Club323F track session is 4:30pm

Click here for the official Japfest website.

The rear seats came out the other week when I fetched my wheels from the “refurber” up North. Took things a little further, and now all that’s left is the carpet, front seats and dashboard. Oh, and the sunroof, because I don’t fancy driving around with a hole in the roof yet.

I also re-used the jesus handles from the roof as door handles, as I realised I had nothing to pull the door shut with! Quite ingenius of me, I think!

The doors will need to be covered – I’ve bought a sheet of 3mm Foamex which I’ve cut up, ready to cover in black vinyl (white is a bit in your face!) and attach to the doors. Pics will follow in a couple of weeks!

Meanwhile, pics of the car with…well, nothing left!

Looking over my shoulder

Door handles

Air/Fuel gauge on A-pillar

Driver's door

big-ass sheet of foamex, before cutting!

When I crashed the car and did the rear disc conversion during the repair process, I painted the rear calipers blue to match the fronts.

Since changing direction slightly, and longing for another colour to add to the car, I mixed up some paint and attacked my calipers with it. I also took a grinder to the calipers to remove casting marks, as they looked a bit naff.

Ignore the state of the wheels – they’re my “welfare wheels” which I’m using while I save up the cash for tyres for my freshly refurbed wheels!

Front caliper

Rear caliper

I’ve always been under the impression that my car runs slightly rich. To find out how rich, I decided to buy a gauge to tell me. The other reason was that my custom MAF caused the car to run too lean, so rather than just playing it by ear/feel, I’d rather know for sure.

10/03/2011

Gauge temporarily fitted, wired up and working. I’ll neaten the fitment up this weekend – need to swap A-pillar trims with my buddy Stu, then cut a hole in one for the wires and bracket to go through, then I can screw the bracket into the panel rather than tape it!

It has a cool sweep function when switched on (as in it sweeps from nothing to full, back to nothing, then moves to the right position). I wanted to do this before on my gauges, now I need to do it!

Gauge working, down the A45!

Tailgate trim, boot trim, rear seat bolsters (took the seats out the other day), C-pillars, B-pillars, rear seatbelts and various fittings.

Tomorrow I’ll remove a couple more bits, and the headliner *gulp*, and take some photos!

Bought some new front seats to retrofit too, watch this space. Well, they will have their own space, but you know what I mean.

I later discovered you definitely get what you pay for. I got my wheels back, they were shocking. They looked good from a distance, but up close, bloody awful. So, more money fluttered away, I booked them in at Wheel Clinic (http://www.wheelclinic.co.uk) and dropped them off on Friday.

Pictures will follow once I get them back!

Update – 28/02/2011

Just got off the phone with Wheel Clinic. The polish lip, ruined by the last guy’s shot blasting, crap masking, and attempt at re-polishing, is a stick-on jobbie. So he could have removed it, sorted the wheels, re-glued it on – job done. Now though, because it’s been ruined (mostly by the shot blasting), they’re removing it and it’s being binned. All-black wheels, here I come!

Update – 09/03/2011

Picked the wheels up today and they look great! There was very little corrosion under the lip (I’m lucky apparently), no paint runs that I noticed (though I’ll have a closer look later), very glossy finish – I can’t wait to wrap them in rubber and fit them! Although I’ll have to, because I’m out of money for the month. Damn.

Update – 10/03/2011

Picture time!

Shiny black!

Few swirls to sort out

Little dusty

Shiny black!

Shiny black!

Shiny black!

I need to tidy up yes

So a new plate was promptly ordered (kinda worrying driving 200+ miles without a front plate, but it all went well). The new plate arrived, I fitted it in the same way, then thought “wait a minute…how often am I going to be buying front plates?”

I’d seen various plate “tilt kits” around for about £20, which look good, but too expensive for my liking! I liked the strength of that, and the price of mine!

So I found my old plates, some meccano, some self tapping screws and got Mr Hacksaw out again. Picture time!

Choppetty chop chop

Bendety bend bend

Screwtetty screw screw

Sharp

Overkill!

Choppetty chop chop

Primetetty prime prime

Primetetty prime prime

Paintetty paint paint

Paintetty paint paint

Scratchetty scratch scratch

Dryetty dry dry

Sticketty stick stick

Stucketty stuck stuck

Tilty tilt tilt

Here’s how the MAF started:

Nasty nasty restrictive inlet. This just had to go.

The plan was to cut off the inlet, then fit a larger bit of pipe, to allow more air to flow through the sensor.

So out came the hacksaw, and off came the inlet.

I had some 3″ aluminium induction piping left over from when I made my induction kit, so I cut an inch of it off, then used PVC tape to secure it to the butchered MAF. I did a strip of tape all the way around the inside of the inlet pipe, then again on the outside, then 4 strips going the lenth of the MAF to give it some strength. Here is the final product

The picture here is before I added more tape along the length of the MAF inside, and around the outside of the aluminium part to give a better seal.

The end of the MAF is where the filter will go, so it had to be pretty strong. Don’t want the filter falling off!

First test run

I fitted the MAF and started the engine – there was no explosion, woohoo! Engine was cold so it revved up to 1450rpm as normal – all seemed well for maybe 5 seconds, then the revs dipped to about 1250…then 1000….then 750….then 500…then 250, lots of spluttering going on here. Then it neeeearly died, but then jumped back up to 1250, then repeated the process until it did die.

Whilst fitting the MAF, it occurred to me that the sensor in the middle is in the airflow, and reads the amount of air hitting it. Making the pipe larger will allow more air into the engine, but the sensor would see no change, as the size of it hasn’t changed. This would explain why the engine was dying on tickover – too much air, too little fuel.

I removed the MAF, fitted a rubber sleve inside the new inlet pipe (I cut up an old rubber coupler) and tried again.

Second test run

With the rubber sleeve in place, the engine seemed to run better – the revs dipped a little, but it continued running, without much spluttering. I reset the ECU, then tried one more time and she ran just fine.

I took the car for a drive, everything seemed ok – revs dipped when pulling up at junctions, which suggests the car is still running slightly lean (which is good, because it was running rich before.

I then took it for a more spirited drive on some country roads – here the problems started. Hello Mr Hill, meet Mr Rightfoot. Hill + Throttle = pinging. Not good! I decided to go gently up the hill to reduce pinging as much as possible, then pulled in at the top and swapped the MAF back to the standard one. Pinging gone instantly.

Revisions

The problem I’ve had is that more air can get into the engine, but the sensor isn’t noticing that. So my next idea is to remove the rubber sleeve I added before, then fit a “funnel” or “trumpet” onto the intake of the sensor itself. I have an old air horn which I will cut up to make a nice smooth trumpet shape.

Watch this space!

Should have started this as soon as I made the decision really but oh well, I’m not that far into the build!

Current performance mod list sits at:

• KEI RSS 17×7.5 lightweight wheels (currently being refurbed by http://www.wheelclinic.co.uk)
• Yokohama Parada Spec 2 tyres – 205/40/17 (waiting for wheels to come back)
• Powerflow stainless cat-back exhaust, with 2 free-flow mufflers
• BC Racing V1 coilover suspension
• Mazda 323F V6 anti-roll bar (thicker than standard 1.8 version)
• Rear disc brake conversion, using 323F V6 calipers and pads, and MX3 discs
• Drilled and grooved discs all round, Apec pads (soon to be changed to EBC red stuff)
• Custom intake piping, 3″ inner diameter
• Apiro cone filter
• Cold air feed
• Nology silver plugs
• Kerr Nelson 10mm HT leads
• Cusco front strut brace
• Ebay rear strut brace