GTR boot lid struts replacement

 so yeah the boot struts in the GTR were long past their best and quite frankly damned dangerous! The trip to Applecross confirmed i really needed to do something about it cause the lid one again tried to de-capitate me haha. So, the struts (all 30yrs of existence of them) had long cried enough and because the boot latch sticks proud of the bottom edge of the boot, when that lid comes down it's really gonna hurt if your head is still in the boot, getting the sleeping bag as it was in the this case.

Now Nissan in their infinite wisdom chose to fit closed socket joints on one end of the socket with a welded bracket at the other end to secure them to the lid. Why oh why they did this is likely another reason why as a company they are struggling to keep going. Anyhow, to replace these struts involved 2 options

• remove the two entire strut and boot lid attachments and send off to get new struts attached
• buy replacement struts and then cut off the old ones with a Dremel and hope the bracket supplied actually works

However a problem with many replacement units in that they are a touch shorter than OEM fitment with the result the boot lid doesn't open as far as OEM. Might not be a problem in real world but doesn't seem like a good starting point to limit how far the lid opens and risk smacking ones head into said boot lock latch. So after much searching and procrastination I found Up Garage USA and their full height strut replacements. They also had a handy video for getting the bottom socket off the car without resorting to a cutting disc. Far safer for sure, just use plenty of lube and take your time.... A lesson for life maybe heh heh?

Anyhow, I actually did this mid May just didn't post it. 

Boot lid opening

I also replaced the petrol flap spring as i was having to open the flap using the end of a credit card, again didn't post it at the time

Fuel flap release

Haven't done much else, I did try replacement clocks for the dash but they didn't work so back to the current ones. 

Passenger side front moulding fix

when i bought the GTR it was in pretty good nick but there were a few things needing done to make it functional. Fuel cap didn't release properly, boot lid struts were definitely dead and the front passenger side mudguard moulding was hanging off the wing. Not a huge deal as you can see below but annoying enough. 

As part of the slowly slowly building up the car to be 'fixed' but standard I had bought some body clips to get the issue fixed but on checking the car the mechanic found that although I needed the body clips I also needed the moulding clips as well to allow the two wing and moulding to fit into each other. This was put on the back burner for a while as basically I was lazy. Fast forward a year or so and I started looking for the clips for the mouldings. I couldn't find them anywhere as a stand alone part though i could buy a complete set of clips for all the body mouldings but it was kerching.... Anyhow, I did a bit of asking around on the forums and somehow managed to find a part number which then lead to another of those GTR ownership moments. Yep you can get the part brand new in the UK / EU but kerching! So i searched the Japanese market and lo there were at a more sensible price and with postage to the UK I could get few clips for less than the price of one sourced locally. As it turns out, handy I did buy a few...

So with the clips in hand and about 5 months after I had actually received them today i tackled the problem. Moulding clips below and a spare body mount as well.

Since I do not have access to ramps at home a supplemental tool was required to locate the screws holding the bottom of the moulding to the car.

Doesn't have to be fancy it just needs to work :)  So underbody fasteners removed (two of) and the two wing mounted fasteners removed

Pull the moulding off and tada there you have it. What this first picture doesn't show you is there are three body clips required

and it was only when I looked at the car itself that I noticed the three body clips looking all lonely for a moulding clip to fit

Another quick look at the moulding and yes there is the third clip position to match the body. Luckily i had bought more than the one clip I thought I needed. Zero clips in place originally (well from previous owner), no wonder it hung a bit out in the breeze eh ? So, three brand new clips in place and now to squeeze it back onto the car.

All back together again and matching the drivers side. Job done and knuckles and tools intact.

Spring Break run to Applecross

 so the weather was forecast to be dry and sunny daytime but cold cold at night. At first I'd booked a wee camping spot but then quickly realised that was a stupid idea and upgraded myself to one of the cabins in the Applecross Campsite. Brilliant wee things, the one i booked was for two folks but they all have big thick foam mattresses either 2 or 4 depending on cabin size, a light inside, light outside and a heater! The also have at least one power point in them for charging phones etc. Cracking deal, highly recommend it. 

So I'm not one for taking tonnes of pictures but I took a few.

Run down the north side of the Pass of the Cattle, purpose built layby with viewpoint and good photo op

Got to the Applecross campsite and unpacked the sleeping bag(s) and sorted out the mattress. What that lurking in the background there?

After getting everything sorted in the cabin, time for some beers in the sun while drinking in the view. Then I walked to the Inn for some more beers, bit of chat and some dinner. Right outside the campsite I met these two just happily grazing on the local grass

This is the view from the seats outside the Applecross Inn and is mighty fine to sit outside when the weather is warm however don't be fooled by the sunny view here, it wasn't exactly warm by this time of the evening as the chill in  the May weather was beginning to bite. Still, it is warm and dry and cosy in the Inn

After a fine fish and chips, time for the walk home and what a view at night

Next morning set off early after a shower and headed for breakfast at the Waterside Cafe in Loch Carron. A mighty fine warm sunny morning it was so breakfast outside it was. Views and a fry up with the Bru, perfect.

After that mighty feed it was back into the car and heading for home. I will have to change my route to get home and potentially the route up there as the traffic was pretty bad and almost no opportunities to overtake safely. Far too many cars / vans on the road and it was a long trip sitting behind folks. I did however manage and avg of 25mpg which for the GTR is a poor reflection or my driving haha. Should be into the low 10s' :) 

Mustang no more

 Indeed the time came to move on from the Mustang and into the so far unforaged field of the 4 or 5 door vehicle. Sigh. So anyways, couldn't decide what i wanted and short version, i got a Kia Stinger. 20plate with low miles on it so here we are. Got a decent trade in for the steed so can't complain.

MOT passed, yippeee

 indeed the GTR has passed its MOT, couple weeks ago actually but hey ho all done. Summer oil and filter change completed also, car given the once over and now just for decent weather....

Wheel Alignment and first run of spring hopefully not the last

 indeed yes it was a bit busy a week or so ago. So got the GTR alignment all done, I thought it would be easy enough to do as it was done last year so everything should have been moveable but cars being cars there was always going to be one eh ? Anyhow, everything that could be adjusted from factory was indeed adjusted and then it was just down to testing it. 

Quick recap. Sometimes the car had a tendency to crab left under braking and while it wasn't causing big issues it certainly wasn't by design. So, new tyres fitted, alignment (re)done just testing required. 

As luck would have it a beautiful sunny day came along and like a child at the beach I just dove (drove??) straight in. Fabulous day, air con on, sunnies on RB26 singing away and on first drive everything was working just nicely. Bearing in mind this is the cars first proper run since being laid up for Winter, tyre fitting and alignment aside. Brakes seemed fine, engine seemed fine, TEINs rock solid but not clanking so I guess working ok. Anyhows, plooting along a favourite road of mine, going a lot further down the road than I thought I would be going I discovered they had over the winter re-laid a rather large section of road and now instead of resembling the moons surface the road is billiard table smooth. Ya dancer!

While driving south I passed an old style iron bridge and I've always thought that pictures with bridges and cars in them are just amazing. So on the homeward journey back I managed to grab a couple of snaps though obviously I still cannot take good pictures so here they are.

and from the other side

New tyres fitted - GTR

 so the march towards getting the GTR ready for spring / summer progresses, not at the quickest pace but better than last year that's for sure. As it still has the stock 9x17inch wheels i plumbed for 255x40 same as fitted by previous owner but Michelin PS4 tyres and all four corners replaced. I would have gone 245x45 as per spec to get a slightly higher rolling radius to help the front splitter but remembering the MR2 and it's 245x45 on a 9inch width, it just looked a bit stretched and with our potholed roads we need all the rim protection going. 255x40 just looks nice on the rim so there it is. Next stop, alignment then see it if still tracks a bit under braking.

Approaching spring time - list of things to do

 so yes spring is around the corner and we must prepare for this time of year. Normally that'd mean gardening stuff but in fact I am talking about car stuff. Specifically the GTR as its MOT is due mid April... Squeaky bottom time.

So to prepare for this event I decided to awaken it from its winter slumber and do some really basic checks like

• does the car actually fire up - it did and sounded fab
• does anything leak out of the bottom of it - nothing did
• is there a burning smell  - no there is not

So once the above was done I figured while I'm here I'll check the lights work and boom it happened. Passenger side low beam comes on and then fades away... GTR headlight bulb change is a bumper off shot in most cases. Sigh. 

Anyhow I check the fuses (in the rear boot shelf in case anyone wonders) and fuses are fine so we're looking at the bulb. So after much swearing I remove the airbox snorkel and have a squint at the bulb and I reckon I can get my small hands in there and get the case off and the bulb out. This is what it looks like

Not the biggest amount of space to work in but I managed to twist the plastic bulb cover off, release the spring holding the bulb in, thankfully the light unit does retain the spring and then get the bulb out. Quick test on the multimeter and yep bulb is toast. Luckily when I bought the car they had left a headlight bulb in the car and luckily i knew where said bulb was stored. Tested the new bulb (H1 55W in case anyone wonders ) with the multimeter and it seemed ok so plugged it into the wiring, shoved it back into the light unit and pushed the spring clip back over the bulb end. Moment of truth and both headlights now working fine, even the same shade of light on the garage door. Hoo raa. I wont bore with the details of trying to get the damned plastic screw on cap back on the headlight anything like that other than it really was a pain in the fingers and arms. 

The list of jobs to do before spring driving season include but not limited to

• new tyres to get fitted - ordered some Michelin PS4 which should be plenty grippy for me
• get tyre alignment done - tba
• get the floor inspected and any underseal top up done - tba but process started
• oil and filter change 
• MOT booked and er deal with any issues..

think that's it really.

R33 GT-R news and a run oop North

It has finally happened! Managed to get a dry weekend and meet up with a fellow petrol head and hit Ullapool and Applecross for a wee drive. It was brilliant. Such fun driving about up there, weather was perfect bar a small cloud / mist type thing for about 10miles but damn it felt just right flowing the cars through the corners up there. I'm not going to lie. I did have in the back of mind that this 29yo JDM vehicle might not be the best for those roads esp sitting on coilovers that are pretty stiff but not like I had a choice at that point and these are the roads this car was made for and certainly what I bought it for.

Now I must mention the Spring Service that was done during the MOT / timing belt change. So the timing belt was due for replacement by age rather than miles. We had no idea when the last service had been carried out, when fluids were changed yada yada but we did know 5th gear didn't like being shifted into when the box was hot. Not at medium to higher rpm anyways which made joining motorways and shifting into 5th a somewhat noisy and expensive sounding process if not done really really slowly. So the decision was made, easy really that we'd get everything changed and dear lord was that some shopping list.

Alt belt, Air con belt, Power steering belt, timing belt, tensioner for said timing belt, water pump previously confirmed as not needing replaced, engine oil and filter, power steering fluid, brake fluid, front diff fluid, gearbox fluid, transfer case fluid, rear diff fluid, HICAS steering fluid, new brake pads all round. Got all that done plus the MOT plus putting in the stock airbox and getting rid of the HKS mushroom super intake kit. Horrible thing. Anyhow, here is the new airbox snorkel and the 2nd hand airbox I managed to source

Yeah I know not very exciting but it works very well to way above what I'll ever run the car at and pretty much can ignore changing the filter for a long long time!  The great news from the service was that the coolant was also changed, cause it was manky as and the gearbox fluid change also got rid of the crunch into 5th gear. Still needed testing at higher rpms and after the car had had a good run out. Road trip you say eh? Sadly the weather from April to er September was shocking. I mean terrible, lucky to get three days dry in a row and then it was all hands to the garden to either enjoy having one and or do grass cutting weeding tidying up. Not a lot of driving was done at all, total let down. Then one September weekend stood out on the weather forecast. A plan was envisaged, contacts were reached out to and a plan was hatched. ROAD TRIP! A one nighter to Ullapool and then the Applecross and home. 

So the plan was, if the weather forecast held that we'd scoot to Ullapool on the Saturday and stay overnight before doing Applecross on the Sunday and heading home our separate ways.

Previously I was debating whether or not to change tyres on the GT-R as the ones on it were and are a bit old. Like really old but because the weather had been quite frankly mostly sht I'd not bothered my butt about it and now in 5 days I was heading on a near 700 mile road trip. Aw baws. After much humming and hawing over grippy tyres versus something that's good enough for summer / dry days driving I'd chosen and ordered tyres. I not only chose badly but i also chose the wrong fitting place. They delayed the fitting by a day and then on the day they'd picked they then couldn't fit them in the allotted time slot. Leave it with us and come back, we'll them fitted for you. Aye right, that doesn't suit my lunch break and how am I supposed to get home and back again so that was canned. Cue many a frustrating call to the suppliers and the short version is, I was going on the tyres already on the car. Naturally when I woke up on the Saturday I was raining here. Grand, just grand. Forecast said the destinations where going to be dry and sunning so stuff it, we're going!

Once I was about halfway up the loch side the sun came out and the aircon was working fab. Car felt good and the gearbox and tyres were all keeping me rubber side down. Stopped for petrol halfway up and bought a bit of of a packed lunch for eating in a loch side parking area. Once back on the road north the weather was a bit so so and not exactly the brilliant sunshine I'd had til then. Met up with my mate on the road to Ullapool and he confirmed it was beautifully sunny at Ullapool. Right then, what we doing in the mist, lets go go go.

Onwards to Ullapool for an overnight camp and then the run to Applecross. Slightly nervous about the run and all the single track roads, the bumps the potholes and that damned front splitter over the crown of the roads and the many weird and wonderful undulations and of course having to move slightly off-road to allow other oncoming vehicles to pass. Well there were a few scrapes of that front lip and definitely some heavy braking moments to scrub off the speed before hitting the bumps / pot holed road but yeah the car and me made it with only a few er interesting moments. 

So, the Applecross is like, well this is the sign that greets you as approach it from the south 

Yes, that is 2053ft summit and hairpins. Oh yeah, we do all remember the GT-R's ae part time AWD yes ? So my thoughts were, please god do not fail me now and also wonder what the AWD is going to do when i try and hoof it out of the hairpins. The good news is that the AWD is quite happy for one to drop into first gear, get the car half way round the hairpin and then give some beans and lo the front drive kicks in and car hauls out of the corner and up the hill. Ah bliss. It is the simple things that amuse us.

So, can you in a Nissan even a 29yo model. Yes it turns out you can. Happy days.

Amazing, absolutely amazing. Time was a marching on at this point as we'd been delayed getting out of Ullapool so the decision was made not to head onwards down into Applecross for lunch at the pub but to head back down the way we'd come and grab lunch in Loch Carron if possible, it being a Sunday and all. It all worked out grand and then we scooted south for the run home and discovered pretty quickly that we weren't going to have the fuel to do the distance we thought we'd need to. I couldn't really understand why I seemed to have a quarter tank less fuel that I expected but I also wasn't going to argue and see if it was right so the choice was made and we changed our route to go 10miles further south than intended to where we knew we could get fuel. Yeah it turned out my gauge was lying to me but at least it wasn't going to cause me to run out fuel with a quarter full showing on the gauge. A winter time investigation I think. So we doubled back slightly, got onto a very lovely road only to be stuck behind some traffic that was stuck behind a bus that would not pull over into the passing passes. I mean really, that's just no on sir! Anyhow, we did the required turn and got some clean fresh roads and off we went and when the time came we waved our goodbyes and a flash of the lights and we parted towards our respective homes.

So, some 650miles later over two days of driving and I felt grand, no back pains no legs pains but i did have some ankle pain but that's to be expected with using the three pedals in the car. The GT-R seats are the best I've ever had in a car. I there are not the easiest to get in and out of but for the job of keeping you in place while driving and being comfy? Oh yes, beautiful to be sat in. Bliss indeed. 

Mustang P0024 VCT Bank 2 finally fixed.

So yeah, pretty 14 months after noticing the problem and getting it fixed which is pathetic really but sadly I didn't want the engine opened up unless it absolutely needed to be. Now this is on me and also Ford UK cause I did put into them for diagnostic and a fix but instead they took the easy option and just swapped parts about and didn't really bother doing any investigative work. That then lead to merry dance around what they had actually done since the problem was still there despite Ford saying no it's not. Cue one return trip to their workshop and they confirmed the error code was back.

So another garage another trip(s) and the end up we decided change the whole damned lot in the timing gear as we didn't know what was wrong and once you start taking off the valve covers and timing casing, you are not going to change just one component at a time. So, new timing gear the works ordered from US of A, cause it was so much cheaper and then car booked in. During strip down it was discovered that the secondary chain tensioner was not holding pressure and could be compressed by hand whereas the other three tensioners were pretty much minimal deflection. Now I have to say at this point there is some conjection as to whether this was a fault since the engine wasn't running and therefore no oil pressure being fed to the tensioner but the other three were fine and no other component was found to have any obvious fault with them. Once the engine was buttoned all back up it ran fine, just like stock. No stumbling on acceleration after gear change at lowish revs, much more responsive at lower rpm, nicer to drive in motorway traffic, much easier to pull out of junctions as the engine wasn't dying when the clutch was being engaged. 

So what had been happening before with the cam timing not working as it should be I had much lower torque (seat of the pants feeling) requiring more rpm to pull out of junctions, accelerate from speed (under 4krpm anyways) and it sounded like a misfire when applying the throttle. The code flung was a P0024 which indicates the VCT wasn't working on Exhaust Cam Bank 2, this is the left hand bank of the V as you sit in the drivers seat facing forward. 

So lesson to be learned, don't assume the error code is the fault, it is an indication of what is happening not what caused it. As a side note on this, Ford USA had an issue with the secondary tensioners er not tensioning and they released a updated part which is shorter than the original fitted to the 15-17 V8's. This caused much panic when the original ones in my engine came out and the new ones were lined up but indeed it was all good. 

Side note number 2. Ford USA had a recall on a batch of GT350 motors because secondary chain tensioners er weren't and they were compressible by hand while in the engine, in fact some actually failed completed and collapsed into their housing and took the entire engine with them. Lucky I didn't pound my engine while VCT fault code was around.... oops.

It's been a while.

 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. 

Fixing the GTR spare / blank / coin cover

 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

luckily I had this already sitting waiting for the moment

side by side for comparison

and finally in the car. Easiest fix done yet ha.

It's a funny old world

 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 

• remove both valve covers
• loosen the sump
• remove the single piece timing cover
• remove the primary chain if not both primary chains
• remove the secondary chain for the bank you need
• remove the VCT solenoid for the cam you want
• remove the cam with the issue
• replace the phaser / sprocket
• re-assemble in reverse order

Now you can see straight away there is an issue. If you have to take the timing cover off and a primary chain possibly two depending how they are setup, you have all four phasers and all four VCT solenoids siting there looking at you. You have both Primary and Secondary timing chains sitting there looking at you. You have many chain guides sitting there on the floor after you removed them to get to the above. So yeah, as much as it hurts you do it right you do it once. All the timing gear is getting swapped out and new seals for timing and valve covers plus it'll require the coolant radiator being removed to get the extra space to work on this. Kerching... Oil change as well then eh since the sump has to get dropped.

GT-R news. Well it got all new belts, all new fluids, all new brake pads (disks were fine), wheel alignment done, couple of electrical things tidied up, OEM airbox fitted and then it's rained pretty much every day since! Oh, it got MOT'd as well. No issues.

Happy days.

That old OEM oil cooler issue..Part 2

 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

er so I bought one lol

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. 

Something wicked this way comes..

 well actually it's already here....

The car is back

 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.

It is a funny old world for sure

 ..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

That old OEM oil cooler issue..

 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..

Small road trip to Glen Etive

 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.