XR6 Turbo – My first race

Author: Striker

Sep 7

The best laid schemes of mice and men go oft awry.

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.

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XR6 – The bad news

Author: Striker

Jun 22

Yesterday was service time at CV Performance.

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.

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XR6 Turbo – oil feed issues

Author: Striker

Jun 18

With the BA (and possibly BF) series of turbo XR6 Falcons, there is an issue with the standard oil feed line running too close to the turbo.

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.

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Car registration time

Author: Striker

Jun 3

For the last two days, I’d noticed that the car had started pulling to the left slightly. Very un-usual, given this car drives absolutely perfectly.

Last night, as I came out of Cats (the musical), I noticed that the left rear tyre was almost flat. I stopped in at a BP to fill it, and heard the distinct sound of an air leak.

This morning when I got up, I found the tyre flat again, so I drove to the nearest service station (200 metres or so?), filled it, and drove straight to Bridgestone.

I had a bit of a discussion with the Bridgestone guys about my enthusiastic driving style, and it was decided that they would fit their highest performance tyres, the Bridgestone Adrenaline.

My choices were:
235/45/17 – $249 each.
245/40/17 – $395 each.

I took the cheaper option.

The tyres that came off the car also Bridgestone Adrenalines (completely bald), and anyone that’s spoken to me about these tyres knows that I don’t think much of them in the wet, but I was prepared to give the benefit of the doubt. They were on the car when I bought them, and I treated them with utter contempt.

After the tyres were fitted, the car passed it’s rego inspection with flying colours (I didn’t have any doubt that it would, I try to keep it in decent condition).

What do I make of Bridgestone’s top high-performance tyre so far?
In wet weather, it’s fucking useless.
The car does feel a little more stuck to the road around corners, but as soon as I hit the accelerator, it’s all over.

These tyres simply do not have the wet weather grip to put the power (or any power, really) to the ground.

If I drive like grandpa, they’re just like any other tyre, I guess, but that’s not exactly credit. From a standing start, if I try for anything more than light acceleration, they spin.
If I get rolling, and ease on the power, as soon as the boost comes on, they also start to spin.

I really hope that the dry weather performance makes up for what they lack in the wet.

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