Indeed I have been remiss with my updates on the Blog updates which I will rectify before year end.. should manage that yes.
So, bullet point updates
Mustang got entire timing gear replaced and this has resolved the error codes and it drives so much better
GT-R got a run to the great North and Applecross, yippeee!
The summer was terrible weather wise so not a lot was planned and even less achieved so here's hoping for a drier Spring and Summer 2025.
so at some point in the GTR's life it got an alarm fitted with requisite LED and rather than use the coin holder on the dash or even drilling a hole in the dash / steering cover the fitter decided to take out the coin mask from the centre console arm rest and drill a hole in that... Not even swap it with a blank but actually drill a hole right through it. I suppose either way it's unlikely I'd have got the original included but damn what place to put completely out of eye line as well.
So, started off by having the LED moved, it was but left with this
So I've been fighting with a stumbling mis-fire on the old Mustang and this has been going on for about a year now :( First off I thought it dodgy petrol but two tanks of V-Power soon disproved that. I did run a code checker with the trusty Torque Pro Android app and no stored codes. Did the MAF clean, did sparkplug change as it was original ones in there from beginning. Spark plug intervals are 100k but really 5yrs in and you think yeah time for a change. Non of this fixed this issue...
So finally i had a look round and realised I could use Forscan for free if all i wanted to do was read stuff from the car and reset error codes. Got myself a cable and downloaded the windows progam and boom there was the fault P0024. Cam timing issue, bank 2 exhaust cam over advanced. Cue much messed around with Ford who did zero diagnostics but instead swapped the VCT solenoids about and said yeah that's it. Um no, it wasn't as the code was still there and i could hear and feel the same issue as before. So knowing how they'd basically done hee haw digging and allegedly swapped the solenoids but how could we know... went back to another trusted and very busy garage and I bought a replacement VCT solenoid (Ford OEM no less) and actually got it swapped out. Sadly this did not fix the issue. The next stage is terrifying.
This is changing the Cam phaser / sprocket but thats inside the head. To get to one phaser you have to
So yeah what seems like an eon ago i had had the stock oil interwarmer removed and was quite happy about it and then someone hooked up an oil temperature gauge to their GT and measured the results of their oil cooler delete. Yeah, eye opening but there was some concern over the quality of their gauge so we needed a second set of results. I got a fairly basic analogue Stack Oil Temperature gauge and got it hooked up, I should have posted this stuff Dec 2022 then July 2023 but i never so here we go.
Dec 2022 - about 3degC outside air temperature and it's fresh but dry, Exec summary - 90-92degC oil temperature (basically just far enough past the 90degC marker to see the marker, gauge back face then needle) in all steady state driving. Actual driving speed did not seem to make a difference to the oil temperature with the only difference being how fast the oil gets to said temperature and it can take a surprising distance to get up to that temperature. So, 50mph, 70mph for 30 miles give or take the occasional lift and coast for traffic it is the same temperature for the oil at 90-92degC so it's very steady Was also in stop start traffic for 25 minutes and oil temperature stayed the same 90-92degC. CHT on the dash would vary from 95-100degC throughout all the above
Come March ish 2023 the ambient temperature was a bit nicer at 12degC and oil temperature under same conditions as above was 100degC, outside air hotter makes the engine oil work a bit more which is fair enough.
June/July 2023 and boy was it hot here, 23-30degC some days. Brilliant stuff. Well sadly never got the chance to hoof it last summer but 23-30degC ambient temperatures outside and in fairly enthusiastic driving without pushing the revs to the red, the oil temperature never got above 103ishdegC temperature, could see the dial face between the 100 and the needle position. The only time it rose above this was climbing the Applecross (Bealach na Ba) road. Climbing to 2050odd feet above sea level, 25degC weather, air con on (obv!), 20percent gradients, high loads on the engine pulling out of alpine style hairpins (three of them) and constant stop / start / on the power between passing places and blind corners on a single track road. Oil temperature hit 110degC which actually matched the CHT readout as well. TBH most of the time they are pretty close to each other with steady state driving, when hoofing it the oil temperature can be higher than CHT but usually not by much.
So in conclusion, i think for the road in this climate, I'm fine without the cooler. Hoo raa
in its natural habit no ?
yup I have gone and bought an R33 GTR, after the prices have already gone stupid and before they go really stupid (hopefully still upwards to get some cash back to me in the future). Car I'd always wanted after the MR2 but kept the MR2 for so long until it was rusted beyond repair (boot floor was rotten from wheel arches to the bumper) that I thought no more old 90's JDM for me and then full circle here I am.
So why now? Well after my trip to Japan in 2020 for the Tokyo Auto Salon and going to the Daikoku Tokyo car meets, seeing all the JDM cars and tonnes of British / European and American cars as well, the R33 passion was relit and then the pandemic hit. But it has itched away at me since then and while I've nagged various mates about it I didn't really do anything about it til just before Christmas 2022 when i really started seriously looking at options. A few ups and downs later and here we are and I've only gone and done it. Did I need to do it, nope and certainly shouldn't have done it for many many reasons but you do only live once so er yeah why not!
So it's a Series 1, silver (obv) very basic mods of coilovers (too low and too stiff as the car skips over a series of bumps rather than ride them out) lovely Kakimoto exhaust that is not too loud and neighbour friendly ish and some daft HKS mushroom filters. Other than that, stock which is how it mostly will remain. Might update the mp3 CD head unit to a Sat Nav unit but that's a bit more awkward with the single DIN layout. Might just get a plug in Sat Nav display that does the Bluetooth for the phone / music as well. Choice choices.
which to be fair it has been back a few weeks now. Of course it wasn't quite finished even after all the delays as the replacement reversing camera module had not been 'tuned in' to the cars BCM which meant no guide lines when in reverse. After a bit of being mucked about it got sorted during the annual service and now all good.
Even managed to do some basic basic oil temperature testing but with the ambient temperature so low these days it was hardly worth the data but at least i now have a better setup for the gauge to sit. The results of testing in 8-10degC ambient air, at a steady speed the oil temperature sits 90-92degC no matter what that steady state speed is. Good to know, just need warmer weather and some hooning to see what happens next.
..so the day after my last post it was my last day of a winter weeks holiday and I decided since the sun was out I would go for a run in the car to get lunch and fuel the car up. Beautiful blue sky sunny day, not exactly warm but a crystal clear day. Of course it was too good to be true. As I was sitting at a stop light BOOM i got re-ended. Sigh. Bit of damage but nothing hefty or into the frame rails. So, two months later here i am waiting on my car being returned. Time taken for sign off for repairs was a bit, then Christmas shutdown then ordering / delivery of parts and finally fitting. Then the realisation of the wrong parts being delivered so another wait for parts. Sigh.
On the upside I did get a courtesy car 5.0 GT Autobox (A10) Mustang. Yeah, always wanted to try the A10 automatic as it sounds amazing in the youtube videos. Crisp instant gearchanges and with 10 gears it's a close ration box. Yeah, glad i had the opportunity to have an extended test drive of such a beast as I cannot ever see me buying one. Holy moses what a collection of muddled gears and economy programming of the box. More to follow but for sure I'll be happy handing this back.
Stay safe out there folks
The Ford Mustang RHD oil cooler, certainly non Mach 1 cars anyhow, have a small lesser known habit of bursting the water cooled oil coolers which at best is annoying and leaves a mess of coolant and oil mix on the ground and requires a tow home and new cooler (which can and has been proven to do the same trick all over again) or worst case it mixes the oil and coolant together and the first you know of it is when the smoke comes out of the bonnet. This has been known to break engines, completely break them requiring a whole new engine swap. That is not cheap. Not in the slightest. Even during OEM mechanical and drivetrain warranty period there is no guarantee that Ford will replace the engine for you as it is a lesser known issue. Thank you for your custom and goodbye. Of all the parts lying in Fords part bins, they chose that style of oil cooler. That's unlucky, really unlucky.
So what to do. Let us start with what i did and why i did it.
I removed the OEM coolant cooled oil cooler for a Mishimoto blanking plate and sealed up the coolant system a coolant bypass pipe. Why? Well because I do not track the car and it is not very warm very often up here. With 7 and a bit litres of oil flowing through the system and a chunk of that in the sump being cooled by the air flowing past it the conventional wisdom said the oil cooler was not needed. So, before 5yr warranty expired (though see above) I did the oil cooler bypass. And i was happy as the oil temperature gauge in the dash had no difference while in use (nor had it in any of the 10+ cars done before mine) and has been for oo six months or so.
What are the other options out there?
Well one could fit a newer coolant cooled OEM GT RHD oil cooler from Ford but again its the same issue. These things have been known to fail on 5k mile cars or 30k mile cars so um yeah that's a problem merely waiting to happen. Or not. This is the big dilemma.
One thought is to replace the entire coolant cooled oil cooler system with an air cooled system and fit direct replacement coolant bypass pipe to seal up the system. Having seen a few of these designs, one must chose carefully as some fit fairly small oil coolers right in front of the air condenser unit but have issues with oil pipe routing and have broken pipes on cars they got fitted too. Yep, the fix breaks the car, it's rare but it seems to happen. Also, some have reported that the air to air coolers are not big enough but most of these folks are doing track days / autocross which we'll come back to later.
Another thought though does require even more fabrication is to put the oil cooler system from the GT350 or Mach 1 into the GT and voila you have OEM parts fitted that are actually proven. Small issue of the bumper not having appropriate cooling ducts but you know that can be got round if one is going this route.
But the oil cooler isn't needed is it since the onboard oil temperature gauge is behaving no different from before. That's right yeah ? Or is it..
There is an onboard oil temperature gauge and and this has shown difference in readings that deleting the oil cooler makes and replacing it with a simple plate to complete the circuit. Those previously mentioned track cars have however shown that the oil temperature gauge fitted to the cluster is in fact not accurate because it is an inferred reading and not read from the oil itself. This inferred reading relies on the OEM oil cooler being fitted and it has no idea you've done something different and so its algorithm does nothing different and punts out the expected value. This has caused some track addicts to have issues when the Cylinder Heat Temperature rises, which is a directly read value, the oil temperature algorithm does its thing and increases the reading of the oil temperature. It keeps rising as the CHT rises and then limp mode conditions are hit as the car tries to save itself, which is nice. Problem is, these folks have fitted big oil coolers with proper actually reading the oil itself gauges and they are nowhere near the inferred value for the oil temperature.
But what if one is not tracking ones car and is merely driving about well within the limits of the car. How hot does the oil actually get? Does it really need that oil cooler at all?? Is that inferred gauge actually reading correctly. First off, it's a needle going across the sweep, white area for stone cold, green area for normal, yellow for a bit toasty and red for pull over and freewheel for a bit. There are no values for this gauge so it's not anything like an exact science. This is the gauge, cool eh?
So one day not that long ago someone who as done the exact same work as me decided to fit (12GBPound amazon special) oil temperature gauge to his car and go for a run. He did some 30zone stuff, dual carriageway then some shopping (car stopped obv) then some motorway driving and then some town road stuff and home. His oil gauge was showing 120degC within 2miles of starting and then putt putting along the motorway........................ That's not great. 140degC sitting at idle after said run. Holy Moses....
So after much faffing about i got myself a Stack oil temperature sender and gauge and stuck it in the glove box pointing towards me. Not great but so far, 90degC while moving in traffic along the motorway, in normal urban driving ish 90degC also. I have re-positioned the gauge and stuck it (gravity mainly) ghetto style onto the centre console so I can see what is happening while driving. Need to get fuel tomorrow so will do some more checking but until i can wind this thumping big v8 into the upper rev range, I doubt I'll see anything over 90degC. The fact it is like 3degC outside doesn't help either.
Pity the car can't display cylinder head temperature and inferred oil temperature at the same time and nicely within a camera view finder (which i dont actually have) of my oil temperature guage so we can compare everything at the same time. It does make you wonder about that 12GBPound amazon gauge used before..
so yeah a couple weekends ago there was a wee run out with some fellow Mustang owners up to Glen Etive and hopefully a photo opportunity at the James Bond Sky Fall location. Aye well the weather combined with my terrible picture taking ability meant no pictures exist but it was a fab run out. Easy driving using the torque of the Coyote and just casually bend swinging it was pretty cool. Quite a bit of the road has the vultures aka average speed cameras covering the route so overtaking even the slowest moving traffic was pretty pointless, especially when said slow moving traffic tended to hoof it down any straight section of road. Pretty darned annoying on any other open road but with avg speed cameras, meh.
Glen Etive is lovely, never been before though have driven past it a hundred or so times while heading up / down from North so it was nice to make the turn instead of going straight on. Weather was so so all journey up and was actually at an ok state as we neared the turn off. Naturally as we got closer to the spot it all turned into a mist of soaking rain and yep cameras were at risk from drowning along with operators. So after 10 minutes tops of sitting in a handy offroad area we turned around and came back. Was still worth the trip for sure.
Trip home was interesting as it got dark long before the worst of the roads were completed so yeah in the rain, dark and 25W HID's. How exactly did anyone think 25W HID's were acceptable in any car headlight. reversing lamp yes? Driving lamp yes. Headlight? Fck no. They are pish. Utter pish. Fine in perfect weather though still crap but any kind of mist / dust / want to see any distance at all, pish. Luckily that torque we spoke about earlier came in handy and with both hands on the wheel i just followed the car in front and let the engine do the work, from 35ish to 50ish mph 5th gear is surprisingly useable. Not like it's gonna set your pants on fire out of the corner at those speeds but plenty enough to keep the pace going. Anyhow, hopefully next trip out will be in sunshine and daylight would also be nice.
but likely same rubbish content being posted. I do have things to tell you about, variable exhaust fitted, oil cooler delete and maybe a fancy pedal cover. Maybe.
so yesterday was a sunny day and I had a couple of sill plates to give to a mate of mine who stays at the top of Great Glen. So while cash wise it would have been cheaper to post the sills to him I wouldn't have got to catch up with him and it's been 2yrs since i last saw him. Lockdown is also lifted for leisure travel anywhere in Scotland though you can't stay over anywhere. No problem, que 350mile round trip for no other reason that I could. Mustang did the journey nicely, fuel consumption actually wasn't that bad but what a drive.
The engine produces enough torque over the rev range than it was left in fifth and I could just apex to apex and make good progress without bogging the engine or getting all messed up with braking and downshifting. Truly a lovely feeling. Obviously if slower traffic dictated the pace then down to fourth sometimes to stop the engine lugging, yes some folks do actually drive at 40mph and with no overtaking space, everyone else behind then is stuck at the same 40mph!
I didn't buy the car for its economy but knowing it does make good mileage means the 61L tank actually has a decent range in it. Put it this way, fuel consumption on yesterday run was far far better than the commute to work which is a ix of 60 and 30 zones. I was relieved more than impressed if I'm being honest. Road trip up North is just waiting on facilities opening up.
