My New (to me) 'Mera

Me 'mera's going into the garage to get the handbrake and rear brakes looked at (handbrake needs to be on full to work) is there anything else specific to the 2000 N16 1.5 I should get looked at?

I hear (in my newbie section post) that the gearboxes can be dodgy due to a design flaw (oil filter plug too low?) but I can't find mention of it anywhere else online - worth the expense of checking at 50k miles or should I wait 5k until service time?

There's a load of wierd horizonal scratches on the passenger side, not a paint flaw as it's on the black door-protectors as well. No-one can work out where they (gradually, apparently) appeared from. Very odd. Some colour-matched T-Cut waxing has camoflaged them a bit but I've also noticed some surface rust in the arches and a few nasty stone-chips on the front. Guess I'll be going to work with the touch-up kit but the scratches on the door will need a pro-respray to cover if a good and proper T-Cutting won't fix them.

Great, another weekend spend touching-up my car when I should be touching-up my woman, hmmm; maybe if I use her driveway I can find some way to combine both :)
 
Cleaned out the manky engine-bay today ( a first for me) - not a patch on some of the show-cars members have here but a vast improvement on how it looked having spend 6-years with no-one even looking at it.
An hour well spent I think..



[click to embiggen]
 
'Gunk' degreaser foam then bumper restorer/polish on the black plastic, metal polish on the metal and tyre restorer/conditioner on the rubber hoses (all with microfibre cloths, of course). Just followed the instructions from the car cleaning site in the links section as I've never done it before.
 
I've used Gunk before, takes afew minutes to do and looks awesome! nice job mate.
 
lol, Funny you should say that - I got about 10 miles down the motorway and it started to stink something awful, so bad that I pulled over to make sure nothing was going horribly wrong under the bonnet - but it turned out I was just driving past a field where the farmer was spreading silage and the smell outside the car was eye-watering. Under the bonnet smelt fine, though, once my nose started working again.
 
lol! To be honest mate with your car you are probably better off, as you say, spending money on things that improve the driving and help you if you should decide to sell it!
 
That's the plan, nothing too expensive or irreversible. Once I get the scratches and chips fixed it be pretty-well mint and in six months it will have a year's MOT and be freshly serviced so I should be able to get enough for it to get hold of a reasonable N15 to mod properly.
 
Given that my only real moan about the 1.5 N16 is the power it'd have to be a 2.0 :D

That said, I'm also thinking about just getting a more powerful N16 P2 using my P1 as PX.
I'm likely to be stuck with whatever I get for a good three or four years and worry a bit about keeping a 10+ year-old N15 rolling.
 
Still not sure what I'm doing with the car but it's going to be at least a year now before I will be even thinking about getting another one and I just can't live with 'stock' so the proposed mod list is..

Ice-blue headlamps/sidelights, blue-tint indicators (done).
MP3/CD and Woofer in the boot (done).
Razo RA118H Exec. Gear Knob (done).
K&N 57i induction kit (arrives tomorow).
Eibach Pro 30mm drop springs (may order tomorrow).
OEM foglamps (If I can find some from breakers).
17" Alloys (when I find a really good deal on some I like).
Good quality sparks and leads.
Wider bore stainless cat-back (when it needs replacing).
Colour-matched wingmirrors (when I can be arsed doing it).
Maybe some interior paintwork (Ditto).
Professional touch-up of the dodgy scratches on the passenger doors.
Maybe a remap/timing-advance (if I find some cash for it and find a good deal).

Comments?
I've found sources for pretty much everything I need except the cat-back - any hints?

I don't want to go much over £1000 on mods but that's not including what I would be likely be paying for replacment parts anyway so it's more like a budget of £1500.
 
My K&N 57i induction kit (finally) arrived today..


(click to make big)


Only took about half-an-hour to fit as I didn't bother fitting the rubber scoop for the cool air feed as I didn't like where it was supposed to be positioned and didn't want to strip off the splash-guards behind the bumper - it should be fine where it is for now.

Now just have to find out how long to leave the battery disconnected to reset the ECU..
 
I was told that resetting the ECU was a good idea after any mod as it learns about the changes quicker?

My mate could well have been talking bollocks, of course, but it made sense at the time..

edit: Any engine mod, I didn't bother doing it when I changed my gear-knob :)

I know 24 hours disconnected will do it, was looking for a quicker method but now am wondering if I'm about to be told there is no point doing it at all and that I could have popped out to the takeaway after all. :rolleyes:
 
The standard ecu should learn on it's own for little mods, doubt a filter will give enough gains to make a difference.
 
Snap! :D

EDIT: Fook me, that`s big, sorry!

kandn256x192.jpg
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wraith0x29a said:
Now just have to find out how long to leave the battery disconnected to reset the ECU..
Click to expand...

I left mine for 24 hours when I forgot to plug the lambda sensor back in. :O

Didn`t even think about disconnecting it when i fitted the K&N.

Can you post a pic of where you routed the feed pipe please, as I want to put mine there, but it`s too short, as the only way I can see is going through the hole where the resonance box was & round the bumper mounting bracket, there`s obviously another way, but it maybe different between the P1 & P2.
 
Not a great pics but best I could get.

I ran it under the fuse box then between the radiator and headlight cable ducting. It's a damn fiddle to get it through the tiny gap there, had to squish the plastic end cap almost flat to get it through then gently squish the pipe and feed it through until the end reached the inside of the front spoiler then unsquish it all again. At least the ducting pipe is a lot stronger than the stuff I bought for my last car that fell apart when squished. Tie-wraped the top end to the battery and fuse-box cable ducts, the bottom end sits in place nicely as the pipe is quite stiff.

Don't know what diameter pipe you got with your kit but mine was quite narrow, only about 40-45mm? Probably not much use to be honest, especially under 70mph although the spoiler should direct air into it a bit - it'll do for now, I'm not expecting much gain with a standard exhaust, the kit's more to even out the acceleration at low gears and revs (seemed to work with my last car), improve the boring stock engine sound a bit and give me something to do on my day off (blew that as I fitted it faster than I thought I would).
 
Thanks for that, it`s exactly the same on mine (pipe`s the same size too).

Didn`t want to even attempt to squish it through the gap, in case it broke, but as I said, the easiest way is through the resonance box hole & round the bracket, but it`s at least a foot too short, so thought about making my own from plastic drain pipe. :lol:
 
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