TOM'S 96 Rev 3 GTS - BREAK ME UP, BEFORE YOU GO GO

[C35Rob]

Ouch! Still- sounds like you got away lightly...glad you didn't tank a tree of sommit

Thats gutting mate but main thing is you're ok first and foremost!

Probably best biting the bullet and just get the parts you need repaired back to good again because regardless whether you keep the car, sell it or break it, it will be worth more fixed up.

thanks,

and yeah, the plan is to fix it, I don't have time to break it so regardless of whether I keep it or not it makes financial sense to repair it.

I've declared it SORN and cancelled the insurance now - 18 months off the road, 9 weeks back on the road and now it's off the road again

I'm home again at the end of the month and the plan is to get it up on stands and properly assess the damage, just to 100% confirm it hasn't bent any suspension mounting points etc, I'm 99.99% positive it hasn't, although if it has (I can't stress enough how much I'm sure it hasn't, I don't want people thinking the car is bent!!) that would be curtains.

assuming that's fine, I need to get hold of some random spare wheels/space savers to roll it around on while I sort the other wheels out, order a tyre, confirm yes/no on the blown damper and order a new one and go from there

the annoying thing is that the money it's going to cost to repair could have bought a set of forged pistons and rods!!!!

[Gullzter]

It is annoying but let's face it, unexpected things usually happen.. You just happen to be unlucky with what's happened but I'd say very lucky aswell

Either way just stick it to the back of your mind

[C35Rob]

totally agree mate, people have much worse luck than that, and it's only a toy, not like my house has burned down or anything

saying that, I did end up in A&E on sunday after putting my back out, and then I set off a speed camera last night not my weekend!!

[Gullzter]

totally agree mate, people have much worse luck than that, and it's only a toy, not like my house has burned down or anything

saying that, I did end up in A&E on sunday after putting my back out, and then I set off a speed camera last night not my weekend!!

There will be better weekends then

[androo007]

Keep at it Rob.....this one's a keeper. Too nice to ditch now.

[qwakers]

lovely looking car.

im watching this thread with interest

[C35Rob]

well,

I eventually got round to getting the car out of the garage today despite it being cold and not really having the motivation to work on it



this was the first chance I'd had since my little "off" to have a good look at the car, I'd picked up a 3 space savers last week so I could get the wheels off and still be able to move it in and out of the garage.

so.. nothing is bent, all suspension arms are straight and mounting points are perfect, it seems like the wheel has taken the brunt and it's obviously felt a lot worse than it actually is, I'm not even 100% sure the damper is dead (I haven't removed the coilover yet to cycle the damper through it's full stroke) but I have got a replacement damper anyway.

inbetween a huge amount of procrastination today (change oil on compressor, sweep garage floor, clean tools etc) I managed to get the bent wheel straightened

before







and after







and a side-by-side

[img]

I'm pretty happy with how it's turned out - I was dreading having to source new lips for them! they all need to be split down and re-sealed though, so I'm toying with throwing them at my friendly powder coater for a freshen up, maybe pearl white faces and barrels with chrome powder coated lips - I'll mull that over for a day before making a decision

[craig]

Nice work Rob

[androo007]

WOW how the hell dud you do that?

[C35Rob]

WOW how the hell dud you do that?

Think I hit a rock to cause the damage. I straightened it with a hammer and a wooden block, then a rub over with metal polish.

I'll get them spun up on a runout gauge to confirm they're perfectly round/straight when I get the tyres taken off today. I was going to remove the damper but I can't be bothered working on it!

[C35Rob]

well, today did't really go to plan

was putting the wheels in the car to get the tyres taken off and noticed a hairline crack in the front wheel that was bent - balls! it's on an area that has been repaired previously so maybe just a crap repair.




I took them to my powdercoater anyway, he's going to pull the tyres and spin the wheels up to check they're straight and round. once he's done that I'll go back and take them apart , leaving the barrels with him to be blasted, once the old paint is off the barrels we'll properly inspect them and see If we can grind it out and re-weld the crack or if I need a new barrel(s)

the centres are ok so they can stay as they are and I'll re-polish the lips myself.

It's another little set back, but that's life.

[C35Rob]

little update, although nothing particularly interesting

I went and took my wheels apart at my powdercoaters place last saturday, left the barrels with him and took the lips, centres and fasteners home to clean/polish but I've not got around to that yet.

I thought I'd make sense while the wheels are apart to put some fresh tyres on the front - there's nothing wrong with the ones that are on there and they have only covered two or three thousand miles but I wanted something a lot grippier to match the rear tyres so I got a pair of AD08R's in 215/40 r17



I've had some new pre compressor water/meth nozzle holder water jet cut to replace the one I made myself, I'd agreed to make one for another IMOC'er but decided instead to have a small batch made which look more professional, they turned out nice straight off the water jet, I've just deburred the edges a little and tapped the centre hole for a nozzle





If I get bored before I fit my own one I might bevel the edges and polish it up a little, I'm probably going to take my compressor housing into work and shorten the inlet a bit to get the nozzle closer to the compressor wheel over winter, maybe throw a billet wheel in there while I'm at it too..

[androo007]

Ooooo that would be interesting!

I've always assumed / read / believed the Internet geeks that the limit of the stock end is about 330hp before the Ringland gives up.

Bet it's able to be pushed a lot further with the WM kit. Have you been tempted to get a built engine stockpiled for the possible?

[C35Rob]

Ooooo that would be interesting!

I've always assumed / read / believed the Internet geeks that the limit of the stock end is about 330hp before the Ringland gives up.

Bet it's able to be pushed a lot further with the WM kit. Have you been tempted to get a built engine stockpiled for the possible?

it's a big, contentious subject, but power doesn't kill engines, power is simply a product of torque and rpm. nobody can say xxxbhp is the limit because there's so many variables - for example a car that makes (for arguments sake) 400bhp on a big turbo, let's say a gt3582r is totally different than a car that makes 400bhp on a gt2871r, the former will be low boost, low torque, all the power up top and *relatively* unstressed, whereas the latter would be high boost, loads of torque down low and be a lot harder on internals (and a much quicker car)..

detonation kills pistons, one big episode of det is going to create cylinder pressures way higher than what we would consider "high" boost can ever do, and detonation is a product of heat and cylinder pressure, you can manage cyl temps and you can increase octane levels to suppress knock but there comes a point where the cylinder pressure required to make more power will be greater than the stock hypereutectic pistons can handle, but it's going to be different for every engine

I believe ~350bhp is achievable on stock internals, a good map and a squirt of water/meth, the yanks do it regularly. I'm under no illusion that it will last forever, but it's certainly not the ticking time bomb people would like you to believe.

it's the old fast-cheap-reliable adage, you get to pick two..


I have been very tempted to collect parts for a proper engine build, there's been a few times where I've nearly pressed 'checkout' on a big list of parts but I'm not sure how long I'm going to keep the car for, and I'd rather put money towards getting married or redecorate a couple of rooms in the house at the moment (which is actually what I am doing..)

[androo007]

Completely agree - I think you'll be just fine. And boy it looks the business too.

[C35Rob]

my latest purchase -



a billet 11 blade "gtx" style extended tip compressor wheel for my turbo, has the same inducer/exducer sizes as the gt3071 wheel that's in there at the moment so will be a direct replacement, I'm not expecting a huge difference from this really, maybe a little faster spool if it's lighter than the cast wheel, there's definitely more blade area so it'll flow more up top - not that that's really applicable to my set up at the moment but I wanted it so I bought it.

[androo007]

You gonna do a before / after dyno? I'd be really interested to see the results.

[C35Rob]

You gonna do a before / after dyno? I'd be really interested to see the results.

I'd like to get it back on the rollers to properly tune ignition timing, since we didn't get chance last time because the idle control valve packed up. And also it's got the water injection kit running now which it didn't the first time. I'm not that fussed about numbers though, I know the limiting factor of the current set up is the stock bottom end. im sure there's a solid 400bhp in there with a set of forged Pistons, but in reality that's not going to happen any time soon.

[Gullzter]

Glad to see you've got some kick back in this

[androo007]

You gonna do a before / after dyno? I'd be really interested to see the results.

I'd like to get it back on the rollers to properly tune ignition timing, since we didn't get chance last time because the idle control valve packed up. And also it's got the water injection kit running now which it didn't the first time. I'm not that fussed about numbers though, I know the limiting factor of the current set up is the stock bottom end. im sure there's a solid 400bhp in there with a set of forged Pistons, but in reality that's not going to happen any time soon.

Fair enough - although I suspect with your setup you could push higher without the pistons giving in.....

Looking forward to seeing it back on the road again!