Hello all, sorry for late reply. Ive had quite an eventful couple of months with my car....
I'll just go from what I can remember in order..
1) I purchased some EGR blanking plates and adamcot’s GSR kit off him and fitted it all.
Sounds amazing and could easily feel more torque straight away. Fuel consumption has gone through the roof though in comparison to before, and the engine warning light switched on shortly after due to blanking plates, but, I'm saving for a new remap as soon as possible which should make it better on fuel and even more beneficial. And also Wayne the brain (remapper) is going to manipulate the ECU + EGR in such a way so that the engine warning light doesn't come on.
2) My gearbox developed a whine in 2nd gear, which quickly went from being that faint only I as the daily driver could notice it. To a noise you couldn't miss. Luckily I went to fiat within two days to report it. I had THREE days left on my three year warranty! They tried their hardest to fob me off, but persistence paid off and it was logged that id been there and they booked me in a couple of days later.
The head mechanic came out with me on a road test and heard the problem clear as day. He then told me his next step was to order a full gearbox bearing kit. And said it would be done under warranty! YUUUPPPEEEEEEEEE!!
When leaving the car with them they said it would be a two day job...TWO WEEKS in the end, due to having to order parts that basically should have been ordered in the beginning. I managed to get a courtesy car for the last 4 days of the two weeks. Eventually I got her back, job done.
3) Me and the girlfriend split (sob story). On leaving her place, I had to negotiate the jungle of raised grids on her unfinished road (new builds) as usual... only this time, due to anger and low concentration, the little cross member/support bar on the sub-frame (forge do an upgrade), hooked onto a particularly high grid without me knowing, and as I carried on forwards, the bar was pulled backwards, which in turn, pulled the sub-frame into each other from where the bar mounts on either side. This resulted in my front wheels being ripped under the car... my car pretty much slamming on....and the front airbags being deployed in my face, whilst only moving at about 5mph....
So as you can imagine that was awesome...
I was then left with a dusty interior, a steering wheel that was ripped open, a dash that was ripped open, airbag warning lights and text, a passenger seatbelt that has tensioned itself so tight it cant be used, a car that could hardly move, and my bottom teeth near enough through my bottom lip. I managed to limp her home in 1st which was dreadful but I had to get away from the ex's house after what had just happened 5 minutes prior.
The following day I got her up in the air and looked at the damage. And to my relief after how dramatically my car responded, it only needed a new sub-frame to be back on the road! So I tracked one down in really good condition for £100. Gave it a sand down in some areas (which weren't even that bad) and black hammerited it.
That forthcoming weekend I limped it to my mates work at 7.30am on the Sunday so I cut the risk of traffic etc. We set to work fixing it but couldn't even get the thing on the ruddy ramp it’s that low! It took half an hour of using ramps and jacks to get her in position.
Then we had to use a variety of jacks to get her up enough to swing the arms of the lift under her. It all equated to mega ball ache but was well worth it in the end.
We raised her up in the air and all stood and glared at the damaged sub frame. I was happy that it was just a sub frame that needed replacing but Jesus Chr*st… This one was royally f*cked!
We set to work and removed the bent and twisted sub frame.
The mount had to be freed with a little persuasion but all went to plan.
We then had a little break and a giggle, then fitted the replacement. Before lowering her to the ground and tracking her up, I took this time to easily clean and raise my coilovers by about an inch all round.
Overall a very successful day which resulted in my car back on the road in full operational use!
4) My steering wheel was starting to really p*ss me off now, and I can’t afford to replace the airbag at the minute so I decided to do what I could to close it up. So I got my cordless drill, and some tiny black zip ties
Good as new!
5) As most of you know I can’t keep a set of wheels for very long. In fact my keskins were the longest set I’ve ever kept on. Just after Christmas I decided I wanted a change so started looking for something different. I wanted to keep the silly stance but wanted to leave the euro look. I instantly fell in love with Rota Grid Drifts in bronze. They are usually in mad sizes and stud fitments for jap drift use. But they were recently built in 16’s in 4x100 stud pattern. I contacted every supplier in the country but got no where as they are so rare. Luckily I came across some used in good nick and we ended up doing a swap.
So the keskins were gone, I had to borrow some little white compomotive wheels off a mate for the time being (which ended up staying on for 3 months!). After receiving the Rotas I spent AGES messing around with tyre sizes just to get it right. The problem was the mega low offset of the wheels. They stuck out further than my keskins did on the rear and they were 9’s, but this stance now also applied to the front!
I decided I had to go one step further and have really mad stretched tyres all round to get the car to sit. I’ve seen it done before and new which size tyre I needed. So I bought four new 165/40/16 tyres to fit the 8” wide wheels….
This resulted in achieving the required stupid stretch but holy hell it was pushing it…. People at shows do it all the time, but after having them in my hand I realized they probably fit the wheels on the spot at the show then take them off before they drive home. They were a gorgeous wheel but it was just too much stretch for me, so I took them off and put them up for sale!
After the mad widths and epic lows I’ve been dealing with over the passed 18 months I wanted something abit… sensible. I wanted to be able to start my car, and just drive off my drive without making contact with the ground, and have a good play down those B roads we all enjoy without worrying when the time will be when I grit my teeth.
Anywho, someone contacted me from London, with another set of rotas. They were of the same value, and he was after a swap. So I took him up on the offer. He drove from London to Manchester to meet me and we did the deal. The new wheels are Rota SDX 17x7.5 et 45 with 215/40/17 tyres (with rim protection which is awesome). They are lightweight at 7.5kg per wheel which is what attracted me too them. Apart from the fact he had given them a rough spray in silver on the faces (looked sh*t), and the few grazes on the rims, they were perfect for me.
My mate took the tyres off, and I set to work prepping them and refurbing the few scuff marks. After 2 days of sanding etc, me and another mate turned my garage into a mini spray booth.
When I had the FIRST set of rotas, I had a colour match done for future touch ups etc. So this meant I had a litre of rota bronze paint with no use
.
My mate brought his spray guns from work (major crash repair centre) and we used them on my compressor. We primed the wheels with such quality stuff like I’ve never seen before from his work. Then after more flatting and priming we mixed my paint with his thinners and we were ready to paint! We applied the coats well into the night, then left the clear coat until the following evening. Here is primer + paint...
And here is lacquer!
I gave them two days to set and harden, then masked the rims up and took them back to my mate to carefully put the tyres back on. They just kept looking better and better in my eyes. They had that chunky track look I was after and the stud conversion I’ve done on my hubs just complemented them perfectly on the car! I didn’t even have to adjust my coilovers height wise, the car just sits perfectly, and even with the high offsets they fill the aches beautifully with the chunky tyres!
(I will add final car pics here after ive washed her v.soon!!!)
And to anyone who goes for more of the track look, Id suggest paying that little bit more and getting rim protection tyres. They serve a purpose and look awesome with that extra bit of rubber around the rim!
So this is set number…… (counts in head) 7! Yes… I have a problem, but all my mates go through cars like I do wheels, so I guess it’s just my way of keeping my car fresh in my mind.
Cheers for making it this far if your eyes haven’t started bleeding, and sorry for the long delay. Hope to see you all soon, Dom.
