What have you done to your car today?

Since buying my E46 320cd, I have replaced the control arms and bushes, front and rear springs and shocks, front and rear anti roll bar bushes and links, windscreen, air filter and glow plugs. I also checked the swirl flaps have been removed and vortex oil breather had been installed. Had the car 4 months and gotten all of that done. Most amount of work I have ever done to a car myself and have to say I got a huge sense of achievement. Car drives lovely now and the suspension should last as long as I own the car so very happy.
 
Iamzod said:
(Yesterday) I did a Xenon conversion on my Mondeo TDCi, I did it properly though using OEM headlights and butchered a pair of scrap halogen lamps for the plugs as the connectors are different.

The wiring gave me a headache at first trying to get the levelling motors to work but I got there in the end. I've got the ballasts powered directly from the battery & used the original headlight feed to trigger a relay that I mounted inside the headlight casing. the bulbs fitted seem to be OEM 4300K bulbs but now my sidelights look really yellow at the side of them. :(

I was sort of trialling them but I've spent a couple of hours driving tonight & not been flashed once so they seem to be for keeps.
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Just get rid of the sidelights or get some LED ones.

I went for the former as it looks smart.
 
rainbow6six said:
Since buying my E46 320cd, I have replaced the control arms and bushes, front and rear springs and shocks, front and rear anti roll bar bushes and links, windscreen, air filter and glow plugs. I also checked the swirl flaps have been removed and vortex oil breather had been installed. Had the car 4 months and gotten all of that done. Most amount of work I have ever done to a car myself and have to say I got a huge sense of achievement. Car drives lovely now and the suspension should last as long as I own the car so very happy.
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The car will drive much closer to how it was intended to drive when it was new :D
 
My RE002's came, not got them on yet and then I need to get MOT'd.

Little niggles to sort for that, screenwasher pump has gone and I need to find a red bulb to fit in my reverse socket for the Fog.
 
Got new tyres fitted and now need to wash the car as I can't see the rear number plate. Last pair of F1AS2 did 13k on the rear with perfectly even tyre wear despite running 2 deg of camber.

Added to my spreadsheet if costs. Excluding fuel and insurance I have spent £6300 on the car in 7.5 years and 65k miles. Not too bad really, main costs are tyres and brakes. Suspension upgrade to konis, labour and bushes was £1800 of that amount.
 
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Not today but last Saturday I finally decided to take the Mondeo in to get the AC problems sorted. It was stuck permanently on causing the engine fan to come on also. Sounded like a hoover all the time.

Garage didn't see a problem but they took it all apart and put it back together again and it's been working fine since. Picked it up yesterday expecting to pay at least 1.5 - 2hrs labour. Only charged me half hours labour. £39 result.
 
Liquid_Entity said:
Not today but last Saturday I finally decided to take the Mondeo in to get the AC problems sorted. It was stuck permanently on causing the engine fan to come on also. Sounded like a hoover all the time.

Garage didn't see a problem but they took it all apart and put it back together again and it's been working fine since. Picked it up yesterday expecting to pay at least 1.5 - 2hrs labour. Only charged me half hours labour. £39 result.
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That is a result! Some places are good like that.

I dropped by a tyre/exhaust place simply to put my car up on the ramps to check the soft top drain holes were clear. Took them about 40 mins and a damp arm later, and they didn't charge me anything.
 
Clarkey said:
Lot of smoke out of that Fiesta, no?
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Yeah this is something I've wondered in the past too thinking it was possibly a piston ring or valve seal, blue smoke usually indicates burning oil but the car doesn't seem to drink oil any more than other ST's and it doesn't run rough, I just put it down to the car not having any cats and the air being more static on the RR as it isn't really visible when the car is moving.
 
Spent a bit of a fortune on my little french 106, now she runs better than ever!!

New drivers driveshaft (clicking when turning, saxos/106's prove for eating ds's)
New tyre
New washer pump for windscreen (again prone on these to go)
New cat/downpipe (again rust on lambda sensor thread which makes a hole in the exhaust)
New gearbox oil (obviously)
Fresh oil, filter and engine flush from national tyre (had a deal on £44)

Spent £108 for my local garage to fit it all. New car mats too!

Oh and got it valeted and washed.

All and all, £278 lighter, but its worth it!
 
I got a busy winter! Project Evo re-shell! :cool:

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shauncr91 said:
K&N 57i kit
Milltek 4-1 manifold, decat, non-res centre + catback
Newman 200 cams
Dreamscience Race+ Map
And overall good maintenance with good oil, Magnecors leads/Iridium plugs etc...

Peak BHP was at 6400RPM and torque at 5250, I'll grab a picture of the graph because the power line is almost straight :D

I'm in two minds about changing the inlet to break 200 now, it'd be nice and definitely faster but I have a horrible feeling I'll miss all the torque I'll lose. I want to go SC next year however so might look into SC'ing on stock inlet and see how it performs :)
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My mate has been through all the tuning stages with his Fiesta ST, he then went for the SC kit with smaller pulley, front mount intercooler and big injectors, literally weeks after having it running around 260bhp the gearbox ate itself!

He then bought another and put a quaiffe LSD in there, loved the traction with the LSD, then got the Cosworth inlet manifold and wider exhaust manifold and had it properly mapped, not a plug & play flash job, was putting out 295bhp and damn it was quick, he kept up with me pretty well in my Evo when it was running 390bhp few years ago!

He then broke that gearbox so he's taken a step back and now going all out with it, sold the SC kit, bought a Garrett GT28RS turbo, forged the engine, doing an MTX75 conversion with an LSD, aiming for around 400bhp with quick spool and anti-lag, hes almost there :D If I can get some pics form him will post them up :)
 
Guy who bumped into the Civic has paid up today.

Decided ill do the work my self and told him it would be £280 to sort. Didn't want to go through insurance.

Proper nice fella, shame they ain't more people like him. Owned up to it straight away and left his details and business card under the wiper. Never dealt with someone so easily and genuinely friendly.
 
Washed car yesterday and spent half day today vacuuming it out - cleaned windows inside and out and sprayed and wiped all plastic inside.

It will rain tomorrow now.

Dave
 
coolamasta said:
My mate has been through all the tuning stages with his Fiesta ST, he then went for the SC kit with smaller pulley, front mount intercooler and big injectors, literally weeks after having it running around 260bhp the gearbox ate itself!

He then bought another and put a quaiffe LSD in there, loved the traction with the LSD, then got the Cosworth inlet manifold and wider exhaust manifold and had it properly mapped, not a plug & play flash job, was putting out 295bhp and damn it was quick, he kept up with me pretty well in my Evo when it was running 390bhp few years ago!

He then broke that gearbox so he's taken a step back and now going all out with it, sold the SC kit, bought a Garrett GT28RS turbo, forged the engine, doing an MTX75 conversion with an LSD, aiming for around 400bhp with quick spool and anti-lag, hes almost there :D If I can get some pics form him will post them up :)
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Yeah there's some crazy projects going on out there, I definitely don't see me getting rid of my car any time soon and I can see it just turning into another one of them since it's not got the market value to make it worth shifting :D

Just today I was looking at loads of different paths to go down, turbo and SC are very appealing but then I started looking into a forged ITB screamer, it wouldn't have the pace of boost but my god it'd be amazing. Soon....soon....
 
There must be some other people in here who have had Nightbreakers replaced. Osram were great and replaced the bulbs that had failed within a couple of months, but the replacement bulbs came as a 'goodwill gesture', with the following note:

Returned bulbs had failed with significant melt back of the filament. This is indicative of a high supply voltage and this probably reduced the achieved life. There were no manufacturing faults.
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Has anyone else had a similar reply? My headlights are supplying the expected voltage, check with a multimeter, and it's never gone through bulbs that quickly before. Indeed, the Nightbreakers I purchased as replacement in the interim have been fine for 6+ months now.

I'm not too worried seen as everything checks out now, so I'm just commenting in passing.
 
Nightbreakers lasted by far the longest out of all the "upgrade" bulbs for me. I had them in the MX5 for a good 3 years of hard driving and it didn't exactly have soft suspension.

I've had Philips Xtreme Power in previous cars and went through numerous sets. The Halfords "+50%" bulbs just weren't very good.
 
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