Northern Auto Tech - ECU and Blue & Me Repairs
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Grande Punto DlightSwitch's Blue T-Jet.

Overview Gallery Discussion

Introduction

Hi all,

After reading these forums for a while and posting the odd silly question here and there, I'm proud to say I finally own a T-Jet :D:D



Standard for now but I do have plans for it:

Looks

  • Tinted tail lights
  • Tinted/Abarth headlights
  • Black Mirrors
  • Black Alloys
Handling

  • Coilovers (Either JOM or FK AK)

Performance

  • Forge Induction
  • Forge Intercooler
  • Abarth Turbo
  • Some sort of custom exhaust

I'm open to suggestions though, if any of you have any ideas on what else/different to do to my car then feel free to let me know :)

Thanks for looking!
  • Like
Reactions: GotGrande and explorer121
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Re: DlightSwitch's Blue T-Jet

RobSport said:
Got to say mate, car is looking nice and clean as usual, i see youve managed to get the hose's sorted lol what size are the rota's ?
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Cheers pal. Some of the hoses are sorted, the only ones left are the coolant ones because I haven't had time to drain it all out yet to change them, and some of the boost ones that I can't get the clips off, will probably end up cutting the clips to do them. Got jubilees to replace them all anyway :cool:

The Rota's are 17x7.5J, tiny bit of stretch compared to the standard alloys, I tried taking a pic to show, but it's not really noticable enough.
 
Re: DlightSwitch's Blue T-Jet

DlightSwitch said:
Cheers pal. Some of the hoses are sorted, the only ones left are the coolant ones because I haven't had time to drain it all out yet to change them, and some of the boost ones that I can't get the clips off, will probably end up cutting the clips to do them. Got jubilees to replace them all anyway :cool:

The Rota's are 17x7.5J, tiny bit of stretch compared to the standard alloys, I tried taking a pic to show, but it's not really noticable enough.
Click to expand...

Yer you will end up cutting them off thats how i did it, after a lot of swearing at them to come off so chop chop and of they came:p
 
Re: DlightSwitch's Blue T-Jet

Haven't updated in a while so I guess it's due!

Good news and bad news to report, let's start off with the good :):

As you might have seen in Danny Westall's thread, he very kindly came to help me fit my boost gauge. If there's an interior part that's removable on the grande, Danny knows how to remove it ;)
Haven't got round to smoothing the boost gauge in yet, but it's mounted to the speedo surround. Peaks at about 22PSI overboost, which slowly leaks down to 14-15PSI through the rev range.
Forgot to take photos of it on the day but here's one I took recently:
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We also took the opportunity to take some photos of the cars together :) I was jealous of how much lower his was than mine :mad:
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A few weekends ago I decided to give the car a bit of a detail; hoovered the inside, rinsed the car, shampooed it, rinsed again, Super Resin Polished the whole car, then waxed the whole car and polished the windows inside and out. I spent 7 hours so by the time I finished it was too dark to take pics, got one midway though. There's a cloud on my bonnet :D:D
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Then went to visit some mates down south, one of which helped me fit my smoked side repeaters (I was too weak to pull the old ones off :rolleyes:) No pics of just them but you can see them in the pics later on.

I then fitted my Forge Boost & Coolant hoses, after putting it off for 8 months lol.. They do look great in my opinion though.
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Then I had a friend take some nice photos of the car. Made me miss having a proper camera.. Here are a few of my favourites from the day:
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Got a new best average MPG on the 200-mile drive home! :D I reckon the lightweight alloys play a good part in it too!
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I also changed my pollen filter, which looked like it had never been done before! Hopefully stops the dashboard from getting so dusty now!
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Now time for the bad news:

Hit a pothole when I was down south, and the car has rattled quite badly ever since, had about 3 different rattles. One at idle which got louder as I slowly moved off, one as I went over bumps, that sounded tinny like a heat shield, and one on moderate braking, which also sounded like a heatshield but a bit deeper. When I got home, after a bit of searching on the car, I couldn't find anything.

So, I took it to a garage this morning, and got a call back 3 hours later saying to come pick it up. When I got there the bloke explained to me that a bracing bar underneath had bent up when I hit the pothole, and the bar was touching the exhaust and causing all the rattles. It's now bent back and still rigid, so not causing any problems. I was so relieved as I thought something major was wrong with the car, but the best part of all was that I got it done free of charge :D

When I got the car home again I jacked it up and took off the undertray to have a look; here's a photo of the bar that was bent:
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Have a few things in mind for the car next, but sort of running out of ideas now! Let me know what you think :)
 
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Re: DlightSwitch's Blue T-Jet

Vance said:
I think you should do something with the headlights :D
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But I'm not sure if the Abarths look good on blue so what do I do? :confused::confused:

cancan said:
I bent the same bar, it just rattles on the exhaust and scares the crap out of you.
Lucky ita an easy fix
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Yeah it is really scary! It sounds different depending on what you're doing so it sounds like a million things are broken! I'm definitely keeping an eye on it in the future.
 
Re: DlightSwitch's Blue T-Jet

punto_matt said:
Looks good :)

How many miles do you get to a tank?
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I never really check that to be honest, I rarely fill up unless I'm going on the motorway and know that I'll need a lot, since I don't want to pay motorway petrol prices! Usually when I'm going around town I just put in £15-£20 at a time since I live 2 minutes away from a Shell petrol station :)

Danny westall said:
haha the pictures are good of course haha andd go for coilovers ive had my helper springs took out and tbh mate the ride isnt all that bad but the handling is unreal lol:)
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It's tempting! I probably wouldn't have it slammed on it's arse too often but it would be nice to have the option!
 
Re: DlightSwitch's Blue T-Jet

Hi mate just reading ur thread because i gots the same blue t jet as yours. did you do the lights yourself because it was something i was thinking of doing and looking at yours has made my mind up (y)

also do you get much gain with the new turbo and intercooler and how much were both parts. roughly how much to fit too?
 

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Re: DlightSwitch's Blue T-Jet

andybirkett said:
Hi mate just reading ur thread because i gots the same blue t jet as yours. did you do the lights yourself because it was something i was thinking of doing and looking at yours has made my mind up (y)

also do you get much gain with the new turbo and intercooler and how much were both parts. roughly how much to fit too?
Click to expand...

Hi, nice car :cool:

Yes I did the rear lights myself. They're easy to remove, just 2 screws and then pull, if I remember correctly. I just bought the tint film from http://www.lamin-x.co.uk/, and did it in my garage. Just make sure you use plenty of heat from a hairdryer or heat gun so that the film is easier to work with.

The gains with the turbo & intercooler are great after a remap, they will work fine without one but I'd definitely recommend a remap to give yourself more power if you do go for it.
The turbo was £250 with 2000 miles on it, off eBay, although I've seen a few going for less these days. I tried fitting it myself but struggled so ended up paying a garage to do it, was £130 I think, for around 2.5-3hrs work.
The intercooler was £340 brand new, I fitted it myself so I'm not sure how much it would cost to get fitted. It's not really a hard job, the instructions from forge are quite good, getting the front bumper off is the hardest bit. It would probably take a garage about 1-2hrs to fit.
 
Re: DlightSwitch's Blue T-Jet

Thanks for the info (y)

just checked your video on youtube and it sounds nice!! :cool:

i wasnt planning on doin much with mine but after seein urs and a few others on here i think i best get the overtime in and get started! ;)
 
Re: DlightSwitch's Blue T-Jet

DlightSwitch said:
Hi, nice car :cool:

Yes I did the rear lights myself. They're easy to remove, just 2 screws and then pull, if I remember correctly. I just bought the tint film from http://www.lamin-x.co.uk/, and did it in my garage. Just make sure you use plenty of heat from a hairdryer or heat gun so that the film is easier to work with.

The gains with the turbo & intercooler are great after a remap, they will work fine without one but I'd definitely recommend a remap to give yourself more power if you do go for it.
The turbo was £250 with 2000 miles on it, off eBay, although I've seen a few going for less these days. I tried fitting it myself but struggled so ended up paying a garage to do it, was £130 I think, for around 2.5-3hrs work.
The intercooler was £340 brand new, I fitted it myself so I'm not sure how much it would cost to get fitted. It's not really a hard job, the instructions from forge are quite good, getting the front bumper off is the hardest bit. It would probably take a garage about 1-2hrs to fit.
Click to expand...

I fitted mine in sub 30 mins with a mate
 
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