567 replies to this topic

[Barbbachello]

Bit more of a road trip than BBQ this year. Meeting up in Tumut, heading down to camp on the alpine hwy, then up into bright via the Murray then over Mt Bogong and up into Mitta MItta

[El_Freddo]

That’ll be awesome. See if you can slip that road between Mansfield and Whitfield in. Beaut drive with some great scenery!

Enjoy!

Bennie

[Barbbachello]

Thats the exact way we'll be going on the way up to Tumut the night before

Leaving early on the wednesday, meeting in Yea, then mansfield then back onto the Hume to Holbrook for the night

[Barbbachello]

Take 2 at a set of alloy trailing arms from a gen 4. This time they have already been drilled out to fit a gen 3 ABS sensor (turns out you can do that btw). Scored them for $10 and about $120 landed at this stage

[El_Freddo]

That an awesome score for that price, even including the freight! What would the y worth locally to someone who knows what they are and wants them?

Cheers

Bennie

[Barbbachello]

Probably $2-300. Useless to a gen 4 person now with the oversized holes

[Barbbachello]

Another big trip under the belt 

Set off wednesday afternoon up the hume and across to Yea where i met up with a mate who promptly needed to check his engine.


We left Yea and headed to Mansfield then north up to Wangaratta via some twisty roads. Only had to dodge 2 Kangaroos and 1 Magpie. Was quite hot and sticky but thankfully had the aircon regassed and works an absolute treat. Stopped (and got spotto'd) just outside Albury for a fuel up

Headed into Albury for a pub feed as we were in town during daylight hours for once. Left albury around 8:30 just in time for a MASSIVE storm to come in. Constant lightning and horizontal rain for 45 mins to Holbrook. Thankfully made it without dying and checked into the motel for the night

Left Holbrook via the bakery and headed to Tumut to meet up with the rest of the group. Met up with everyone, did some grocceries for a night in the bush and headed for the Snowy Mountains. The route was along the Snowy Mountain Hwy, up the mountain to 3 Mile Dam for a look the along the top and down onto the Alpine Way for a night at Geehi Campground. Stopped for some looks at dams and lakes etc





Had a bit of a sleep in after probably a few too many beers and fireball whisky shots and headed back up the Alpine Way to Corryong for breakfast, then along the Murray River Rd.

Across Lake Hume and down into bright for a night in a motel and a shower.

Following morning we left Bright and headed over to Falls Creek via Mount Beauty etc


Over the top of Falls Creek and down the other side via the Bogong High Plains road. Absolutely roasted the brakes coming down but awesome bit of road. From there down to Anglers Rest for a pub feed in the middle of nowhere then back up the Omeo Highway to Mitta Mitta. The omeo highway is like 100km of spaghetti dropped on the side of a mountain. My car with its big turbo is completely unsuitable but made the best of what i had and got to the end eventually lel. Once in Mitta Mitta we found the caravan park and set up for the night. Had a fantastic spot next to the river


It was here i found some hard ground and jacked up the car to chase a clunk that had gone from very rare and random to constant at 5kmh. Found the front gearbox crossmember bolts worringly loose. Zipped them up and neglected a test drive as that was for sure the noise. It wasnt....

Big night at the fantastic local brewery and feel asleep listing to the river rush past full of recent rain water. Following morning had breakfast at the local cafe/general store and said our goodbyes as we'd be peeling off to head back to Melbourne when the rest kept going onto Albury. After taking it very easy on the hume on the way home made it without the wheel or something falling off and killing me but found every small lump and bump in the hwy. Something to investigate this weekend. Otherwise the car did very well other than the usual bubbles after being driven hard. Had some mates give it a test drive who all agreed its a piece of shit to drive in the twisties but its an absolute laugh with the noises and power delivery.

Pinched a few photos from my mate Cam with the yellow bugeye. His instagram is here

[El_Freddo]

Awesome trip report Barbs! Good to hear you’re out and about enjoying the ride.

I’m guessing the twisties were too twisty for your big turbo to be any real fun, maybe some anti-lag is needed… That Mitta Mitta rd is an awesome road to drive hard or just cruise and enjoy the view, not that I’ve ever had anything that could be driven hard on that road that’s worth mentioning.

I hope the suspension issue is an easy one to fix.

Cheers

Bennie

[Barbbachello]

Unfortunately i dont have the wallet size to be replacing turbos and engines from using anti lag

[duncanm]

go 80's turbo style - left foot brake while mashing the throttle.

[El_Freddo]

I didnt realise anti lag killed engines - knew about the turbos, theyre just a wear item after all <insert sarcasm here>

Cheers

Bennie

[Barbbachello]

Any combustion happening where it shouldnt be is hard on anything

[Barbbachello]

Well that horrendous clunking turned out to be a loose swaybar link. Only found it after checking every single front suspension bolt twice and removing the swaybar to get a look at the steering rack bushes. Guess it was being held under tension somehow preventing it from moving until it was more or less removed. In the process found a few things that should have been tighter so not a complete waste of time

Glad it wasnt something catastrophic

Anyway car has just been sitting since the trip. Desperately needs a wash

[JDP]

Glad you found it and it wasn't something nasty.

 

I really should get under mine and check it all out, I never bothered after installing the bars etc. I know you're supposed to after a few driving K's but I figured if there was any issue you'd know about it soon enough.

Heard a bit of a noise yesterday from the driver rear and thought it may have been something in the boot but the boot was empty. Damn it.

 

WASH YA CAR, CUBT!

[Beckers]

Anyway car has just been sitting since the trip. Desperately needs a wash

Wash that dirty 304

[Barbbachello]

Itll get a wash when it stops being bullshit hot or raining

[Barbbachello]

Not much been happening but also a lot at the same time. Some work side hustles are paying off, mate parting out his Bugeye WRX. Can see where this is going. 

I have procured at absolutely stonks pricing

• A Link plugin G4X
• Link CAN Lambda and various other ecu sensors with a nice sub-loom
• A low km V7 207 short block

To take advantage of the link the car will be getting retuned with the following changes

• Wideband sensor moved into the dump pipe instead of the mid pipe
• MAC valve instead of the pierburg solenoid
• Gate replumbed to use the top port
• More boost
• 340LPH fuel pump hard wired

Not expecting a heap more power as we will be limited by 98 octane (ecu and loom are setup for flex fuel but thats extra money I dont need to spend for the time being) and the engine itself which is already blowing bubbles

Pics. fork me these are huge. Imgur being difficult and changing things

[Barbbachello]

Deleted

[Barbbachello]

Alrighty got the car sorted out and ready for a tune. Rob flew in from Sydney and picked him up sunday morning for my turn. In the week leading up id been sorting out the fuel pump hardwire (which involved a trip to the hospital after a bracket went into my hand), pluming in the flex fuel sensor, jamming looms through the firewall for the flex and CAN lambda and just general fettling. 

Flex sensor is up on the pitch stop mount straight off the rails before the reg

Looks sketchy being close to the dump but heat sleave doing fantastic things

2% ethanol in the pump 98 apparently


I have no idea what im doing


Pumping out as much 98 as we could at the servo to fill up with e85


In goes the goodness


Oops


I dont think the already damaged head gasket like 21 psi. This was after around 10 redline pulls and we stopped to inspect the overflow bottle, which was bubbling and full as we expected. Am hoping its just pushed enough coolant out to make an airpocket as it came right back down as we got moving again. Gave it a good bleed after the event but havent driven it again since to see if its going to do it again. Highly considering doing a sloppy gasket slap and "decking" the heads with an oil stone to see what happens. Worst case its back where it started, best case its fine and we can turn it up more and see what the standard engine likes lol

[El_Freddo]

Good stuff Barbs. Shame about the head gasket not wanting to play ball.

I doubt you’d have to do much to the heads - run a straight edge over the face of the heads in every direction you can come up with and see if there’s any warpage.

If you’ve got a second engine lined up to go in and you’re not ready for that yet I’d “throw head gaskets” at it and call it a day as it seems that it hasn’t become critically hot - yet.

Pretty cool bit of kit that flex fuel sensor, time to bring the ethanol content of 98 to the servo administrators? Probably won’t come to anything. Where can you get e85 from in Vic? I’ve never seen it, not that I tend to buy fuel in the big smoke when I visit.

Cheers

Bennie