Well done John, best of luck with the running in !!

Coupe is running very well. Drove it to Canmore on Friday, Banff on Saturday and Golden on Sunday. Almost ready for the third oil change. Attended a show and shine in Golden at the Kicking Horse ski hill. I'm usually biking or snowboarding there. It was only a small show with about 40 vehicles - a mixture of trucks, muscle, hot rods and tuners.

Some pictures here for you. These were taken after the other cars in the area I parked had left. You'll notice I've swapped my Cadamaro front grill for the standard Fiat honeycomb version which I now prefer.

Excellent - great to see your car back on the road again

time for more chrome, like that strut brace I think.

John, awesome work pal

and, yes a chrome strut brace is a MUST

Hope you enjoyed Golden - my Sister just moved from there, so I have visited often, and skiied Kicking Horse quite a bit.

I've boarded there a lot and love it. The runs down off the ridges are steep but great fun if there is plenty of snow.

I've also biked there a lot. Even though it's hard on the bike and hands it's a great DH bike destination. I'm going there next weekend now I've fitted some new brake pads!

Sounds like you have been well and truly converted to Canada, not unusual!

When you have the Rocky Mountains on your doorstep it's difficult to resist.

Click here for the video section of the Kicking Horse web site then click on the "Bike Park - Advanced" video. Gives you a good idea of the quality of the bike parks here.

John

I've been spotted again on the roads of Alberta!!

I think the car looks 100% better with the plus grill.

Love the look and the colour of the car. How much longer are you allowed to keep it over in Canada ?

blimey, them roads are

The roads are lovely out of town. Hardly any traffic and mostly straight until you get to the mountains! In town the roads aren't so good, lots of sunken manholes and joints. I'm amazed the car still has circular wheels and hasn't been shaken apart.

Outside of Calgary though there is nothing in the way so the roads go North, South, East or West. There are huge straight sections, many many miles long, sometimes down a slight hill. Maximum speed is 90 km/hr through the parks, 100 km/hr on normal roads and 110 km/hr on highways. Most people drive 120 km/hr.

It would be very tempting to wind it up to 160 km/hr. At 3000 rpm I would be dong 125 km/hr which would be a very comfortable cruising speed and would return excellent fuel economy.

Canadian drivers are very polite, however their driving standards leave a little to be desired. Most use cruise control so you end up getting stuck behind someone doing 1 km/hr faster than the car they are trying to overtake. They also don't move over as much as you'd like. It's also not illegal to use a phone whilst driving.

The scenary when driving through the Rocky Mountains is pretty impressive. I'll try and upload some pictures for you.

John

Yeah John, this appears from the photos. Nice roads and environment. Will be waiting for the photos.

Waiting for the mapping and power results

Well the shoulder surgery went well and the surgeon was very pleased with the job he did. Reattached one ligament, tightened another and removed two bits of bone that were floating around in the joint. My nurse was hot as hell which helped. Extremely cute and looked like Britney Spears in her early years

This does mean that I haven't driven the Coupe for 3 weeks in the middle of a fabulous summer. Only one more week to go in my sling then I start physiotherapy. No contact sports like biking, snowboarding or football until February. What was I thinking having this done in July!

There is a big meet this weekend for euro cars. Originally I was going to make it but the surgery got delayed by a month. However my friend DJ is taking me in his Audi S4. This runs a 12.3 1/4 mile with all season tyres, full leather interior and 19" wheels. It soon silenced the laughs in this video:

DJ's Video

He fluffed a gear change in this run and hit the brakes by mistake and was accused of sandbagging to avoid going into the 11 second car category.

I'm looking forward to a ride.

John

As promised here are some more pictures of the roads through the Rocky Mountains in July.



At the top of Roger's Pass where the road is at 1382m


John

them pics are amazing

why doesn't everybody live in Canada ? Wish I could !

I've had a car filled weekend. On Saturday I went to a big car meet in Radium, 3hrs drive into the Rocky Mountains. It was a 20th Show and Shine held on the golf course. There were about 1000 cars there. Some amazing examples of custom rods, classics and muscle cars. I'll try and get some pictures posted up for you. Incredible to see all the cars and the streets leaving were filled with people watching the cars leave to go on a cruise down to Invermere.

On Sunday morning I went for breakfast in Canmore, about 80 miles into the Rocky Mountains. A group of us met at Starbucks and left at 8am for a windy back road to the town. 15 cars in total and a great bunch of enthusiasts. There was a Dodge Viper (owner said it was a pig in the wet with 345 profile rear tyres), an Aston Martin Vantage, a Lotus Exige, a Ferrari 360, a new BMW M3, various Audis including an RS4 and A5 and a bunch of Porches including a Cayman S with turbo conversion. This is only using 5psi of boost but ups the power from 295 to 480! There was a Porsche 996 Turbo running 680 bhp.

I've finally finished running in my car. After 3000 km switched to Mobil 1 15W50 whilst I wait to collect some Motul oil. Hot oil pressure is a lot better now between 1.5 and 2 bar. It's so nice to drive the car over 3000 rpm. Even at 3500 the drone is gone and she sounds lovely. I need to get a conservative map set up until the winter when the exhaust work is planned. At the moment I'm using my right foot and limiting boost to 0.5 bar.

John

Here are some pictures from the Radium Show and Shine.

Facebook Pictures

We had our first snow of the season today - 4th October 2009



Looks like I've got a fun week ahead:

Hello,

My car had been put away for the winter since the beginning of October. This last week has seen the temperature climb above zero and the roads are clear of snow and the grit that was put down has moved to the sides of the roads.

The battery had died during the winter but i got it exchanged under warrenty. I diagnosed a missfire I'd been having at tickover and between 4k and 5k as two blown coils. I ordered a set of 8 (so I have some spares) from MSD and they arrived today. i fitted the two replacements tonight, topped up oil, inflated tyres, fitted battery back in boot and went for a drive! Attended the first meeting of the year for a club called EuroDrivers (mostly Audi and VW). This is unheard of in March!

Car went well. No missfire. Only running 0.5 bar of boost until I get her map checked. Was lovely to sit down low and use a gearlever for a change.

John

Good stuff John

good to hear its back out after being rugged up over winter

Latest news...

I wanted to be absolutely certain that I wasn't going to destroy my new engine with detonation like the old one. I've been driving around with minimal boost - about 0.5 bar and not thrashing the engine. I bought a knock sensor called KS-4 from a company called Phormula in the UK. I fitted it the other day using one of the standard knock sensor mounts. The Autronic ECU doesn't have any knock detection. The KS-4 was showing detonation at high revs.

I took the car up to Lightspeed today and we checked over the map. We ran a very simple test on the timing. Set all timing points to 20 degrees and put a timing light on the engine. It was rock solid at 2000 rpm and 3000 rpm which is how I'd set it up after the rebuild. However when revved the engine would show an additional 5 degrees of advance. Cam at Lightspeed said this was why they stopped using Autronic - timing scatter. The ECU can't respond quick enough. This doesn't show up on a rolling road as you are holding steady rpms whilst adjusting the load or performing a smooth slow rpm sweep. During real world driving though the problem will show up.

We checked the pistons and they were fine. No signs of any damage which is a big relief. There is some oil getting into the combustion chamber as it's leaving despoits on the piston surface. I'm going to disconnect the breather from the air intake to see if this is the cause.

A new ECU called a V88 from a company called ViPEC has been ordered and should be arriving in 2 - 3 weeks from Oz. This is state of the art and has twin knock detection as well as other nice features such as closed loop wide band at WOT.

ViPEC

VIPEC installed...

Two weeks ago the VIPEC finally showed up. Last weekend I worked out how to wire it into the FIAT loom. I made a patch cable with a 55 pin FIAT socket on one end and two pairs of 34 pin VIPEC plugs on the other.

It took a whole day to work out the wiring diagram, checking which pin did what and whether they needed to be grounded or supply power (+12V or +5V) etc. It then took another day to solder all the wires together.

Over the next couple of days I configured the software in the VIPEC. I've got it to control the fuel pump, rev counter, two stage fans, variable valve timing, cols start solenoids, fuel injectors and ignition. It takes input from an external MAP sensor, Wideband O2 sensor, crank and cam position sensors, TPS, coolant and air temperature as well as the speed sensor.

The software is very easy to use and extremely configurable, you can specify everything and assign most things to whichever input/output was used. Lots of nice and advanced features such as flat shift, anti lag, boost control, gear detection, variable rev limit depending on coolant temperature, rev counter sweep on start.

The logic controlling things like the variable valve timing is good, up to three AND/OR conditions with variables and values such as when revs are over 3800 and coolant is over 70 degrees.

I've managed to get the engine started and running which was very exciting. Calibrated the TPS and MAP sensors. Synchronised the ECU and engine timing.

The good news is that it doesn't appear to have timing scatter issues like the Autronic had. The timing is rock solid at steady rpm. Rev the engine and the timing retards briefly by probably 5 degrees then settles back down. It doesn't advance the timing like the Autronic did.

Now I have to wait to get a slot on the rolling road at Lightspeed to map the timing and fueling.

John

Well done John, i hope everything goes well for you this time.

Cool, well done for setting it up yourself.

Wow, what stunning scenery. Almost as stunning as the car John!

*Goes off to look into emigrating to Canada*

It's 3am and just got home from Lightspeed! Car fully mapped with VIPEC. Running well, no detonation and timing spot on. The .86 housing on the turbo is generating less heat than the old .64. Unfortunately I'm still suffering from poor quality fuel. The best option is to run meth injection using Aquamist which can be plugged into the VIPEC such that it switches between two maps.

302 bhp at the wheels and 326 lbs/ft of torque at the wheels.

I took some angled polished aluminium tubing with me and cut it up then got Cam to weld it together for me. Finally I can fit my HKS blowoff valve (VIPEC uses MAP sensor) instead of the Forge recirculating valve which was hanging down underneath. See pictures below of before and after. The HKS is very loud and sounds great. I love it. The car pulls strong and is once again puts a big smile on my face.

Before:



After:

Tipoboy i have been reading the whole thread on your car and its fantastic, you certainly get stuck in!!

But i must say im surprised at the rr results id have expected a hell of a lot more than that, are you only running incredibly low boost due to the poor fuel there?

Davie