Henny

I changed all of the plugs, leads, rotor, cap and associated gubbins when I bought my C last year, I must say that I was shocked :shock: by the price of the proper Bosch plugs until I noticed that they basically run for ever! (around 45K miles AFAICR :?: ) Doesn't seem that unreasonable when you realise that they last a long while and they are pretty much the only plugs that work properly with the G60 engine! :D

Car wash? Nah, let it get dirty... When you do over 350 miles a week, what's the point when you're going into the eternal rain that is Manchester?!? :roll: Seriously though, I tend to get mine cleaned at work... We have a bloke who comes around once a fortnight and valets the cars... He does an amazing job, and it only costs a few quid... Well worth it! :lol: I'd be interested to find out what you lot all think of the various waxes, polishes and other paint related stuff that you use 'cos J-dub could do with some TLC in the paint department and I'm not afraid to try stuff! :lol:

:oops: :oops: :oops: Cheers!

me? :lol: which wheels?!? :wink:

dunno about the raceland ones, but the supersprint ones are not damping adjustable... Dunno about uprated wishbone bushes... I used to get stuff like that from C&R enterprises in Nottingham... Always seemed reasonable to me...

Yeah, don't forget to get new bulbs too! :lol: Seriously though, I've just had to put new headlights on mine after she was reversed into in a carpark and both were smashed... :mad: No bodywork damage though :? :shock: The difference at night is unreal! I CAN SEE!!! 8) Consider getting an uprated headlamp loom as well if you're throwing that kind of money at it, makes a hell of a difference... I fitted one to my MKI golf and was amazed how much brighter the lights got when they had a full 12V to them! :lol: It's on my shopping list for my C now... As for where to get them from... I got my lights from Euro, but only 'cos they had them in stock :shock: and GPC would have had to mail them to me which would have taken a couple of days... (I need the car every day to get to work! :roll:) It may be worth giving them a call to see if they'd do you a deal... They don't tend to do deals, although sometimes if you give them a good sob story while they're looking up the part numbers they "accidentally" mess up the prices in your favour! :lol: 8)

I could tell you, but I'd get killed by the guy at Venom who did it at the price for my mate... :wink: I think he retails them for about £400 or so + P&P + VAT... I don't know about finishes, I've got red springs and the shocks are a golden colour... :? Oh, and glad the essay made sense... It wasn't supposed to be that long! :shock: :roll: :lol:

Present and correct! Just writing a small essay to try and help a fellow C driver in another section... :wink: Yeah, I've got a supersprint kit on my C... It's lovely... :D I had a cheap set of springs with Bilstein shocks on the car from Euro when I got it, and it bounced around all over the show... Now I've got the coilovers on, it's totally transformed the car... It handles beautifully and the ride is pretty good too... I don't have to swerve all over the show to avoid EVERY pot hole or grid like I did with the old crap... 8) I'd reccommend them anyway...

I've got 4 ideas to help you find what this could be... One you can check yourself (zero cost!) one you can check if you've got access to an adjustable timing light/strobe and two that are questions that no-one else has asked... Firstly, DO NOT CHANGE ANY MORE PARTS! you may be making life difficult for yourself by changing more and more parts... Because you've not identified what the actual cause of the fault is, you have no idea as to if any of the parts you have changed were faulty, or are just making things worse... (there, at least I'm not telling you to spend money! :lol:) :idea: First idea :idea: (free one to check, just need ramps or axle stands... :) ) LOUD WHISTLE? As in an air escaping kind of noise? Your problem sounds like you've got FUEL and SPARKS, but not enough air... I'll expand on that 'cos it sounds slightly silly unless you know where I'm heading with this... stay with me here... 8) The intercooler is on the left hand side of a G60... There's a whole shed load of pipework between the charger and the inlet manifold, if you have an air leak at any point after the charger (split pipe, punctured intercooler, or even a loose connection) then you'll get a whistling noise as the air escapes out and doesn't get to the engine... This may cause overfueling as there's not enough air getting into the engine for the fuel. Your problem would be worse now because your system is now designed to throw fuel into the engine 'cos it's expecting a whole hell of a lot of air under pressure from your uprated charger which it's not getting 'cos of the air leak... To find this one, put the front of the car up on ramps, get someone to rev it 'til you can just hear the whistle, and try and find out EXACTLY where it's coming from... Obviously BE CAREFUL! :roll: there's gonna be quite a few fast moving parts if you're revving the engine to find any leak... :shock: :idea: Second idea... :idea: You could have an ignition timing problem which is related to the speed of the engine... IE, at idle it seems OK, cos there's no timing changes at all... If there's a fault with the distributor, hall effect sender, or ECU then the timing could be failing to advance with the engine revs, or advancing too much causing a mis-fire like you have... Check the timing with an adjustable timing strobe at idle as you would normally do, and then up the revs to 2K and make a note of where the timing now is... then 3K, then 4K until it starts to mis-fuel.... You may find out nothing by doing this... but if you find that your timing suddenly jumps at 4k by 20degrees or something silly like that, then you've found you problem! 8) I know this doesn't identify the faulty component, but at least you then know where you are looking... :?: Third Idea/question :?: Do you have an alarm/immobiliser fitted to the car? It is possible that the reason that your car was eating batteries is 'cos an alarm or immobiliser that's fitted to the car has become faulty... If it's an immobiliser, then it may have broken down in such a way that it's semi-immobilising the ignition system ALL THE TIME... :shock: Depending on which circuits the immobiliser acts on and where on those circuits it's attached to, a faulty immobiliser could cause all of the symptoms you've described due to it messing up the timing/ignition... :?: Fourth (and final!) Idea/Question :?: You broke 2nd gear... :( To repair this, someone took out the gearbox and either stripped it and repaired it, or simply fitted a new or second hand box... There's an earth strap (braided copper, about an inch wide) between the gearbox and the chassis, if this wire is damaged, not installed properly, or has crappy contacts then you could now have a damaged ECU which could cause the kind of timing/fueling problems you are having... The strap is the earth for the engine... When you try to start the engine, this strap is your direct earth contact back to the battery... If it's not fitted or has become crappy then the electricity will try and find an alternative route back to the battery... The route it will take is through the ECU... This burns out a track on the ECUs circuit board. :shock: Here's the killer, it doesn't neccesarily make it fail completely or instantly... you can drive around on it for a while as normal, and then it can just suddenly pack in... It only takes ONE attempt to start the car without the earthstrap attached to do this damage to the ECU... If you open the ECU up you can normally tell 'cos there's a sodding thick track on the circuit board and if it's been damaged, it'll be pretty obviously burnt... The good news is that, if this is the case, you can often repair the track with some good thick wire and a soldering iron... If you open up the ECU and find that it is burnt, do not forget to check your earth straps before trying to start the car again or you'll burn it out again! :roll: I hope that this give you some ideas as to what the cause of your problems is so that you can solve them and get the car where it should be... On the road being enjoyed by it's owner! :lol: Good Luck!

Glad to hear you're OK and that the car isn't too damaged... :shock: I swear that I don't understand some people today... Some little oik tried to steal the wheels off my car a while back, when they couldn't get the locking nuts off, they mangled the nuts up so I couldn't get 'em off either... then they smashed at one of the wheels with something like a hammer and messed it up big style... What makes people do $#!{ like that, and why smash up a wheel that you failed to steal??? :?: :mad: Hope you get the car sorted soon and without too much hassle and cost...

Very nice... I think those wheels REALLY look much nicer on it than the wheels you got it with... :wink: That steering wheel looks awesome too...

Oooh, dazzyvr6 you just missed me! A little to the left and I'd have been in shot... :lol:

I gotta say, it was a close run thing between Aqua blue and the colour that your car is when I was hunting for mine... :D The blue one came up first though... 8) That's one nice looking C you got there...

:D :D :D

Which car were you in??? :?: I was in the aqua blue C to the left of the car entrance to that enclosure...

Taken from http://www.santapod.com [align=justify]Sun 15 June PERFORMANCE VAUXHALL SHOW Vauxhall only RWYB, burn out area, clubs, traders. Open to "Total Vauxhall" readers and the public. Info Tel: (01452) 317700 [/align] Oops! :lol:

Missed me! I was next to the No Rice stand round the back... Not sure how I got to park there, but it looked a bit cleaner than the carpark! :lol: Saying that, she was FILTHY when I got outta there.... Don't know why I bothered to clean her the day before... :roll:

Yup, sorry guys, it came out on thursday 5th... They put the date forwards a few days... :roll: Got my free copy from work today and promptly took a 90min lunch break in my car! :lol: 8)

http://www.stoptech.com/whitepapers/war ... s_myth.htm Check out this site and what they have to say about "warped" disks... Makes you think about how you use your brakes... :shock:

HOW MUCH?!? I just paid £160 for a pair of 205/45/16 A539s FITTED from Demon Tweeks inc new valves and the like... I think they were dishing them out at £65each + P&P once I'd battered him about a bit! :wink: Dunno about the proxies though, I've only ever fitted Yok's to my cars... The 509s were supersticky in the dry, but, BOY, did they suck in the wet! The 520s were better in the wet, but wore out WAY too quickly... The 539s are the best they've done so far for use in all conditions... :) I remember 195/50/15 A539s being sub £50 each when I had my first C... Then again, that was 5 years ago now... :? :shock:

I'd been told Green Stuff are pretty dire so I've never tried 'em... 1144's ARE very hard on disks... Expect to replace disks every 2 or 3 sets of pads... :roll: They don't half stop you though! :lol: I found a site that told you how to initially bed in the 1144's when you first fit them... If you follow the instructions then they work very well from cold and don't tend to make the grinding noise unless you've not cleaned 'em in ages! :lol: M1144 BEDDING IN INSTRUCTIONS Clean discs with brake cleaner or other approved solvent. Fit your new Mintex C-Tech Racing Pads Apply 2-3 light applications of the brakes at 30mph down to 0mph Apply 3-4 steady applications of the brakes at 70mph down to 30mph Leave as long as possible to cool down. They will now work from cold. Do not left foot brake. I can't remember the name of the place that told me that the pagid pads were all the same, but the guy makes brake pads up to order if they're something that the main factory doesn't do... MR2 rears in an 1144 compound was how my mate found him... He buys the compound in and then shapes and fits it to the backing for you... Seemed to know his stuff... :?

:D :D :D I got my car back from a local motorsport place on Friday afternoon after they set up my new supersprint coil-overs for me... They've set the car to -30mm and then corner weighted it... I can't believe the difference it's made to the handling and balance of the car... Unreal! :D When it was at -80mm she drifted quite a bit and could be a bit of a handfull around corners at speed 'cos there was nothing left in the suspension... :? now she's set up properly, yee-gads, she corners like someone's thrown an anchor outta the window!!! :lol:

yup, de-badged gets my vote too... But I'd say not to colour code it as it breaks the front up nicely in black...

Nope, I heard somewhere that their "fast road" pads are exactly the same compound as their normal pads just with a different sticker! :? I only use Mintex 1144 pads... I nearly put 1155s on last time, but the amount of warming up time is a bit mental on them as they're supposed to be used for track use only! :lol: The 1144's create a LOT of dust :roll: but, as long as you bed them in properly, they work really well from cold and I've only ever faded them once out of 8 sets on 3 different cars (don't ask, you won't normally be able to fade 'em no matter what you do! :lol: ) I'm running 1144s all round on my G60 with genuine disks and the pads last for about 15K miles (or 6 months in my case! :roll: ) I did use the 1144's on my 1.8 16V C with drilled and grooved disks and they were absolutely fantastic and still lasted about the same amount of time/distance... The only thing I have tried that I didn't like more than the pagid pads, were Ferodo standard pads from Halfords... I was desperate for pads, and that was the only place that had some that day... They only stayed on the car for 2 weeks! :? :roll:

120mm? :shock: Sheesh, mine was 80mm down before I got the suspension corner-weighted and that was LOW... :lol: Can you even GO 120mm lower than standard?!? :?: