mondy

Thanks! It now looks like there won't be much more happening on this for a while as I've decided to get it fully resprayed while it's off the road. Hopefully taking it to the bodyshop tomorrow to see what they want me to take off it for them and when they can fit it in! I've been wanting to get it resprayed since I bought it so I'm quite looking forward to getting it done now and once it's done it might give me some more motivation to actually finish it off.

That's good to hear - to be honest I just want to get it running now as the diesel mondeo is getting a bit boring!

No there's not really been any more progress since the last photos. I started cleaning the engine bay wiring up and putting some new insulation stuff on it but ran out of it and haven't had chance to get to the place that sells it to get some more. I've also got to repaint the battery tray where I had to weld it up so can't even put the engine in until that's done. I meant to get the paint ordered for this weekend but never got round to it so looks like I won't be doing anything on it this weekend. I can't believe I thought I'd have it running again by edition 38, it's funny how 1 job seems to turn into 100!

It's only 1/4 of a mile so it should hopefully make it to the end, unless it overheats while queuing for the start line :)

We're planning on entering a corrado next season, I've just got to re-read the VWDRC website to find out how to enter etc!

I spent ages trying to decide what colour I was going to get them done in. Originally I thought black but then thought about doing something a bit different and was going to get them done yellow so that they matched the car. However, if they didn't match exactly I thought they'd look stupid so went with a colour that was going to match the engine instead. Then I couldn't decide whether they looked too chavvy but I reckon they've come out OK! I put a bit more of the engine back together yesterday:

Got a little bit more done on it this week. The pistons are in: A couple of pictures of the head with the new valves in: And finally the head is back on the block. Also replaced all the core plugs: Tomorrow's job is to either get all the ancillaries put back on the engine or get the engine bay painted - not decided which to do yet!

To be honest I've had nothing but trouble from it since I got it last year (it's reliability is a subject of many jokes from my family and friends ) so I'm trying to do everything I can think of to make sure it's bullet proof so I can finally drive it for more than a couple of weeks without having to replace another thing! The only thing is once all this has been done it's going to need a full respray as well as there's a bad rust patch just above the windscreen and stonechips on most panels - I guess that will be a job for next summer once my bank account has recovered from all this work :)

There should be two holes in the scuttle bay metal (the bit that seperates it from the engine bay) - on my G60 they have a big bunch of wires and a grommit in but am not sure what other cars are like. If you pull the grommits out it should be easy to put a socket on an extension through to undo the two nuts. Taking the glovebox out makes it easier to undo the wiring clipped behind it but as people say you can probably get away without taking it out! Hope that helps!

I got the block back from the machinist yesterday so I got it all cleaned up and painted it: The head should be ready on monday or tuesday but they're having a bit of trouble getting the bigger valves fitted. Now I've got the block back it should keep me busy until the head is ready though!

Thanks for the comments! I'm still waiting for the engine machining place to finish with the block and head so I'm beginning to run out of stuff to do now until they get finished.

Got a few more parts shot blasted and painted today: Engine mount: Gearbox Mount: Alternator bracket: I did the two power steering pump brackets and the power steering pump but forgot to take pictures of them! I also cleaned up the dip stick tube and the metal plate that goes behind the cam belt: Before: After:

I was going to ask the same thing :lol: It was a place called M and R Refinishing in Nottingham. I really can't recommend them highly enough - they're really pleasant and do a good job at a good price! I think they're more geared towards commercial stuff but this means they can handle the larger car parts easily. Anyway I got the subframe, wishbones and anti-roll bar put together (the bolts in the wishbones are just there to keep them in place for now):

I'm finally making a bit of progress instead of just taking things off it! For the last couple of days I've been learning to weld so that I can repair the front radiator mounting as it had a few rust holes in. This is now done and has been taken to the powder coaters. While I was there I picked up the subframe, wishbones, anti-roll bar and front crossmember back - I'm well impressed with the results: I'm not sure if the colour is to everyones taste but it's different and I'm hoping it will look OK once it's on the car - if not then at least it's not very noticable :) All this only cost £50 including sandblasting it all first which seems a bargain! Tommorrow's job is to try to get the radiator cowling repaired a little as that's also a bit rusty in places, then get the subframe fitted back on so I can move the car to where the welder is as I need to do a little bit of work where the battery goes as there's a couple of small holes in the top of the inner wing.

That's fine - if you have any questions I'll try and help, if only to tell you what not to do :) Yeah MS was handling both fuel and spark. Most people seem to tune it without any form of knock detection and just wait until they hear knock and then retard a few degrees. Only problem is that you have to be sure that you can hear it over the road/engine noise. Also, by the time you're hearing it it could possibly be too late as it's probably been happening for quite a while before it gets loud enough! MS extra can tap into a knock sensor output and then use that to retard the timing automatically if it detects knock - have a search for Knocksense as this seems to be what most people recommend using. However, I'd also get some sort of exhaust gas temperature sensor rigged up as well so you can kep an eye on the exhaust temps - MS extra can log this but it won't do anything with the results (ie change timing/mixture etc).

I think they failed because of too much ignition advance. Also, if anyone is interested in getting their megasquirt tuned on a rolling road it might be worth checking that your local tuner will do it - I've phoned about 4 so far and 2 flat out refused to do it and the other 2 didn't want to do it but said they would under duress! Anyway on Friday I shot blasted the block and took it to my local machinist to get it rebored and also stripped the cylinder head down so I can get the new valves fitted- I forgot my camera though so haven't got any photos! I also took all the suspension parts to be powder coated. I didn't do much on Saturday but today I've took the brake servo off so that I can repaint it - not a very exciting picture though :) Next job on the list is to take a look at the wiring and see if I can make any of it neater!

You should be able to get it off without taking the gearbox off - I think you have to remove the power steering pump (or the bracket that holds it on - can't remember exactly what now) to get to a couple of them though.

It was only about 16.0 on cruise which isn't too bad but it was around 14.7 before I leaned the map off. I think the real killer was way too much advance which became apparent after I'd altered the fuel. I've learnt my lesson now though and will be getting a KnockSense and making up an EGT gauge if I do any more tuning myself :) The tables in MSII are 12x12 whereas they're 8x8 in the MS1. It depends if you really need the etra resolution or not. MS interpolates (sp) between the gaps so I'm personally not too bothered about the extra cells. The reason I went with MS1 was because of the extra code it has - stuff like the shift light, traction control etc. I've not been keeping up to date with the MSII extra they're working on but I think that will be worth upgrading to when it's released! It had a ported and flowed head/manifold/throttle body, FMIC, a different cam (which unfortunately was snapped in half when the crank pulley bolt broke :(), exhaust and probably a couple of other things which I've forgotten about now!

I'm running MS1 extra - I got it pre-built as I wasn't too confident on putting it together myself - I wish I had now as it doesn't look too bad and would have worked out a bit cheaper! I'm using an LM-1 as the wideband but couldn't get the MS auto-tune to work properley on it so did all the tuning with megalogviewer which seemed to make really good job of it! I was running it for a couple of months and had it tuned up relatively OK and then I put the Lysholm on it and backed the fuel off a bit around the cruise areas but think I went a little overboard as I reckon that's what killed the pistons! I also hadn't managed to get the timing map sorted which didn't help either I ran the car at the last stealth RR day and it made around 240bhp with a glader and standard bottom end so I'm hoping that it should be somewhere between 250-260 once all these changes are done...

Cheers! I'm off work starting tomorrow for 2 weeks so there should hopefully be lots of progress to report soon - I'm aiming to get it running for the end of next week, run it in over a couple of days and then get the megasquirt properley mapped at the end of the week.

I didn't get time to get anything done to the engine over the weekend but I did manage to get the subframe off the car tonight. I'll be taking it to the powder coaters on Friday (hopefully) to get it cleaned up and coated.

Well I've finally made a bit of progress at last! Got a couple of bits sand blasted: Unfortunately the sand blasting showed up a couple of repeairs that need doing to the radiator support and radiator fan cowling as they've rusted through in a couple of places. Once that's done they've got to go back to be powder coated - been quoted £45 for those 3 pieces (including the sand blasting!) so I've decided I'm going to get all the suspension parts done now! I also received all of the engine bits I ordered - just waiting for a few suspension bushes now but at least I can finally get on with rebuilding the engine. Looks like I'm going to have a busy weekend!

Anyone?

Hi, I'm currently rebuilding my G60 engine with bigger pistons, bigger injectors, different supercharger etc. It's all going to be running off megasquirt which I'm going to get properley mapped on a rolling road so that I get the most out of it. However, I'm guessing I'll need to run the engine in before I take it to get it mapped and am not sure how I'm going to do this - I can run the standard ECU that has an SNS chip that will probably run it OK but I think the mixtures are going to be off a bit as it's only for a 68mm pulley and I don't want to damage my 'new' engine! I think with the bigger injectors it will be running quite rich which is probably the safer side but I don't really want to be washing the cylinder walls with petrol either! How have other people run their 'new' engines in when they've carried out work such as this? Thanks! David.

ah - that's typical, all the decent places seem to be down south! Have you got the contact details for them both?