Daihatsu rails to fit. Actually have some modicum of comfort and support now!

RnmEITU.jpg

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They're about the only seats which are narrow enough, and supportive. (and readily available)

Much better now!
 
Associate
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Staffordshire Somewhere
OEM ECUs are worlds apart from what most people think when theyre used to tuning or seeing a standalone being tuned.

Factory wideband which is going to be far better calibrated than any aftermarket wideband outside of something like a Ballenger AFR500 paired with a lab grade NTK sensor.

Windowed knock control with OEM calibrated frequencies and thresholds, and in some cases Ion sensing knock control via the coils too

Every single control system has dedicated monitoring systems, any one of which can apply a cylinder fill, rev limit or other failsafe if something isn't right.
Makes sense, I'm amazed that you can modify/flash stock ECU's. I thought they would have tried to stop that on the higher models of cars; shows that modern manufacturers expect it. I remember a friend of mines dad buying a Evo 8 MR FQ400 back in the day, the amount of anti-tamper stuff on that was insane. Even to put a lead into the ECU it had anti-tamper screws galore.

I'm dealing with a 1990's ecu which is well back in the day hence why I run a piggyback e-manage ultimate which is maxed out also from back in the day. Basically windows 98 era stuff. Thought about going Link G4 or Wolf V4X for the next upgrade to get a much more precise tune on the injectors etc. Need a trigger crank wheel however and coil pack conversion but it will make a world of difference. You can tell the Distributor is an old fashioned way of doing things but it works, get a slight glitch/hiccup every now an again however as you can tell everything is maxed out on the ECU.
 
Caporegime
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In acme's chair.
Excellent upgrade, Acme. Can you actually fit two normal-sized adults in there side-by-side though, or is shoulder-rubbing and trout-shoulders a requirement?
Yes you can, and the fact there is now some bolstering means shoulder rubbing (or falling into each others laps) when cornering is now no longer an issue as well. :p
 
Man of Honour
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Makes sense, I'm amazed that you can modify/flash stock ECU's. I thought they would have tried to stop that on the higher models of cars; shows that modern manufacturers expect it. I remember a friend of mines dad buying a Evo 8 MR FQ400 back in the day, the amount of anti-tamper stuff on that was insane. Even to put a lead into the ECU it had anti-tamper screws galore.

I'm dealing with a 1990's ecu which is well back in the day hence why I run a piggyback e-manage ultimate which is maxed out also from back in the day. Basically windows 98 era stuff. Thought about going Link G4 or Wolf V4X for the next upgrade to get a much more precise tune on the injectors etc. Need a trigger crank wheel however and coil pack conversion but it will make a world of difference. You can tell the Distributor is an old fashioned way of doing things but it works, get a slight glitch/hiccup every now an again however as you can tell everything is maxed out on the ECU.

They don't just leave the door wide open so you can come along and read/write a factory ECU. There's varying levels of security ranging from incredibly simple to incredibly complex.

FQ pack on the EVOs was done by the aftermarket, it wasn't a factory calibration.

Edit: e-manage etc while did the job were garbage 20 years ago, let alone now.
 
Man of Honour
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Interested to hear why you think this, btw the emanage ultimate is from 05 / 06 not 98.

https://frsport.com/greddy-15500501-e-manage-emanage-ultimate-fuel-ignition-controller?redirect=1&currency=GBP


They're a fair bit newer than I though, but I don't like the amount of compromise.

You end up with either a stock ECU having things like MAF signals manipulated might leave you with fuelling that makes the fuel side do what you want, but that can only get you so far. You've then got no direct control over ignition timing so you're left doing things like retarding the base timing mechanically which leaves you something that drives worse than stock off boost.

The ultimate is the lesser of evils as it's a halfway house between a piggy back and a full standalone as you've got proper control over fuel and ignition but you're still left with an OEM ECU you've got to keep happy while it does the basics like idle control.

Then there's the cost E-manage ultimate is $689 with a loom, a Sealed case Microsquirt and loom while still basic is sub $400 and means you can ditch the stock ECU entirely and you have control over everything. At the nicer end an Entry level Link Atom is £800 with a loom, factor in the cost of a half decent dedicated boost controller and its no more expensive than starting with the E-Manage
 
Soldato
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Cornwall
Opened up the overrun valve which a previous owner had closed right down... Now it only sounds like artillery fire on actual engine braking rather than every time I lift off the acceleration or change gear. Slightly less awesome, slightly less likely to blow a hole in the 30 year old exhaust.

Cleaned the fire trap, no dramas.

Tidied up the rats nest of ignition leads a bit. Engine immediately developed a misfire. Restored rats nest, but swapped a couple of wrong length leads over and engine now happy again.

Actually really starting to enjoy fiddling with this TVR.
 
Associate
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25 Apr 2013
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Kent
Put new wheel nuts (TPI in black) and black mazda centre caps repainted by yours truly on to compliment the freshly powder coated RX8 wheels.

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