What have you done to your car lately?

[Raisin]

You don't need to use it, I haven't on mine and I'm using a TX Autosport phenolic gasket kit, which is two gaskets, plus a 6mm thick gasket shaped insulator. Idea is that it keeps the manifold cooler by not transferring as much heat from the block to the manifold, thus keeping intake temps down.

That's not to say you can't use sealant if it helps you sleep at night. Usually, I'd only use it around where any water galleries are present, which there aren't on the Z20LET manifold.

Cool, yeah I won't then.

I tried installing the short shifter today and I can see why you said it's a bitch of a job. I eventually got the pin out, but then the little circlip for the left/right pivot cable faces away from you when it's on the car so I was fighting with it completely blind, in a spot too small to fit my hand properly. Eventually I used a small spanner to pop it off from the open end, but then I dropped the damn thing and it didn't fall through to the ground. So I spent about 30 minutes trying to find it without success. Then the sun set so I couldn't see anything anyway, so tomorrow I'll try take the left front wheel off and see if that provides any better access to find it. If not, I'll have to find a suitable replacement.

[Elliot_O]

Try and find a magnet or something to suck it up from wherever it fell too I guess, good luck!

[Raisin]

Try and find a magnet or something to suck it up from wherever it fell too I guess, good luck!

Yeah I've got a little telescoping magnet retriever thing that I was using. Hopefully I'll have better luck tomorrow.

[DJM83]

Removed the Plasti dip from my wheels with great success, without even removing the wheels.

[mylifeasbenjamin]

Removed the Plasti dip from my wheels with great success, without even removing the wheels.

Hey man,
How was it as a wheel coating? I have literally just finished painting mine with the plasti dip..
Cheers

[DJM83]

Hey man,
How was it as a wheel coating? I have literally just finished painting mine with the plasti dip..
Cheers

It worked well mate, it was applied with a spray gun, did 4 passes with black, then 2 passes with metalizer. Then a couple of clear. One thing that did annoy me is it is hard to keep the shine up to em, brake dust easily beds into the coating. I should have taken a pic after it was removed the wheels were covered in dust.
It held up well though, the wheels on my car can be a PITA to clean, you just need to be careful cleaning them as it has a tendency to peal away from edges if provoked.
It was good while it lasted, ill be due for new rubber sometime soon so it was time to come off.

Make sure you apply plenty cause if you dont it will be a bitch to get off, even on mine whilst it was somewhat painless to remove there were some spots where it was thin.

[SilentShout]

Contemplating if i should keep or scrap the turbo. Opened it up and the inlet impeller has made contact with the housing causing it to have a very very small lip. Unsure if it would effect performance or not. Theres no in and out play and the turbo wasnt blowing smoke when it was taken off the car so im told.

Heres some pics:

Housing



Impeller



Thoughts?

[andrew]

is there any side to side movement? anyway I would say scrap it because if its done it once it will do it again, it would be bad to see all that work to turbo the car and that turbo fails and causes more damage to the motor then the turbo worth.

[SilentShout]

I was planning to rebuild as there was lateral shaft play which is expected for a turbo from the early 90s more shaft play then id like but not enough to touch the wall from what i can see. Then again im not observing it at 100k rpm.

So far im thinking scrap over rebuild as the exhaust housing has some fairly lengthy cracks in it too which is expected on an old turbo but better to play it safe.

I liked this one particularly as the inlet housing rotates infinitely to any angle i want making it easy to adjust for the car.

Might look into a t25 garrett or even a t28.

Other thought is either a td04 or tf035 from a forrester but the housings are at wierd angles because boxer engine.

[chris_r]

You can make the Corsa VXR K03 turbo manifold fit easy enough. I think Courtenay's do one that's been modified to use the Astra K04. Then again, I'd much prefer Garrett turbochargers, after seeing first hand what the K03s were like on the iLoad.