With a hefty number of killer wasps, and the theoretical ability to run a fairly quick quarter mile, I left the workshop.
For the last two weeks or so, I’ve been driving around with this “I’m unbeatable” chip on my shoulder, keeping a close eye for any potential races.

Sunday night I found someone, another XR6 Turbo. I was giddy with glee, because I figured he’d at least give me a little challenge, as opposed to most cars on the road.

I knocked the car down a gear, brought up the revs a little, brought up the boost, then let the blow-off valve make it’s noise. He did the same, and it was on.
The result was not quite what I’d expected.

I wasn’t prepared for a loss, it was just something that my ego hadn’t allowed room for. To make things worse, it wasn’t just a loss, I was humiliated.
With the kind of power that this guy must have, I’m surprised he was able to maintain any form of traction. While I was at full throttle, he pulled away almost like I was standing still.

If any good came from this, it’s probably that I’ve lost interest in a repeat performance.

The initial issues had me pretty worried. The coolant leak was a complete non-event, thanks mainly to Mark sourcing and fitting a new thermostat housing for me while I was at work.

The flex plate was a slightly bigger problem, and involved a tow-truck. It was fixed same-day, and since the car has come back, it’s been great to drive.

I’m surprised that the fuel economy is so good. I’m well on track to getting 450k out of the tank. The best I’d got out of it previously is 420k. I figure that on the highways, the improvement would be more noticeable.

Performance seems to be as expected for what’s been done, but hasn’t really been tested. It has a wicked exhaust note, though.

Ten minutes after I picked it up, I had a rupture in the cooling system, a problem that my friend Mark fixed for me on Sunday, while I was at work.

To be safe, I brought the car back to CV, to get them to check it out, and to finish the exhaust.
Car came back Tuesday afternoon, with a pass and a lovely exhaust note.
Tuesday evening, I broke it again. All reports currently point to a broken flex plate (kind of like a flywheel in an automatic).

How badly is it damaged? I’m not sure yet. The tow truck will be here at 10am tomorrow, to pick the car up.

The plan was to put some of the guys on assembly for the car until late-night, and call in an extra guy for Today (being that it’s 1:30am Friday..).

With any luck, the car should be finished around 4pm. I’ve got my fingers crossed. I really don’t want another weekend without it.

It’s now been four weeks since I’ve seen my car, and the longer it goes on, the emptier I feel.
Not even the promise of good performance seems to be cheering me up at the moment, even though everyone says once I put the foot down on the accelerator, everything will just wash away, and I’ll be as happy as a pig in the proverbial.

Work tomorrow until 2pm, then I phone the workshop, see if the car will be done.

I haven’t been informed of what the issue is exactly, but I’m assuming that the stuff-up was when it was sent for waste-gate porting. It makes the most sense to me.

The down side to all of this is that my car has now been gone for a week and a half, and I have no idea when it will be finished.

The up side? CV Performance discovered the issue with the turbo, and have sent it back to get resolved, and I’m not going to have a dodgy turbo fitted to my car.

CV Performance do take their time with their jobs, and honestly, I like it.
When the car has been there, they have always been very informative when I’ve shown up, or when I’ve phoned them about what stage the car is at, what the hold-ups are, and what needs to happen next.

Knowing that the car will be done right is very important to me, and CV Performance truly do leave me with the feeling that they are spending sufficient time checking that everything will be in good working order.

On another note, over the time I’ve been driving the Corolla that I’ve borrowed from Bas I’ve put more air in the tyres, topped up the oil slightly, and topped up the water in the radiator and reservoir.
It’s considerably less noisy now, and it feels much more stable at 100kph on the motorway.
At some point, I’m hoping to have a quick look at the power steering, it’s a bit on the noisy side.

There was a small shipping hold-up with the parts from Process West. Apparently I’m going to be getting a new experimental intercooler, which is similar to their stage three. Instead of being 100mm deep, it is only 90mm deep, and because of this, it needs no modifications to the car to fit it.

I was told that the new cooler has the same flow capacity, and the same ability for heat dissipation as the old one.

Right now I’m a bit antsy about the delays, but the cause is simply a lack of knowing where things are at right now. I don’t do too well when I’m out of the loop, or so to speak.

I’m curious, excited, and a little nervous.

The car feels solid and well constructed all round, no flappy plastic-ey bits.

Performance is as can be expected from a diesel, boring, but it’s very fuel efficient, and on a shade under three quarters of a tank, I drove more than 500 kilometres. Dad says he regularly gets around 650-750 kilometres around town.

The suspension was firm, but not sporty. Cornering did not feel at all boat-like.

All up, if you’re looking for a cheap runabout that’s fantastic on fuel, this is a good car to consider.

The service went without a hitch, as you could imagine. When the time came for them to replace my oil feed line for the turbo, they pulled out the old filter, and unfortunately it had already clogged up, and caused oil starvation to the turbo (evident by the hugely noisy turbo bearing..)

CV’s mechanic made a point to bring my attention to this, even though I already knew about it. Good job on his part, obviously. Can’t have blame falling where it doesn’t belong.

I had hoped that there wouldn’t be much damage, but it was simply too late to work on the issue. The bearing was already noisy when I bought the car, so I’m suspicious that it was already too late back then (seeing that they generally self destruct well before the 100,000 kilometre mark).

So, where to from here?

The car is fine to drive, but the turbo is not going to get any better. Now I need to find $3000 to get the turbo replaced, including labour.

The pipe comes in over the top of the turbo, over a high-heat area.

Ford have a replacement for the pipe these days, but most of the performance shops that I have spoken to recommend an alternative fix consisting of braided line.

With the high heat, when you turn off the car right after driving (with a hot turbo), the oil in there sits stagnant, bakes, and clogs up the feed pipe.
As you can imagine, this restricts the oil frlow to the turbo bearings, and can cause the turbo to self destruct.

I’ve heard of cases where the turbo breaks down after only 60,000 kilometres.
One way of minimising this effect is to keep the car running to allow the turbo to cool down, and perform regular oil changes with good oil.
This is certainly NOT a fix to the problem, however, and I highly recommend having your oil feed line replaced.

My XR6 Turbo is booked in on Monday to have the oil feed line replaced. Hopefully the turbo bearing will not get any noisier.
Being that it’s already noisy, I’m assuming that at some point, I’m going to need to replace the turbo, or at the least, have it rebuilt.

After Monday’s appointment I’ll know a lot more about the health of the turbo, and the health of the car in general. Hopefully the news is not too bad.

I borrowed Alex’s set of sticks to practice with at the beginning of the night, and got the tick-tock down, then started working on the helicopter.

These sticks are going to be a steep learning curve for me, by the look of it. I’ve got a lot of practising to do.

I was greatly surprised when Emily rocked up. Haven’t seen her in about five years, and it was great catching up. Later, at the CourtHouse, I also ran in to Meow (the three of us used to work together at OzeGoth).

I think it’s time to grab the flower sticks from the car, and spend a little time with them.