Tom's single slammer - the piglet
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Senior Member
Joined: Dec 2008
Posts: 3,837
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From: Floating around the AUDM
Vehicle: X3 Sprint, S-Coupe Turbo
Okay, it's been a quite a while, about 2000 miles, since updates.
I was at the wreckers, and well, whoops!
I wired it in with the excelrally .pdf file, which is an excellent file. However, I'm a bit retarded in my brain and ended up swapping the same wire twice etc etc, and basically made a huge hash of it. Luckily, I snipped the GLX cluster loom from the wreckers, and the wire colours are almost all identical, just in different locations, so I just copied that and it worked first time. One of the lights was blown in the GLX cluster, so I replaced it when I swapped the odometer over from my old cluster.
One thing I noticed, is that the DOHC and SOHC clusters are different. The SOHC has red tabs on the fuel and temperature gauges, no screws in the odometer face, and a thinner font for the speedometer and tacho. So my SOHC speedo looks slightly dull next to the DOHC tacho.
Also, even more of my dashboard snapped off while I was working in there. A plate about four inches wide just shattered off, and that was the bit that my vacuum gauge was bolted to! So no more vacuum gauge, just structural dash mats instead.
It's okay guys, I'll soldier on.
Well, I got a flat tyre on the corner with the most tread. I don't understand how, but the sidewall got munched from sitting flat overnight. So I went to the tyre shop to replace both the flat back left and the camber-f*cked front right, and got told that 185/70R13 is a rare size so I am allowed to pay at least $90 per tyre. So, true to my name, I'm rolling on a steelie while I look around for some more wheels. I'm looking for a lightweight OEM 14 or 15 inch wheel, but my choice is going to be dictated by which tyre profiles and widths are the most common. I'd rather have a slightly boring wheel if it means that a wide range of tyres are going to be available until the end of time.
So I've got a list of things to do now that I've got a bit of time to work on the car, in no particular order:
-Bleed the brakes
-Bleed the clutch
-Add a muffler ILO straight pipe
-Replace the dashboard
-Make a bracket for the A/C and get a belt for it
-Get the heater working
-Wire up the OBDII port
-Build jaycar AFR monitor
-Measure the corner weights
So I've definitely got my work cut out for me. And I pinkie promise to get some photos and video of it running very soon xx. Cheers for reading, everyone!
I was at the wreckers, and well, whoops!
I wired it in with the excelrally .pdf file, which is an excellent file. However, I'm a bit retarded in my brain and ended up swapping the same wire twice etc etc, and basically made a huge hash of it. Luckily, I snipped the GLX cluster loom from the wreckers, and the wire colours are almost all identical, just in different locations, so I just copied that and it worked first time. One of the lights was blown in the GLX cluster, so I replaced it when I swapped the odometer over from my old cluster.
One thing I noticed, is that the DOHC and SOHC clusters are different. The SOHC has red tabs on the fuel and temperature gauges, no screws in the odometer face, and a thinner font for the speedometer and tacho. So my SOHC speedo looks slightly dull next to the DOHC tacho.
Also, even more of my dashboard snapped off while I was working in there. A plate about four inches wide just shattered off, and that was the bit that my vacuum gauge was bolted to! So no more vacuum gauge, just structural dash mats instead.
It's okay guys, I'll soldier on.
Well, I got a flat tyre on the corner with the most tread. I don't understand how, but the sidewall got munched from sitting flat overnight. So I went to the tyre shop to replace both the flat back left and the camber-f*cked front right, and got told that 185/70R13 is a rare size so I am allowed to pay at least $90 per tyre. So, true to my name, I'm rolling on a steelie while I look around for some more wheels. I'm looking for a lightweight OEM 14 or 15 inch wheel, but my choice is going to be dictated by which tyre profiles and widths are the most common. I'd rather have a slightly boring wheel if it means that a wide range of tyres are going to be available until the end of time.
So I've got a list of things to do now that I've got a bit of time to work on the car, in no particular order:
-Bleed the brakes
-Bleed the clutch
-Add a muffler ILO straight pipe
-Replace the dashboard
-Make a bracket for the A/C and get a belt for it
-Get the heater working
-Wire up the OBDII port
-Build jaycar AFR monitor
-Measure the corner weights
So I've definitely got my work cut out for me. And I pinkie promise to get some photos and video of it running very soon xx. Cheers for reading, everyone!
Thread Starter
Senior Member
Joined: Dec 2008
Posts: 3,837
Likes: 0
From: Floating around the AUDM
Vehicle: X3 Sprint, S-Coupe Turbo
m0aR uPd8s y0
Welp, today was a good day.
The steering return hose is a little too large for one of the steering lines, so it kept slipping off. $5 worth of hose clamps sorted that right out.
...aaand the hektik straight pipe has been creaking against the sway bar. There simply isn't room to house all of this high end racing technology in a humble X3. Anyway, as much as I love listening to metal on metal, it was time to shorten the garden hose once again to sort it out. Probably the most legit repair I've ever done in my whole life.
Next up, was something I forgot to take a photo of.
But I made an ISC restrictor plate, to fix the mild rev hang issue that most modern dolphin friendly cars have. The ECU opens the ISC valve when you are thrashing the car, so when you let off, the revs hang at around 2k rpm, then slowly drag back down to idle, so the oxygen sensor can do its thing. I didn't want any part of al-gore's vision, so I made up a blanking plate which reduced the effective ISC valve area by about 80%, just enough to let the car idle properly for a cold start, but that's about it. It's about the best bang-for-buck mod that I've done, considering you can make the plate out of a coke can and gardening shears. Anyway, that's going nicely with no CEL or anything.
After that, it was time to sort out the hydraulics. Everything was quite squishy after rushedly finishing the twin cam swap, and the brakes were especially dangerous. Because there was air in all of the lines, sudden application of the brakes would result in diagonal pairs of wheels unpredictably locking, throwing the car sideways. It was just bad. Anyhoo, it was just me at home, so I thought I'd give gravity bleeding a proper go.
Vinyl tubing, 5m for $5 at bunnings. It's good sh*t! Anyway, my first setup was like this on all four wheels, with the calipers as the highest point. Guess where all the air went? Derp.
After facing a very soft pedal, then re-reading the shop manual, I realised that my foresight was about as present as a rabbi's foreski... Take two:
But you know what? It still failed. So I got my super trusty mum on the brake pedal, and bled all of the air out of the everything. The braking and clutching is great now, the skinny 175 locks up before the rest.
Anyhoo, I cleaned out the interior and fixed the ghetto parcel shelf wires with some electrical cord. All in all, I'm very pleased and hope to deity that I don't get pulled over before I get a muffler. And here are some general photos so you know which car to avoid/report.
(Chea, that's a sprint badge. Ladies, form a queue.)
That's all for now! Don't stress, there's still shitloads of stuff to be done on this car.
*edit* Cheers faith
Welp, today was a good day.
The steering return hose is a little too large for one of the steering lines, so it kept slipping off. $5 worth of hose clamps sorted that right out.
...aaand the hektik straight pipe has been creaking against the sway bar. There simply isn't room to house all of this high end racing technology in a humble X3. Anyway, as much as I love listening to metal on metal, it was time to shorten the garden hose once again to sort it out. Probably the most legit repair I've ever done in my whole life.
Next up, was something I forgot to take a photo of.
But I made an ISC restrictor plate, to fix the mild rev hang issue that most modern dolphin friendly cars have. The ECU opens the ISC valve when you are thrashing the car, so when you let off, the revs hang at around 2k rpm, then slowly drag back down to idle, so the oxygen sensor can do its thing. I didn't want any part of al-gore's vision, so I made up a blanking plate which reduced the effective ISC valve area by about 80%, just enough to let the car idle properly for a cold start, but that's about it. It's about the best bang-for-buck mod that I've done, considering you can make the plate out of a coke can and gardening shears. Anyway, that's going nicely with no CEL or anything.
After that, it was time to sort out the hydraulics. Everything was quite squishy after rushedly finishing the twin cam swap, and the brakes were especially dangerous. Because there was air in all of the lines, sudden application of the brakes would result in diagonal pairs of wheels unpredictably locking, throwing the car sideways. It was just bad. Anyhoo, it was just me at home, so I thought I'd give gravity bleeding a proper go.
Vinyl tubing, 5m for $5 at bunnings. It's good sh*t! Anyway, my first setup was like this on all four wheels, with the calipers as the highest point. Guess where all the air went? Derp.
After facing a very soft pedal, then re-reading the shop manual, I realised that my foresight was about as present as a rabbi's foreski... Take two:
But you know what? It still failed. So I got my super trusty mum on the brake pedal, and bled all of the air out of the everything. The braking and clutching is great now, the skinny 175 locks up before the rest.
Anyhoo, I cleaned out the interior and fixed the ghetto parcel shelf wires with some electrical cord. All in all, I'm very pleased and hope to deity that I don't get pulled over before I get a muffler. And here are some general photos so you know which car to avoid/report.
(Chea, that's a sprint badge. Ladies, form a queue.)
That's all for now! Don't stress, there's still shitloads of stuff to be done on this car.
*edit* Cheers faith
Thread Starter
Senior Member
Joined: Dec 2008
Posts: 3,837
Likes: 0
From: Floating around the AUDM
Vehicle: X3 Sprint, S-Coupe Turbo
-OTEC, that's mum's driveway. I live in an apartment and parking inspectors make horrible brake bleeding assistants.
-Red, that's the DOT4 that was on special. Most fluid I've used is either green or pale yellow?
-Cheers stocker! The idea isn't my own, I read it ages ago on some spectra forums. The beta II gets chronically bad rev hang. I can't find the DIY again though, maybe I should make my own? It requires almost no tools and about an hour start to finish
Today, I'm building a Jaycar AFR monitor kit. A muffler, rolling stock and an A/C bracket will be the next items on the agenda.
-Red, that's the DOT4 that was on special. Most fluid I've used is either green or pale yellow?
-Cheers stocker! The idea isn't my own, I read it ages ago on some spectra forums. The beta II gets chronically bad rev hang. I can't find the DIY again though, maybe I should make my own? It requires almost no tools and about an hour start to finish
Today, I'm building a Jaycar AFR monitor kit. A muffler, rolling stock and an A/C bracket will be the next items on the agenda.
