Some say he is out in the deepest depths of night pilfering his old mods back again for himself!!
Others say he waxed his car to much, it blinded him and he subsequently take a knock on his head!!
all we know is he's called mera red gti
STOLEN 99' Spec Almera GTi
- Thread starter mera red gti
- Start date
all we know is he's called mera red gti
Not just a polish update this time I promise, so bare with me lol
Had a few days of work at the start of June so thought id finish off the undersealing that I had started 3 years ago. Very happy to see what I had done previous didn’t need going over. While the wheels were off I decided to clean, polish and protect both front and back of the alloys. Used 5:1 Daisy apc for the tyres, bilberry 5:1 for the wheels. Used various detailing brushes for the clean up. Not used and tyre shine as I would be putting these wheels away until winter.
Each wheel arch was foam sprayed with 3:1 daisy apc and agitated with various stiff brushes. Rinsed, foamed, agitated, rinsed and then left to dry, luckily it was a warm day and it didn’t take long. Don’t worry as soon il be refitting my ‘like’ new KYB Excel-G Shocks and Spax springs. Final wipe down with a few Costco mf’s then a layer of underseal *inc both bat caves and treated the plastic arch lines with turtle wax extreme tyre gel. I don’t normal like the turtle wax range as I don’t get on with them, however the extreme range I can’t fault it and use the shampoo and trim gel regularly. Both sills were scrubbed down and given another layer of underseal as I was there. All brake line points where cleaned and the protected with white silicone spray grease, the stuff GM motor company use in the factory. Lower front panel and lower chassis legs were given a hit with a scotch pad and treated aswell. HEL brake lines fitted, fluid change to dot 5.1 (carried out by Joe) & calipers cleaned up while wheels were off.
Always always wanted a set of these team dynamics alloys, which I think are 17’s replicas of the R34 GTR’s wheels. Old school looking wheel, probably released no later than 2002 – so sets are few and far between. I don’t think they’re better wheel than my last set of 17’s (kei Velocity) or any other newer rota’s, but every man and his dog has rota’s so for me it’s a no. I actually think the teams are better looking than the GTR ones. Brought them diy painted black with good 6mm rubbers however in need of refurbishment. Work carried out with City Powder Coaters in Digbeth Birmingham. Decided on a dark grey over silver or black, which matches my rocker cover too. Once tyres were refitted 10:1 apc to remove the tyre paste and given 2 coats of AG HD wax over 2 days. Missing the team dynamic centre cap stickers I thought I go for something else, autobots centres ftw. Ph2 fog lamp blanks, new wheels, new tail pipe and Lucino grille give a different look to the car for 2011 on’.
Although I don’t drive fast, bored with the 150 odd bhp I was itching for a lil more power again. Plus I think a bolt on DE just drives better than standard. So when paul aka SnedsN15GTi mentioned he was thinking of selling a few bits off his car to fund the bike licence and crotch rocket, the dollars were handing over the following day for the Magnecor leads and Tomei poncams. Over night parts from Sutton Coldfield lol For me the best ‘plug n play’ DE cams available, providing loads of low end torque (even more so than the oe Nissan cams) and holding solid power to the GTi’s redline of 6,950rpm. Makes driving so much better as between 1800 and 3500rpm is where I spend 95% of the time.
Booking made with joe for some shaggy_magic and a few hours later I have mans idle again. Carried out oil change aswell, Castrol Magnatec 10w-40 with k&n oil filter. Also fitted my ‘found’ front poly engine mount. new made in Japan fuel filter replaced a few weeks ago also – 82,018 miles as reference. PiperX panel filter after 37k and over 3 years of service out, new green cotton panel filter in.
Prior to that I went to visit phil over @ unique exhaust for a stainless 2.5’ cat back, 3’ slash rolled tip. Opt’d not for mandrel system as it wont make a shred of difference to my car and a single continuous piece will last longer than when it’s a dozen pieces welded together. I reckon this 2.5’ crushed system will flow as good or better than my old 2.25’ mandrel one, which did pretty damn well. Refitted my 2 piece Unorthodox Racing pulleys. On a daily having a lightweight and underdrive crank pulley, lightweight flywheel, poly mounts and cams, uprated HT leads I remember gave a nicer idle *for me anyways and it has again.
Brought a toyo sport header from their unit here in the midlands, with the idea to amend some of its faults. Aside from completely hacking the header to pieces, swapping the pairing, installing a merge collector and increasing the size of the downpipe some improvements were made. Speaking to Joe he advised to grind out the downpipe ports as there is an ugly inner step in the secondary runners. This was done along with internally flushing the usdm egr port in the no. 4 primary runner (done at unique exhaust).
P80 the header, downpipe and flanges to key the surface ready for painting. Again decided on VHT flameproof ceramic based paint as it severed me well on my last header, plus it’s forgivable during application for novices like me. Curing carried out on the car as it’s easy to fit without scratching the surface, unlike the asp long runner header. Ive used an O2 thread adaptor to place the O2 sensor in the primaries, taking the readings from two cylinders rather than just the one as last time. Im going to fit an earth strap to the front downpipe bolt, attach it to an engine earth point to further aid the O2 sensor earthing. The above are probably the biggest offenders that I could change easily, whilst the ceramic based coating will help to keep the heat inside of the exhaust and engine bay temperatures down………. simples.
Engine wise its pretty much back to the spec it was before, with a trade off between the asp header with 2.25’ cat back and a modded/coated toyo sport header and 2.5’ cat back. I find mpg under normal driving conditions to be as good as standard or a touch better, as im using less throttle angle to do the same cruising speed. Needless to say it drives really well now, would like to see/tune the afr but that’s for another time.
Any suggestions towards further mods welcome. i know coilovers would be nice again haha
preview
david
Had a few days of work at the start of June so thought id finish off the undersealing that I had started 3 years ago. Very happy to see what I had done previous didn’t need going over. While the wheels were off I decided to clean, polish and protect both front and back of the alloys. Used 5:1 Daisy apc for the tyres, bilberry 5:1 for the wheels. Used various detailing brushes for the clean up. Not used and tyre shine as I would be putting these wheels away until winter.
Each wheel arch was foam sprayed with 3:1 daisy apc and agitated with various stiff brushes. Rinsed, foamed, agitated, rinsed and then left to dry, luckily it was a warm day and it didn’t take long. Don’t worry as soon il be refitting my ‘like’ new KYB Excel-G Shocks and Spax springs. Final wipe down with a few Costco mf’s then a layer of underseal *inc both bat caves and treated the plastic arch lines with turtle wax extreme tyre gel. I don’t normal like the turtle wax range as I don’t get on with them, however the extreme range I can’t fault it and use the shampoo and trim gel regularly. Both sills were scrubbed down and given another layer of underseal as I was there. All brake line points where cleaned and the protected with white silicone spray grease, the stuff GM motor company use in the factory. Lower front panel and lower chassis legs were given a hit with a scotch pad and treated aswell. HEL brake lines fitted, fluid change to dot 5.1 (carried out by Joe) & calipers cleaned up while wheels were off.
Always always wanted a set of these team dynamics alloys, which I think are 17’s replicas of the R34 GTR’s wheels. Old school looking wheel, probably released no later than 2002 – so sets are few and far between. I don’t think they’re better wheel than my last set of 17’s (kei Velocity) or any other newer rota’s, but every man and his dog has rota’s so for me it’s a no. I actually think the teams are better looking than the GTR ones. Brought them diy painted black with good 6mm rubbers however in need of refurbishment. Work carried out with City Powder Coaters in Digbeth Birmingham. Decided on a dark grey over silver or black, which matches my rocker cover too. Once tyres were refitted 10:1 apc to remove the tyre paste and given 2 coats of AG HD wax over 2 days. Missing the team dynamic centre cap stickers I thought I go for something else, autobots centres ftw. Ph2 fog lamp blanks, new wheels, new tail pipe and Lucino grille give a different look to the car for 2011 on’.
Although I don’t drive fast, bored with the 150 odd bhp I was itching for a lil more power again. Plus I think a bolt on DE just drives better than standard. So when paul aka SnedsN15GTi mentioned he was thinking of selling a few bits off his car to fund the bike licence and crotch rocket, the dollars were handing over the following day for the Magnecor leads and Tomei poncams. Over night parts from Sutton Coldfield lol For me the best ‘plug n play’ DE cams available, providing loads of low end torque (even more so than the oe Nissan cams) and holding solid power to the GTi’s redline of 6,950rpm. Makes driving so much better as between 1800 and 3500rpm is where I spend 95% of the time.
Booking made with joe for some shaggy_magic and a few hours later I have mans idle again. Carried out oil change aswell, Castrol Magnatec 10w-40 with k&n oil filter. Also fitted my ‘found’ front poly engine mount. new made in Japan fuel filter replaced a few weeks ago also – 82,018 miles as reference. PiperX panel filter after 37k and over 3 years of service out, new green cotton panel filter in.
Prior to that I went to visit phil over @ unique exhaust for a stainless 2.5’ cat back, 3’ slash rolled tip. Opt’d not for mandrel system as it wont make a shred of difference to my car and a single continuous piece will last longer than when it’s a dozen pieces welded together. I reckon this 2.5’ crushed system will flow as good or better than my old 2.25’ mandrel one, which did pretty damn well. Refitted my 2 piece Unorthodox Racing pulleys. On a daily having a lightweight and underdrive crank pulley, lightweight flywheel, poly mounts and cams, uprated HT leads I remember gave a nicer idle *for me anyways and it has again.
Brought a toyo sport header from their unit here in the midlands, with the idea to amend some of its faults. Aside from completely hacking the header to pieces, swapping the pairing, installing a merge collector and increasing the size of the downpipe some improvements were made. Speaking to Joe he advised to grind out the downpipe ports as there is an ugly inner step in the secondary runners. This was done along with internally flushing the usdm egr port in the no. 4 primary runner (done at unique exhaust).
P80 the header, downpipe and flanges to key the surface ready for painting. Again decided on VHT flameproof ceramic based paint as it severed me well on my last header, plus it’s forgivable during application for novices like me. Curing carried out on the car as it’s easy to fit without scratching the surface, unlike the asp long runner header. Ive used an O2 thread adaptor to place the O2 sensor in the primaries, taking the readings from two cylinders rather than just the one as last time. Im going to fit an earth strap to the front downpipe bolt, attach it to an engine earth point to further aid the O2 sensor earthing. The above are probably the biggest offenders that I could change easily, whilst the ceramic based coating will help to keep the heat inside of the exhaust and engine bay temperatures down………. simples.
Engine wise its pretty much back to the spec it was before, with a trade off between the asp header with 2.25’ cat back and a modded/coated toyo sport header and 2.5’ cat back. I find mpg under normal driving conditions to be as good as standard or a touch better, as im using less throttle angle to do the same cruising speed. Needless to say it drives really well now, would like to see/tune the afr but that’s for another time.
Any suggestions towards further mods welcome. i know coilovers would be nice again haha
preview
david
As I said on npoc dude, love it and love the fact you're back in the modding game, ve next? lol
@Stu, David does say he got the downpipe done at unique exhausts, looks great too!
Those alloys are awesome, must be lightweight too and are they multifitment for 4 x 114 on yours too?
@Stu, David does say he got the downpipe done at unique exhausts, looks great too!
Those alloys are awesome, must be lightweight too and are they multifitment for 4 x 114 on yours too?
Looks great Dave... good to see you back in the pack
Excellent work David - a pleasure to see ! :thumb:
£250 for the 2.5’ cat back system with 2 silencers, would have been only a touch more for mandrel but not much. I didn’t want a 'stitched system' as the weakest part is always the welds compared to straight pipe work. To be fair for a crush bent system I could have gone anywhere, but unique exhaust was the cheapest and I wanted a little bit doing to the header too.
tbh the welds are only weak if (like most fabbers) mild steel wire is used. phil uses stainless wire, my old system still looks as fresh as it did the day i got it, and the fact is you get a lifetime warranty on powerflows like phils.
fair enough on the crush bent though, i suppose if it suits your needs!
sorry Ian - Sounds low and deep compared to my last system, possibly due to the tailpipe design and the way the exhaust gases finish through the tip. i also had phil pump more glass fibre into the centre silencer too.
david
david
