Sunday 11 October 2009

Can i have chips with that?

The elusive world of 'chipping' now theres a hot bed of discussion that arises each and every day on car forums.

Mine is a car equipped with an OBD-II port much like a lot of cars from the early naughties onwards and it provides you with a means to diagnose and also interestingly,to tune.

Ive spent a lot of time (like i always do),researching facts and figures,opinions and then weighing up all the facts omitted,to conclude what option to take when it came to flashing a new map onto the 220.

Now despite the fact the dreamscience unit seems to be a very comprehensive blighter you cant ignore a couple of key facts.
It costs £500 delivered,its gone out of production from now onwards so future support is limited to non existent,its still generic.

Ive tuned a few cars now to various stages but always emphasised them to be fastroad cars rather than mind shaking track weapons.Mainly cos my budget has never allowed for the mega cash sums required for such toys,but i also appreciate the confine of what its supposed to achieve in every day terms of what the limits of said track car can be too.

I tuned a couple of escorts and on both occasions used a datek unichip to dish out more precise orders.This time round i have taken the plunge into the world of handheld ECU flashing and opted for a bluefin by superchips.

But why use a generic map over custom like a unichip?

Well what i found is you need substancial mods to make sense of a custom map and when you literally bolt on a couple of very low key mods like filters and exhausts,this rarely demands anything so specific.

The only complete worrying variable everyone seems to overlook is the engine build and possible losses thru the build and/or running losses elsewhere.

Hence the time honoured exclamation 'my car made XXX but my mates made XXX' and we are both running the same setup,how come?

So once you have factored in build losses which can be easily explained by the smallest variation in piston size for example,clutch and box condition,binding brakes etc,you can see why a generic map might not cater for all and for some its an actual power loss to s significant degree.

We started our quest many months back by having the cars power measured and compared it with cars on the day that had rolling road runs elsewhere and were making the same power on the day we ran.
Seemed a good 'control' to use and it seems to be as solid as you will get.
We used a hub dyno which obviously doesnt suffer from idiosynchrocies a traditional rolling road does,ie:tyre pressure and strapping pressure.

You can still manipulate a run with braking and a few other little tricks but for the sake of argument,it felt like it was going to be the most accurate figure i will get imo.
And we achieved 240bhp and 217lbs torque.Not a DTC in sight and fuelling was pretty good all the way thru with a minor dip up high and slight rise down below.

So after having this info i have installed the bluefin and tried to take it as objectively as i could.It cost me £234 versus £300 for a lot of flash installs and DS charge £500 for the unit as said above or £300 for a flash install at there HQ in Hull.

It feels lively low down and by god you feel the smoothness of this map across the range.midrange pickup is notable and it generally feels like its shaken off a cold you never knew it had in the first place.

So ok,it was favourable for me but i have heard numerous feedback comments suggesting it hasnt done a damn thing for some others and i still believe this game of chance is down to the above.build losses and anomalies related to mileage,fuel type and quality,mechanical failure etc.

i have yet to roll this car to see how the power has changed but im fully expecting the biggest gain to be the maps delivery of which as said,is stunning.
well worth the £234 but for someone else?? who knows.
It is a game of chance without doubt as generic mapping will always remain hit and miss.

Im not a firm believer that a panel filter and a off the shelf exhaust pulls a decent figure.i think fully enclosed breathing one way or another is the only way to go.
standard box restriction plays a key part as does exhaust systems that arent sufficiently tested for the car as a few milltek owners will tell you on rolling road day.
a decent set of new plugs and leads and no fault codes is a good starting point.
knowing your car completely is also a key way to understand whats happening when you change something too.

I think a custom map on the trusty unichip may well have found a more pinpoint figure but i now weigh up the overall costs and balance whats a sensible outlay and what i will actually get in return.More so than every before as i have spent a crazy amount over the years buying many different filters,exhausts,boost valves....you name it i tried it lol.

had over a dozen rolling road runs with various cars and attended a lot of rolling road club days with different cars and models.Enough to say i can see a pattern forming when it comes to power modifications on naturally aspirated cars.

ie:go get yourself a turbo if you want gains lol

We have seen before and after figures for decats,chips,systems and manifold mods,flowed heads,wild as you can cams,balanced bottom ends complete with lighter flywheels and uprated clutchs and ATB's and you would be very surprised at how dissappointing these figures have been for the large part.

So all i can say is whata i said earlier.know your own car and dont be too upset if it doesnt respond like one in a magazine or your mates car.1/1000 is the going belief to hit a blueprint build by sheer accident lol so no major shock if one engine runs so far under another

Big wheel,little wheel cardboard box!!

Im scratching my noggin trying to make up my mind about the right wheels to go for.
Im down to a couple of finalists for this but cant help wishing this god forsaken wheel size was slightly better catered for.Doesnt seem to be a massive amount of affordable options.

And by this i mean the continental and US import wheels are horrifically priced and er....styled on occasion lol.

So i need 5 x 108 with an ET ranging from 52 right down to 40 at the absolute max but ideally 45.Wheel width not exceeding 8.5" and in some cases with the wrong offset combo,this is still going to cause issues.

Zee germans really do make a mighty fine rim but there either the wrong side of 2 grand or impossible to get hold of.

I think im dead set on 19" wheels but possibly not the RS focus wheels anymore due to them becoming very popular,secondly there actually alot of money when you price up tyres and spacers that are required....and thirdly do they look just a bit too OEM considering the way 220 wheels look anyway?

Yup thats what i thought lol.

Car modification: who do you do it for?

It struck me recently that the whole car modification scene is def not quite straight cut stuff as you once might have thought.

If you ask anyone on any car forum this question 'who do you modify for',you will get an almost unreserved answer, 'i modify for myself,to please myself', followed by, 'If someone doesnt like it then thats there problem not mine'.

But i thought to myself is this actually true?

When you consider a ton of posts on forums where someone asks for your opinion if a set of wheels looks nice? why would you ask if you were only pleasing you?

Ok so you "value" other peoples opinions but isnt this the same thing? Arent you really asking for general approval?

Im starting to believe this is more the case than ever before.
Those who spend 1000's on there cars who compete in modified national events are trying to do something that catches your eye but stay within the realm of what the scene is dictating.

Trend setting is a big thumbs up in my book and taking risks with ideas can only be a good thing.But who gets to say what is cool,nice,tasteful,amazing and whats utter tosh,trying to hard,old hat or just plain tacky?

The whole subject is a double edged sword in my honest opinion.Ive seen it dozens of times and been on the other end of it too.When you show what your doing,what choices you made and you sometimes get an overwhelming thumbs down.

So ok,its not a case of whos right and whos wrong,but clearly you need to respect the fact that a whole community of like minded folk all thrive on each others ideas,passion and forward thinking.

This also works in reverse doesnt it.If you have total approval from bumper to bumper would you still ignore the masses and take it apart and go another route?

I get the feeling the whole subjective attitude to making a car in terms of 'its my car and i modify to please me',isnt as truthful as it once appeared.

There is the outside chance your right and you need to see a project thru so all the parts come together as a whole and it just simply works,simple as that.
And there are cars that regardless of the mega cash that went into them,the owner just had zero taste whatsoever and no amount of telling them cuts it lol.

So amongst us all there is a dying breed of modders who really are switched onto there own taste and wont care for any outside remarks.To the point of taking it very personally indeed.Like the car has become there one and only means of expression and therefore deeply personal for it.

I cant knock that cos i can relate but it obviously opens a can of worms cos some replies arent as kind as they could be despite the culture for open forum discussion.

I have asked once perhaps twice for suggestions over a part for a car ive owned and both times i came away feeling it hadnt changed what i wanted or my opinion of where i was going for the final projects look.

I think its fair to say you need to flesh out all your ideas in once form or another to learn for yourself whats good or bad.Even if several hundred people are screaming 'dont do it'!! lol,sometimes learning the hard way,is the only way.

Having chewed the fat over it im still not convinced we all modify purely for us.
Im of the belief now that you do seek some approval for what you strive for.
Even the merest recognition that you hit the right spot usually does the trick.

And yes,it is a very personal expressive thing to modify a car and christ knows why it becomes so serious but it does.From the choice of spark plugs right up to big custom bumpers and foreign wheels no one knows about.

Detailing Vs the valet

The whole concept of car detailing has def made its presence felt over the last couple of years.Never has there been a time when washing a damn car been so involved and comprehensive.

There is a product for every single inch of a car and taking into account the wide variety of paints,plastic types,tyre compounds and variety in trim build,you can begin to see why it is known as detailing.

So where does the valet end and the detail begin?

Its def throws a few questions into the mix such as,'what have i been doing wrong all these years' and 'is this just another marketing ploy for the big wig wax companies to make big cash'?.

I think to some degree its been motivated by those in the trade,those on the shp floor so to speak in the valet world that have demanded more and there customers some of which have spent several hundreds of thousands of pounds on exotic metal,that require a more time consuming specialised end result.

But the difference between a £25-40 valet from the local eastern blockers and a £90-150 basic wash detail is actually quite staggering so i have found out for myself.

Technique,tools for the job,products and knowledge cause a clear divide between the two houses of all that is 'wash'.


What got me into the deeper side was hearing so many misnomers and silly mistakes being made,assumptions that a product will do this and that or how many hours someone has spent and the end result isnt great.
I was extremely guilty of being in this division and through pure learning and a passion to take things up a notch,i largely found out for myself in my own time,with my own targets.

the most common misconception is the actual terminology on the basic level and what you actually need to do to make products work.

The time old T-cut is still proving to be popular but scarely no one uses it correctly and then perhaps not every one is full aware of what its make up is and what its actaully doing.

Ive heard all sorts of strange things like 'leave it on the car and it will burn your paint', 'use loads of it for a faster job'....'doing it all the time strips your paint'..

ok,so the last one has a smidgen of truth to it but perhaps this applies more to the single stage paints that modern paint packs.

Polish itself is an essential tool and when you use very little,work for very long and recognise most polish in halfords contains a lot of fillers,you will see a good result and know why.

Fillers and masking agents arent a dirty word either.poorboys much loved blackhole is essentially polyfiller for paint work as is the slightly more demanding autoglym super resin polish.

But these are essential tools of the trade as retaining a swirl free finish after say,a paint correction day,isnt as easy as it sounds.

And some all in one products really stretch the boundaries of truth claiming to paint clease,polish and wax at the end!??! seriously you wont find an all in one that effectively ticks all 3 boxes.

But anyway back to the top.

If you could get everyone who loves this side of car care to try a few more daring products,you would see a big shift in product availability and this would start to show itself in the highstreet stores.

Sadly most of my time is spent directing people to websites to obtain the best stuff.
but we are winning the war with the little battles.

The adage you get what you pay for certainly applies to this arena.Just be careful you pick the right people to undertake the job or better still,learn and do yourself.

Friday 9 October 2009

Along came another Dodo, V2 The story continues

After much searching of the classified car pages of which there are a considerable amount, i came across an ST220 that was literally calling my name from afar.

We had paid a couple of visits to some 'perfect examples' only to find a lot to be desired was putting it lightly.A category D with a lot more to tell than its insurance prefix was the final straw for me.

Its always a child like feeling when entering into the shady world of car purchasing.
For one, you feel lost with no current car!, you are giddy and over excited about the prospect of getting what you want.A little akin to writing a xmas list and finding most of it under the tree.

And the immature way a lot of us buy cars where you need to compose yourself to take it all in and not end up with an over priced lemon.

Somewhere in Surrey there she was....

A 2002 model which at first wasnt lighting my touch paper,but as i dug deeper we were looking at a very special example.
It was showing a mere 25k miles and every inch of it inside and out,every nook and cranny backed this up.
It felt tight and new on the test drive.Razor sharp steering compared to the slightly more loose feeling of the older mk2.

And by god it did shift!! Plus its a saloon model which really did it for me.
Something about the mk3 shape that for me doesnt compliment a hatchback gate but totally suits the lines of the car with a saloon backside.

Not an inch of the car was modified and this is strangely comforting to me not only because you have your blank canvas,but you can also relax knowing the odds of it being hammered around town doing 'look at me' noisy parade laps is distinctly less than a fully kitted out car.

So the first thing on mu agenda was to detail it for the first time in its life!!

It had clearly seen a few car washes but this is never a big problem to rectify.Much deeper wounds def are and i would leave very deep issues to a body shop,but for actual nose to tail condition,it was looking very sharp.

I set about debadging,modifying the front lights with the now classic black eye look,enlisted the help of a very good friend who kindly lowered the car on PI srings much like he did on dodolly blue 1!!
It was Deja vu for Kev all over again...and again...

I love making all the small but worthy modifications because as a sum of the parts,this you can see all over nicely in a truly subtle way that doesnt actually scream 'modified car' at any point.

It may be a tad louder once the wheels finally go on next year but im keeping the style and choice a closely guarded secret for the sheer fear of duplication somewhere else lol.

Seen it happen so many times to so many people and it takes the jam right out of your doughnut lets just say!

We installed Bluefin to the cars ECU this week gone.Have to say its a nice inclusion to a rock solid engine.We already have a good 240bhp to work with and i dare say its a few nags more now,but the biggest thing you notice and adore is the way it transforms the drive.

Much more levelled power,smoother gear changes as the power seamlessly moulds thru to the next gear and onwards.

We have ourselves some big plans for the car and the list is very long.Im hoping that by next show season,ill be most of the way there provided i keep doing the overtime that is...