Race day results

Author: ViolentCrumble

Sep 1

I’ve wanted to put Violent Crumble down the track for a long time now, and after five attempts to go this year (all of which rained out), tonight was the night.

I’d bragged to my friends, I’d compared dyno figures on cars, weights and estimates, and I KNEW I would be the fastest of us. Hell, I had a feeling in the back of my mind, that I’d be one of the quicker street registered cars on the track tonight.

Unfortunately, that’s not the way things turned out.
According to my friends, I was still quicker than 75% of everything that raced, but I was certainly nowhere near as fast as I should have been.

The culprit? The gearbox. I’ve been warned over and over by pretty-much every workshop that has worked on the car that I shouldn’t race with the standard gearbox because I’ll break it, and so I did.

My run times in order:
13.369@92.44mph (148.77kph) Hit the brakes and slowed down at around 1000 foot.
13.139@96.11mph (154.67kph) Hit the brakes and slowed down at around 1000 foot.
13.131@108.46mph (174.56kph) Stayed on the accelerator the entire run.

I retired after the third run, as there was close to no acceleration in fourth gear, and there was a huge metallic rattling noise in both third and fourth gears.

Congratulations go to Pete who ran a 12.5, and Adam with a 12.8.
Thanks to all the friends who came out to see me race: Adam, Emily, Liam, Meredyth, Travis.
A special thanks to Shannon for being both my crew person, and the talent behind the video camera.

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Filed under: Violent Crumble | Tagged as: drag race, ford, gearbox, Performance and Mechanical, Turbo, XR6

Quick update

Author: ViolentCrumble

Jun 20

While there hasn’t been any real progress this week, I’ve spent some time making arrangements for things.

1. My Telstar TX5 will be moved up to Sydney so that I can drive it seeing that Violent Crumble is going to start spending a lot of time in workshops.

2. Speaking of workshops, I phoned Frankie’s today, and made some plans with Frank for a couple of weeks from now. I’m bringing Violent Crumble down to see them, so they can start on a few ideas, and to make set plans for the first phase of installation. While I’m down there, we’re going to check out some of the other cars he’s done. I’m (not so secretly hoping) that I can get an up-close tour of VIBE Dredd.

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Filed under: General, Violent Crumble | Tagged as: Audio, Frankie's, Frankie's auto electrics, TX5, XR6

New brakes for the beast

Author: Striker

Feb 16

Last weekend, Nick picked up the car from my work, and fitted the new brakes.

I now have RDA slotted rotors, and Bendix Ultimate brake pads fitted to the front. The brake fluid was flushed, too, as the old stuff was looking a bit murky.

Right from the get-go I noticed a little ‘bite’ when applying the brakes, as opposed to the dull results the previous set-up had. It’s now a couple of days later, and while I haven’t had the chance to test the brakes properly (it’s been pissing rain all week), they do seem a lot more responsive than previous.

I’m looking forward to being able to test them properly.

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Filed under: Violent Crumble | Tagged as: bendix, bendix ultimates, brakes, Turbo, ultimates, XR6

XR6 results

Author: Striker

Sep 3

I’ve had the car back for around two weeks now, so it’s probably time I did some out-loud thinking about it.

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.

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Filed under: Violent Crumble | Tagged as: economy, exhaust, exhaust note, flex plate, performance, tow-truck, Turbo, XR6

Another car breakdown

Author: Striker

Aug 18

Well, the XR6 had been gone for around four weeks when i picked it up on Friday just gone.

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.

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Filed under: Violent Crumble | Tagged as: broken, damaged, exhaust, flex plate, tow, tow-truck, truck, Turbo, XR6

XR6 – Progress?

Author: Striker

Aug 13

I phoned CV Performance again around midday Thursday, and my turbo had just arrived.

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.

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Filed under: Violent Crumble | Tagged as: intercooler, performance, Turbo, work, workshop, XR6

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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Filed under: Violent Crumble | Tagged as: bearing problems, broken turbo, noisy turbo bearing, oil feed line, turbo bearing, XR6, XR6 Turbo

XR6 Maintenance schedule

Author: Striker

Jun 7

Having just got the car through rego with nothing more than two rear tyres, I considered myself fairly lucky.

The car is developing a few nigglies, but nothing serious. Driver’s power window is slow. Bonnet release catch falls down. Warping of the material around the shifter.

It’s servicing time, and I’m not happy with the guy at the local service station who last serviced my car, so I’m going to somewhere that does it properly.

Today I stopped by CV Performance, and discussed a maintenance schedule with them.

First work is in two weeks, and consists mainly of a full service.
All filters (including fuel) will be replaced.
Also, the oil feed line to the turbo will be replaced. This is a very common problem in the BA XR6 Turbo, and if the car lives past 100,000 kilometres on the clock without the turbo self destructing, you’re a lucky man.
(I’m a lucky man.. Let’s hope the luck lasts another two weeks)

After the big service/maintenance stop, who knows where we’ll go next

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Filed under: Violent Crumble | Tagged as: CV Performance, falcon, ford, modification, service, Turbo, XR6

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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Filed under: Driving Blog, Violent Crumble | Tagged as: adrenaline, Bridgestone, car, registration, Turbo, tyres, wheels, XR6, XR6 Turbo