TimD

I tried everything to get my Indicators to work, ended up spraying contact spray into the hazard switch, click it a few times and then leaving it over night. Has worked ever since.

TF035, I reckon for a track car you don't need much more. We've already seen what happens when you start pushing the envelope, 3rd gear doesn't last very long on track! Can't wait to get mine up and running

Dropping mine off in the new year all being well

Fancy. I initially reached out to Mark about him using my car, but didn't want to miss out the back end of the track day season so decided not to proceed with it. I've dropped him another message to see if he wants to use my car, now seems as good a time as any. How long has he had your car for? I'd like a completely flat floor and diffuser for mine, we'll see if he can help with that too.

By who?

So, with this weekend imminent, and some stern words from Dave, it was time to make a start. It became even more important I got this thing going before Saturday when I realised it's my works Christmas party on Friday night! Anyway, first things first I removed ancillaries, such as the alternator, water pump and oil filter housing. With that done I flipped the engine upside down, being sure to grab my oil can before I did so. Minimal mess on the floor of the unit that way, Andrew will be pleased! I then wrestled the sump off, and my eyes were drawn to lots of weird gunk in the pickup strainer and bottom of the sump. I suspect that's old gasket? The small piece of metal I found in the strainer wasn't old gasket however, worrying! Anyway, next off came the bottom pulley which I managed to damage with the puller. It took some real wrestling to get off actually, I think in hindsight I should have heated it up a little. Do you think I'll need a new one? Once the pulley was off I could remove the oil pump, and it looks a little bit warn, yikes. With the oil pump, and also the rear main seal housing removed I set about removing the pistons I'd done quite a lot of reading and watching of how people disassemble engines, this came in useful on a number of occasions. One tip I learned was to protect the cylinder walls by covering the rod bolts, not sure if this is at all necessary, but I had some covers so thought it would be daft not to use them. Some photos of the pistons.. 1. 2. 3. 4. To my un trained eye they all look present and correct, I cant see any damage to ringlands or anywhere else on the pistons either, but will hold judgement until it has been looked over by a professional. The bearings do have some discolouration, but as its the first time Ive ever had an engine apart, I couldnt tell you if that was normal or not? Plonked it all back together to keep the elements out of it, not sure if that is necessary but it keeps it all in one piece. I still have to remove the crank, but I can get that done on Saturday before I load the thing up into the boot of my daily and drop it off at CAS Engineering who are a North Yorkshire based engineering firm owned by a friend of a friend. Craig has asked me to bring as much as I can so he can carry out some detective work and figure out what the hell went wrong!

Top bombing, will get one ordered up in the next few days!

Managed to damage mine this evening, doh. Anyone got a straight one?

Anyone have one?

When I removed my heater matrix, I just made use of one of the pipes that went to the matrix to join it back to the head.

I suspect I'm short of a couple, as the only earth I had to undo to get the engine out was the gearbox to chassis.

Will be plumbing mine in, but much further down the exhaust than into the downpipe, should help with turbulence.

I'd have thought it was the piece of gasket rattling around rather than the tune. Rest of the pistons are perfect

Got the head off today.. Revealing a rather broken head gasket between 3 and 4. What was expected really, but there is some damage to the piston number 4, and some odd pitting on the cylinder wall, hard to photograph. Especially hard with my iPhone, I can't find my camera anywhere!! The damage to the piston wasn't there before, can't be certain if the pitting on the cylinder wall was there or not. I guess the big question is does this mean the bottom end needs repair as well? Head looks damage free to me, again apologies for the awful photos. What do we reckon?

I'll look forward to watching you chaps from the safety of the sidelines!

Well good luck with it, I can't imagine a laggy 450hp front wheel drive car will be a particularly easy thing to hustle around a race track.

You any good?

Who's driving it?

As was mine, it's not FIA didn't see much point going that far. Club level motorsport doesn't require FIA, and that's the only place the car will be competitive.

Taking it serious if it needs to meet FIA regs!

It 'might' pass scrutineering, from what I've read. If you're competing properly you'll want something a bit more adequate, but if it's just a track day car then a well fitted Cusco cage will be sufficient. Mine went to Custom Cages and they did a great job.

Shame.. Without wanting to sound too much like a vulture, I'm keen for that splitter if you do break it.

Thanks Socks, arrived this morning. I owe you a beer!

The wideband looks a proper piece of kit, RPM based boost control which can be configured via software, ace.