Panda Mr & Mrs Blu's Panda 100hp

We'll have to get them together soon for some pics

yeah you can hang out together, you'll be like the crap wheel club

well, not much to report on this car really but as i havent posted on here in a while i feel i should update lol..

since last post its had a few washes, properly cleaned inside finally. Has had new oil and filter. I've got new spark plugs as looking in the history it seems its about time for that. Its developed a exhaust leak from the flexi section so will look at getting a replacement soon. The starter doesnt always disengage the solenoid when you start it so it screeches a touch when you start from cold, got a new genuine starter on ebay for a steal but yet to fit that.

erm, what else. Oh I got a puncture thanks to a pothole and as i'm not overly impressed with goodyear eagle f1 tyres i changed both rear tyres to nexen su1 (what i run on my suzuki atm) and they are defo quieter and imo just better all round tyre for less money, fronts will get changed to same when they need changing (prob soon looking at them).

Ah yes, also took the bilstein shocks off the back and tigersealed the top bushes, mainly cause there is a knock and i thought that might be it, alas it wasnt that - but it does drive ten times better without all the slop in the shock bushes so no bad thing i did it. The knock i speak of is only noticeable if you are quiet in the car but its defo there - it only does it when there is weight in the back, basically only if someone is sat in back seat. I still not got to the bottom of that but thats cause i need like 2 helpers to do it, one to sit in it, one to rock the car back and forth so i can go underneath and find it cause just using a pry bar etc has got me nowhere so far.

thats all i can think of atm.

Well fitted the BMC CDA that John gave me with the car. It had some damage to the actual carbon part where it had been sitting on the threads poking out the side of the battery tray. So cleaned it up good and proper, light scuff with some sandpaper, filled holes with some liquid metal, left to cure and sanded back a little to neaten it up. Forgot to take any pics of this process though.
Then cut said threads off the battery box (anyone know why they are even there?), Ground flat with Dremel and then lick of black paint.
Obviously while i had the filter apart i cleaned teh filter element and reoiled it - damn it was so disgusting i'm so glad that i did lol.
Then I could finally fit the CDA. I gotta say I'm not hugely impressed with the overall design but overall very happy. Just 2 little things annoy me about it, firstly the CDA itself is so tight in the gap that no matter how many times I fiddled with the bracket I could not get it to fit in the gap and not rub somewhere - in end I've settled with it just touching the front corner of the battery box and wedged a bit of rubber between them (with much difficulty) - hopefully this will prevent future rubbing through the carbon, time will tell I suppose. Secondly the oil breather, it really isn't best position as just couldn't get it on and it not touch the ECU - so bit of spare rubber pipe, cut it open length ways and then around that part of the intake that touches and held on with cable ties, this I'm confident will be fine but can't see why they couldn't have had that branch come from slight further down the pipe or even just at a different angle with a bend in it to get across to the factory breather pipe.


Fitted pic but is before I added my little rubber protection bits.

So despite my little quibbles I am kinda amazed how different it sounds, I mean I knew it would but the pandas little resonator section is clearly a very well designed one, never know an air filter to make such a huge difference in sound. Yes it's probably picked up a teeny tiny amount of power but not enough to really feel but the placebo is real lol. I suspect the mpg's will go down a bit while it becomes normal, currently can't help myself flooring it all the time cause of the noise it now makes haha.

Now the engine bay looks dirty cause you can actually see the engine now so got some cleaning up to do, maybe one day I will actually get around to it lol.

New mid pipe ordered but not arrived as of yet, apparently will be delivered today. I also decided to change the backbox, nothing actually wrong with it atm other than being super crusty and ugly really but can see it having issues in next year or 2. So as I'm changing mid pipe may as well do it all at once.. ordered one of the Ulter rear boxes with the smaller available tailpipe (80mm iirc). So will wait for the rear box to arrive before doing the midpipe.

Other than that... Still need to change starter and whole car needs cleaning.

Well that's the midpipe arrived..



Quite impressed with quality of it for a pattern part tbh. Now do I just whack this on or do I get some vht paint so it lasts longer even though I'm sure it'll last longer than we own the panda as is... Mmmmm tricky one lol.

So should have updated this but i forgot.

The back box arrived as well, its an Ulter one. So heres it and the mid pipe.


Taking the old exhaust off.


And off.


New mid pipe fitted.


And back box on.


How it sits, not quite central but I'm happy with it, its the actual midpipe causing this to not sit perfectly in middle of the hole rather than the actual back box, but I quite like how it sits so I'm leaving it.



Recently I went to a local scrap yard cause was told there was a panda there. All i wanted, if you recall me saying earlier in the thread, was the ring for the bottom of the gear gaiter as mine has one clip broken and the gaiter doesnt sit quite right as a result. Got that

But the added bonus was it had longitudinal roof bars too. I got the gaiter ring and the roof bars for £10, WIN!

Couple of pics with the roof bars (the Abarth is my mums car)



Only other updates I can think of is its had new oil and filter not long back, and new spark plugs. During which i discovered, like most probably, the coil plugs are a bit buggered and one of the coils is damaged where the plug plugs in. It doesnt seem to be causing any issues at all but I have 4 new NGK coils to go on and also got some new plugs so I can de-pin the plugs and put nice new not broken ones on there. Just havent got around to that yet but soon.

Right, think that everything upto date.

I'm extremely jealous of the roof bars!!

Yeah they were such a bargain! I really should have spent the time to paint them before I fitted them as they are a bit faded, what can I say, I got a bit excited lol

Exactly what I would have done!

Which Ulter did you buy? 80, 100 or the 90x65?

gr J

Was the smaller round one, so 80mm if that's what the different sizes are.

Thx! I'm thinking about the 90x65 to keep it as stock as possible. Yours doesn't look too bad though

gr J

Well finally got round to replacing the coil connectors and coils today.
Not particularly exciting so no pics or anything but it defo made a difference, runs noticeably smoother.

Next job, change the starter and clutch slave. Starter makes a horrid noise when you start car and I don't really have an issue yet with the slave cylinder but I suspect it's on way out, slight creaking when depressing pedal that you can only hear when it's not running and grinds into reverse if you don't do it slow and gentle.

Place your bets on how long it will be before I get around to actually doing them lol

The slave cylinder change is minimal cost but might not help very much. I changed mine but the real problem was the master cylinder. It comes complete with hose and aluminium connector to fit the slave cylinder hose. The old connector is likely to be seized solid so use the old hose with the new slave.

Creaks from the clutch suggest issues with the release mechanism or maybe the clutch is getting towards end of life.