Discussion
Hello everyone,
Meant to put a post like this together for a while but now I finally gotten my ass in gear! Its also a good chance to recall the things I have done with the motor. Be prepared it is probably going to be a bit of a story as I have had it almost 2 years and done some bits and pieces.
Bit of background for you: I have not needed a car for work, so any car I have owned has been for fun. Well, my first car was a standard 200sx S13, I always wanted a RWD Turbo car and this was the best I could afford. I owned it for one year and while it was fun, I spent the same as the cars value on it in the first year and that was keeping it on the road and not making it faster. So I flogged it. I then bought a Sierra 2.0 GLSI, fun as it was and as cheap as it was it just didnt have enough poke! So I sold that at the same price a month after purchase.
Having gotten rid of that and having a few more quid I was looking for something RWD, and as quick as possible for up to about 4 grand. I considered the MR2, R32 GTS and the S14. While the S14 was a popular choice, for the money I was looking at a high miler and so decided not to go for it. The Skyline was what I had my heart set on with the glorious straight 6 sound but in the end opted for the bang for buck out of the box the MR2 could offer.
I spent a good amount of time looking for the right one and then saw one come up in Cardiff for £4300. This was February 2006. I wanted a Rev3 as this is the one to go for. I wasnt worried about a few mods as I had discovered that standard cars are not always what I had expected!
This one had 64k miles on the clock and was owned by the second UK owner. It had several mods to it such as; Tein Coilovers, cat back exhaust, air filter, some lovely wheels, braided hoses, short shifter and a rebuilt turbo. Met the guy and he convinced me he had taken care of the car. He said he was selling it as he was planning on getting a VX220 which seemed logical enough to me. He also mentioned the car had a Stage 2 hybrid turbo.
I haggled him down to £3900 as there was a spot of rust on the drivers door and a dent on the sill where it had been jacked in the wrong place.
The car was very stiff and felt like a go kart - I loved it. Sometimes I would soften it up somewhat but it didnt feel the same - esp for a Sunday toy.
The first job for me was to get it fully serviced at 3S who were my local MR2 specialist. This involved (from memory); coolant change, handbrake cables, gearbox oil, engine oil change and flush, plugs and some other bits and bobs.
I then found that the car began to overboost - with the standard being 0.9 bar, one day it hit fuel cut at 1.4 - which let me tell you felt rather savage but not in the interest of the cars health!! So I took it very easy until sorted - it turned out that the pipe going from the actuator to the TVIS (I think) was cracked. At the same time I decided to block this off and fit a mechanical boost controller so I could turn it up a little to 1 bar.
I noticed that the car was dropping off boost above 5k RPM and so I wondered if something was wrong with the actuator. Another possibility was that the turbo on the car was in fact a standard CT26 and not a stage 2 as claimed - this seemed entirely possible but a little odd as I didnt notice this problem before. It was something I wanted to look into but when I had some more time and money.
Some friends of mine had Rover Turbos and said that their forum was running a rolling road day and so I decided to pop along to that. It was a very cold day and so everyone made pretty good numbers. I made 257.7 which I was surprised at and pleased as the standard is meant to be 245, and with my limited mods and boost dropping issue. It was a good benchmark for a comparison in the future.
You can see a clear point where it starts to drop.
So I wanted this dropping off issue and also thought why not go for some more power as the car is meant to have more potential with just some bolt ons. So I saved up a few quid at Christmas 2006 and bought some parts off the owners club. I managed to get from a local guy who was breaking a car: Standard CT20 turbo, decat downpipe and an ST205 chargecooler setup for £500 which was great!
Old:
New:
I had this lot fitted by Luke at Pacific Works for about £350 quid from memory which I was really pleased with. I understand I was able to run up to 1.2 bar with these mods but I didnt want to run that high for 2 reasons: CT20b turbos have a reputation for failing and getting sucked into the engine, and secondly I didnt have anything on the car to tell me if something had gone wrong with the chargecooler. Regarding the first point, this had happened on the car previous to me owning it, hence the replacement turbo. Fortunately all the failed parts had ended up in the intercooler but with the chargecooler there is a much more direct route to the intake!!
Driving it for the first time with that setup was fantastic! The spool was so much quicker, much more responsive and would boost earlier. However you dont get the thump in the back and so it didnt really feel a lot quicker. The previous turbo was very much on/off no boost or full boost, whereas this one was very progressive and easier to control - which is great in the corners.
I was happy with the car as it was but I had that potential failure on my mind so I planned to have the turbo rebuilt with steel internals in the next couple of months.
Then one day I was out for a hoon with a friend and suddenly - no boost! Uh oh!! I couldnt find anything wrong and no hoses had come off so I crawled it back to Luke. It felt like I was towing a caravan. It turned out to be one of the baffles had failed in the exhaust and it was blocked. While it was up there I decided to have the CT20 rebuilt and the exause fixed up and re welded.
With it back on the road it was great as I could now exploit the potential. While it is now a little laggier with the steel internals instead of ceramic I now have the peace of mind. This combined with a gauge to tell me the temperature of the water in the chargecooler meant I could relax. Some people have said I could have ditched this turbo in favour of a better Garrett one. Yes this is true but instead of speninding £350 on a rebuild I was looking at over a grand for the one I would like as you also need some bits to make it fit.
Time went by and then I needed to change the brake pads. I duly did this myself, and found after wards that the car was pulling to the left under braking - I couldnt figure out why this was - even after bleeding the brakes. I took it to wheels in motion in Watford to have them look at it and they informed me the front left shock was knackered. Turns out the coilovers were rusted to death and basically needed replacing. I should mention I found this out the Friday before I was due to go to Le Mans next week
I phoned the world and his wife trying to get a replacement set, and managed to get some from demon tweeks which was a 4 hour drive away. So off I went. I had them fitted the next Monday/Tuesday and was then off to Le Mans a happy chappy!
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New:
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On the way back from the garage I was with my dad as he had dropped me up there, so naturally we had a bit of a play on the A41. I gave it some stick and noticed something spraying up behind me, I looked in front and there was nothing on the road! Er, I guess thats coming out of the car!! Pulled over to check and it turned out to be the other baffle had gone. As a precaution, dad stayed behind while I gave it some to make sure it was nice and clear, I didnt want a repeat of when the first one went. Well, it looked like someone had shot a swan or torn a pillow! After that, both baffles are now empty but let me tell you it sounds like a jet fighter - I have had kids falling over when they turn their heads to see what just went past
Since then the car has performed fine, it keeps pace with my dads C5 but is easier to handle through the corners
At the moment the car is off the road as I now need to drive to work. I have a few tidying up jobs to perform which includes tarting up the body work. I am moving to Madrid for 6 months in January and am hoping to take it over so I can sample some of the roads over there.
Other than those problems mentioned I had one main failure on the car. Again, it was only a few days before le mans in 2007! There are 3 'joint/double' washers on the rear drive shafts. One of the bolts had come loose when I was driving slowly down a high street which meant that it swung out and cut a lovely hole in the gearbox pissing the oil out. This was a right headache for me but I managed to sort it out the day before we drove down with some chemical metal which still holds
Sorry for the waffle but I hope this story shows some of the pain in the ass problems you can encounter modifying your own car!
Overall I am really really pleased with the car and cant see me changing it any time soon - I can see me changing it only when I can afford a 911 which is probably a couple of years off yet
All I need to do now is get it back on the rollers to see how its going
Cheers, Chris.
Some more photos:
Blitz DSBC boost controller at top and CC temp gauge at bottom.
Meant to put a post like this together for a while but now I finally gotten my ass in gear! Its also a good chance to recall the things I have done with the motor. Be prepared it is probably going to be a bit of a story as I have had it almost 2 years and done some bits and pieces.
Bit of background for you: I have not needed a car for work, so any car I have owned has been for fun. Well, my first car was a standard 200sx S13, I always wanted a RWD Turbo car and this was the best I could afford. I owned it for one year and while it was fun, I spent the same as the cars value on it in the first year and that was keeping it on the road and not making it faster. So I flogged it. I then bought a Sierra 2.0 GLSI, fun as it was and as cheap as it was it just didnt have enough poke! So I sold that at the same price a month after purchase.
Having gotten rid of that and having a few more quid I was looking for something RWD, and as quick as possible for up to about 4 grand. I considered the MR2, R32 GTS and the S14. While the S14 was a popular choice, for the money I was looking at a high miler and so decided not to go for it. The Skyline was what I had my heart set on with the glorious straight 6 sound but in the end opted for the bang for buck out of the box the MR2 could offer.
I spent a good amount of time looking for the right one and then saw one come up in Cardiff for £4300. This was February 2006. I wanted a Rev3 as this is the one to go for. I wasnt worried about a few mods as I had discovered that standard cars are not always what I had expected!
This one had 64k miles on the clock and was owned by the second UK owner. It had several mods to it such as; Tein Coilovers, cat back exhaust, air filter, some lovely wheels, braided hoses, short shifter and a rebuilt turbo. Met the guy and he convinced me he had taken care of the car. He said he was selling it as he was planning on getting a VX220 which seemed logical enough to me. He also mentioned the car had a Stage 2 hybrid turbo.
I haggled him down to £3900 as there was a spot of rust on the drivers door and a dent on the sill where it had been jacked in the wrong place.
The car was very stiff and felt like a go kart - I loved it. Sometimes I would soften it up somewhat but it didnt feel the same - esp for a Sunday toy.
The first job for me was to get it fully serviced at 3S who were my local MR2 specialist. This involved (from memory); coolant change, handbrake cables, gearbox oil, engine oil change and flush, plugs and some other bits and bobs.
I then found that the car began to overboost - with the standard being 0.9 bar, one day it hit fuel cut at 1.4 - which let me tell you felt rather savage but not in the interest of the cars health!! So I took it very easy until sorted - it turned out that the pipe going from the actuator to the TVIS (I think) was cracked. At the same time I decided to block this off and fit a mechanical boost controller so I could turn it up a little to 1 bar.
I noticed that the car was dropping off boost above 5k RPM and so I wondered if something was wrong with the actuator. Another possibility was that the turbo on the car was in fact a standard CT26 and not a stage 2 as claimed - this seemed entirely possible but a little odd as I didnt notice this problem before. It was something I wanted to look into but when I had some more time and money.
Some friends of mine had Rover Turbos and said that their forum was running a rolling road day and so I decided to pop along to that. It was a very cold day and so everyone made pretty good numbers. I made 257.7 which I was surprised at and pleased as the standard is meant to be 245, and with my limited mods and boost dropping issue. It was a good benchmark for a comparison in the future.
You can see a clear point where it starts to drop.
So I wanted this dropping off issue and also thought why not go for some more power as the car is meant to have more potential with just some bolt ons. So I saved up a few quid at Christmas 2006 and bought some parts off the owners club. I managed to get from a local guy who was breaking a car: Standard CT20 turbo, decat downpipe and an ST205 chargecooler setup for £500 which was great!
Old:
New:
I had this lot fitted by Luke at Pacific Works for about £350 quid from memory which I was really pleased with. I understand I was able to run up to 1.2 bar with these mods but I didnt want to run that high for 2 reasons: CT20b turbos have a reputation for failing and getting sucked into the engine, and secondly I didnt have anything on the car to tell me if something had gone wrong with the chargecooler. Regarding the first point, this had happened on the car previous to me owning it, hence the replacement turbo. Fortunately all the failed parts had ended up in the intercooler but with the chargecooler there is a much more direct route to the intake!!
Driving it for the first time with that setup was fantastic! The spool was so much quicker, much more responsive and would boost earlier. However you dont get the thump in the back and so it didnt really feel a lot quicker. The previous turbo was very much on/off no boost or full boost, whereas this one was very progressive and easier to control - which is great in the corners.
I was happy with the car as it was but I had that potential failure on my mind so I planned to have the turbo rebuilt with steel internals in the next couple of months.
Then one day I was out for a hoon with a friend and suddenly - no boost! Uh oh!! I couldnt find anything wrong and no hoses had come off so I crawled it back to Luke. It felt like I was towing a caravan. It turned out to be one of the baffles had failed in the exhaust and it was blocked. While it was up there I decided to have the CT20 rebuilt and the exause fixed up and re welded.
With it back on the road it was great as I could now exploit the potential. While it is now a little laggier with the steel internals instead of ceramic I now have the peace of mind. This combined with a gauge to tell me the temperature of the water in the chargecooler meant I could relax. Some people have said I could have ditched this turbo in favour of a better Garrett one. Yes this is true but instead of speninding £350 on a rebuild I was looking at over a grand for the one I would like as you also need some bits to make it fit.
Time went by and then I needed to change the brake pads. I duly did this myself, and found after wards that the car was pulling to the left under braking - I couldnt figure out why this was - even after bleeding the brakes. I took it to wheels in motion in Watford to have them look at it and they informed me the front left shock was knackered. Turns out the coilovers were rusted to death and basically needed replacing. I should mention I found this out the Friday before I was due to go to Le Mans next week
I phoned the world and his wife trying to get a replacement set, and managed to get some from demon tweeks which was a 4 hour drive away. So off I went. I had them fitted the next Monday/Tuesday and was then off to Le Mans a happy chappy!
Old:
New:
New:
On the way back from the garage I was with my dad as he had dropped me up there, so naturally we had a bit of a play on the A41. I gave it some stick and noticed something spraying up behind me, I looked in front and there was nothing on the road! Er, I guess thats coming out of the car!! Pulled over to check and it turned out to be the other baffle had gone. As a precaution, dad stayed behind while I gave it some to make sure it was nice and clear, I didnt want a repeat of when the first one went. Well, it looked like someone had shot a swan or torn a pillow! After that, both baffles are now empty but let me tell you it sounds like a jet fighter - I have had kids falling over when they turn their heads to see what just went past
Since then the car has performed fine, it keeps pace with my dads C5 but is easier to handle through the corners
At the moment the car is off the road as I now need to drive to work. I have a few tidying up jobs to perform which includes tarting up the body work. I am moving to Madrid for 6 months in January and am hoping to take it over so I can sample some of the roads over there.
Other than those problems mentioned I had one main failure on the car. Again, it was only a few days before le mans in 2007! There are 3 'joint/double' washers on the rear drive shafts. One of the bolts had come loose when I was driving slowly down a high street which meant that it swung out and cut a lovely hole in the gearbox pissing the oil out. This was a right headache for me but I managed to sort it out the day before we drove down with some chemical metal which still holds
Sorry for the waffle but I hope this story shows some of the pain in the ass problems you can encounter modifying your own car!
Overall I am really really pleased with the car and cant see me changing it any time soon - I can see me changing it only when I can afford a 911 which is probably a couple of years off yet
All I need to do now is get it back on the rollers to see how its going
Cheers, Chris.
Some more photos:
Blitz DSBC boost controller at top and CC temp gauge at bottom.
RobCrezz said:
Good to see another tubby here.
If its a REV3, what was it doing with a CT26 on there???
Original CT20 failed on it, so the owner took it to Turbo Force to have it rebuilt. A lot of these turbo rebuilding companies wont touch a CT20b as they have ceramic internals. So a popular choice is to replace it with a hybrid CT26 - and this one was meant to have a stage 2 one in it. I didnt like it even if they are meant to have some decent potential! If its a REV3, what was it doing with a CT26 on there???
White-Noise said:
RobCrezz said:
Good to see another tubby here.
If its a REV3, what was it doing with a CT26 on there???
Original CT20 failed on it, so the owner took it to Turbo Force to have it rebuilt. A lot of these turbo rebuilding companies wont touch a CT20b as they have ceramic internals. So a popular choice is to replace it with a hybrid CT26 - and this one was meant to have a stage 2 one in it. I didnt like it even if they are meant to have some decent potential! If its a REV3, what was it doing with a CT26 on there???
Are you on IMOC?
RobCrezz said:
White-Noise said:
RobCrezz said:
Good to see another tubby here.
If its a REV3, what was it doing with a CT26 on there???
Original CT20 failed on it, so the owner took it to Turbo Force to have it rebuilt. A lot of these turbo rebuilding companies wont touch a CT20b as they have ceramic internals. So a popular choice is to replace it with a hybrid CT26 - and this one was meant to have a stage 2 one in it. I didnt like it even if they are meant to have some decent potential! If its a REV3, what was it doing with a CT26 on there???
Are you on IMOC?
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