My New (to me) 'Mera

StevenC said:
Much of a job getting the springs changed?
Click to expand...
I had a word with the mechanic who did it today and apparently it was 'a bugger'.

I suspect that was more to do with seized bolts and so-on (first time the shocks have been off in a 6 years and calipers have probably not been off in 3.

You do have to take out a lot of the interior to get the rear shocks out though.
 
A rare day-off so more faffing with the car.

Cleaned and re-oiled my K&N, put it back in and bodged a basic, temporary heat-shield for it. Can't really see in the pic but it's just a 10x13" bit of thin aluminum curled-over at the top and is held in place by sandwiching it between the MAF housing and the K&N fitting (obviously with holes for air-flow and bolts). Doesn't look great but seems to work ok. The 45mm cold air feed from under the radiator runs under it nicely.
45mm is a bit weedy for a cold-air feed so I also removed my resonator box and ran a 65mm cold air feed from the front-right foglight hole. Looked really rough exposed so I built a vent/grille for it from the blanking piece.
Made another dummy vent for the other side to balance things up.

Got a load of mesh left and want to fill in the big gaps under the bumper to hide the rusty crossmember and 45mm cold air feed but ran out of weld-in-a-tube and time. Guess that's next weekend's job. :rolleyes:
(edit: job done and pic updated)


Click to Enlarge (just like Viagra spam promises!)

ps. If anyone knows why I keep getting that powdery white crap round the battery -ve terminal let me know!
 
wraith0x29a said:
ps. If anyone knows why I keep getting that powdery white crap round the battery -ve terminal let me know!
Click to expand...

That white stuff is the terminal corroding. if you poor boiling water over the terminal, the white stuff will deslove. then lightly cover the terminal with grease. that should stop it happening again. :)

Ps. you can also get spray tins from halfrauds, which are specially made for protecting battery terminals, but what i said above is just as good imo.
 
Got a Kenwood KDC-W6537U headunit and a Maxtor One-Touch III mini 160GB USB hard-drive today.

I'm pretty chuffed they work together as the headunit info specifically states that it's designed for flash drives and mp3 players and I wasn't sure if it would have enough power on the USB port to power a hard-drive.

I've stashed the USB hard-drive in the flip-top sat-nav cubby-hole (the headunit has a rear USB connection so no dangling cables).

Just fiddling about now trying to make the whole 160GB on the USB drive available, I can get 32GB available on it but there is some wierd partition format issue I have to resolve to free-up the rest.

Sounds awesome and looks great, especially now that the pile of mp3/cd disks I had lying about are now redundant.

Now I just need to buy 3,000 CDs to fill up the drive :rolleyes:
 
Looks like the fix for my swirl control solenoid circuit problem is to get a new ECU.

The local stealership want £920 to supply, fit and program it.

I paid £1000 for the car less than a year ago (thanks Dad) and have forked out some £600 in repairs and £800 in mods so far.
If I return it to standard and spend another £200 getting some cosmetic and other minor stuff fixed I'll get at most £3000 selling it privately, maybe £2000 as PX, and maybe be able to sell the alloys and tyres and eibach springs.

Although the engine management light is on due to the fault the car drives fine and other than it being a little underpowered I like it fine.

My options are..

1) Drive it until I've saved enough for a new (well, new to me) car (or the gearbox packs in) then scrap it (will lose the £2000 I've spent on it so far).
2) Fix it up, sell it and get a new car (may just break even).

Of course, if the gearbox packs in option 2 will be stuffed.

What would YOU do?
 
Least you have a pretty good idea now to get the problem sorted. Good luck. Option 2 for me though mate. Might as well try break even instead of loosing more money further down the line.
 
Purely up to yourself dude - i've spent in excess of £2500 on repairs alone and that's excluding what i've already spent on modding/improving it so i intend to my car until the engine itself seizes up... And when it does i'll probably shove another engine in it!!

I've officially reached a point where i will see, exactly, fuck all of my money back for it so i'm gonna run it into the ground (quite literally i expect) however despite the love i have my car i would advise that if you do have an opportunity to break even and/or make a small loss in order to get rid of it for something else then i suggest you do so because the N16 will drain you dry!!

My rear demister's stopped working - forked out approx £100 to replace various fuses, a relay and the heater panel itself and now we're coming to the conclusion it could be the wiring OR the rear screen so personally bail out while you can!!
 
TallPaul86 said:
My rear demister's stopped working..
Click to expand...
Ouch, sounds like fixing that is getting costly but I guess you do need it sorted, especially with winter coming.
Need to keep your hands warm while pushing it home, after all :lol:

Maybe we need to arrange a meet of Scottish N16 owners at a cathedral somewhere and get them exorcised by a priest.
Wonder if the church would do a AOC discounts or group buy prices.
 
wraith0x29a said:
Ouch, sounds like fixing that is getting costly but I guess you do need it sorted, especially with winter coming.
Need to keep your hands warm while pushing it home, after all :lol:

Maybe we need to arrange a meet of Scottish N16 owners at a cathedral somewhere and get them exorcised by a priest.
Wonder if the church would do a AOC discounts or group buy prices.
Click to expand...


Doubtful - Weddings take priorty, take up more time and the priest can't exactly turn round to a prominent couple saying "Sorry folks - got my work cut out for the next 2 months exorcising a couple of Nissans..."

Car is mechanically sound as a merry pound :) Only thing needing done was welding and undersealing of the front crossmember and that was done MOT time :D

That is the ONLY thing (touchwood) wrong with it the now... Rear screens aren't covered by insurance are they?
 
TBH your's is probably in better shape than mine now, I need my cross-member done too and I'm just waiting for my gearbox to commit suicide.

Hmmm, insurance.. suppose that's a option 3; park my car for an hour in the bad part of town..
 
If the guy you normally can do welding, and he quotes reasonable prices, should be about the same as mine to weld and underseal it... Cost me £70 to fix it... Good as new!!

If you hear a whine that gets more high pitched as you accelerate then drive it gently otherwise your box is fine - if your's does pack in i suggest going for a phase 2 box. Shorter ratio's, better acceleration but the trade off is piss poor refinement (i.e. doing 80-85mph means the car's doing 4000rpm :O )

Would be a shame if you got rid of it - nice example too :)
 
Hmmm, mine hits just under 4000rpm at 80ish in 5th anyway. Could be that the swirl control valve is 'shut' and knackering things a bit with the vortex in the chambers, though it drives fine and fuel economy is about right. [ edit: was totally wrong about the rpm, mine's normal ]

Only weird noise I get is a whistling at 80+ into strong winds, more often with passengers. Suspect it's an air-flow issue (cold-air feed acting like a whistle or something in the blower channels) rather than a mechanical one, sounds like it's coming from somewhere in front-left quarter of the car but still can't work out where and it's a pretty constant pitch and volume not related to acceleration.

Drive it gently? Is that an option?
With mine it's foot-to-the-floor-or-your-going-backwards.

I'm not desperate to get a new car, if I could just squeeze an extra 10-20HP out of this one I'd be content as otherwise I like it fine.
It may not look that good come tomorrow, though, as I've gone mad with a touch-up kit and my track-record as a car painter is on a par with Hitler's track-record as an equal-opportunities employer.
 
wraith0x29a said:
Hmmm, mine hits just under 4000rpm at 80ish in 5th anyway. Could be that the swirl control valve is 'shut' and knackering things a bit with the vortex in the chambers, though it drives fine and fuel economy is about right.

Only weird noise I get is a whistling at 80+ into strong winds, more often with passengers. Suspect it's an air-flow issue (cold-air feed acting like a whistle or something in the blower channels) rather than a mechanical one, sounds like it's coming from somewhere in front-left quarter of the car but still can't work out where and it's a pretty constant pitch and volume not related to acceleration.

Drive it gently? Is that an option?
With mine it's foot-to-the-floor-or-your-going-backwards.

I'm not desperate to get a new car, if I could just squeeze an extra 10-20HP out of this one I'd be content as otherwise I like it fine.
It may not look that good come tomorrow, though, as I've gone mad with a touch-up kit and my track-record as a car painter is on a par with Hitler's track-record as an equal-opportunities employer.
Click to expand...


So in a nutshell then - Oh...

Well what i do notice (compared to my old box) is the engine's working harder by about 500-700 rpm more than it used to... You can drive it gently (i.e. keep it under 3250rpm - less strain on the engine etc) however plan ahead for it :P LoL

10-20hp shouldn't be too difficult for our car - Cold Air Intake, Cat Back Zorst, Fuel Pressure Regulator (or Power Boost Valve) and a re-map with all those mods into consideration should yield at least 10hp
 
That was pretty much my starting mod list, only thing is I'm not sure about is if remapping would be OK with a dodgy ECU (even though the bit that's faulty does not seem to be vital).
 
As predicted I made a complete mess with the touch-up kit. Local body shop says they wouldn't have done any better, though, as it's next to impossible to get a seamless blend on this paint and they'd have to repaint entire panels to get a decent finish.
£700 to fix a few patches/scratches on the bonnet, bumper and back right quarter.
Bugger.

Going to do the best I can with an airbrush, not going to fork out £700 on paint if I'm not sure what I'm doing with the car.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom