Current progress..

My silicon 90 deg bend arrived for the intercooler piping.

Unfortunately its not quite a good fit, because the ends of it are just a fraction too short.. So I'll have to sort something out there to make it fit, probably a small joiner pipe about 1-2inches in length that will act like a simple little extension thing, then run the 90deg bend from there..

Have booked into the exhaust shop for this Saturday. Yay.
This is only the analysis visit. They will confirm a quote, and timeframe for when they can have the Cat replaced, truck muffler replaced with 2 smaller mufflers, and intercooler piping done. Most likely next week, then it will go over there and be all sweet after that work is done. A couple of extra things off the outstanding list which will be great, just in time for the ACT meet.

Just bought 5 sheets of sound deadening mat from Jaycar.

It worked out about $9.80 each if you buy 5. Its very heavy stuff considering its size, this tells me that it should do a pretty good job depending on where you put it..

This one is not self adhesive, but I will stick it on with adhesive spray once I've played around with it and have it in the right positions.

The plan is to line the entire rear floor with the stuff, plus inside the doors and definately all over the rear hatch which I think is responsible for a fair bit of noise coming into the car.


Also: The car is now sitting at the exhaust shop. They are installing a cat convertor with stainless steel internals, so it can never ever shatter and die (great for high performance engines) and it flows more than a ceramic one. You can see heaps more daylight through it compared to the ceramic ones.

Also saw the new muffler that is replacing the existing one. This new one is a Lukey brand, similar 2 feet in length, but only a 5inch diameter this time instead of a 7" diameter (the current one). That equates to an extra inch of ground clearance and an extra inch of clearance away from the handbrake cable and that kind of stuff. So hopefully that inch should be enough to make all the difference. Its quite a nice sleek looking long muffler.

They also had a look at the intercooler pipe situation and are going to make a whole new pipe aswell.

All work being done Monday so should have the car back on Monday evening in much better shape. Minus a wad of money.

pic of said lukey muffler! sounds like something i need

Yup I'll try to take some pics when its still up on the hoist tomorrow arvo all done..

It just looks like a 2 foot long 5" diameter cylinder, with 2.5" outlets at each end, and its a matt plain metal finish with LUKEY embossed/pressed into the metal etc. Hmm I think it says something like a model number etc. Let me suss it.

But yeah can't wait. The guts inside the cat has flipped around the wrong way and now the car isn't making any more than 5psi boost because of the blocked flow - plus it rattles. Sucks. Be awesome to slam in a stainless cat and forget about any concerns.

Not long until the big Canberra meet now.

Hows the car now Cisco? Did you get everything sorted out today?

Hey Tony.

The metal cat is installed. So is the LUKEY muffler.

They needed to order in the alloy donut bends for the intake plumbing, so that has added 2-3 days max because of the order time. I was speaking to them today, they were by default going to do the intake in mild steel mandrel bends, I said Nah please order in the alloy equivalents and do it all out of alloy. They said no worries.

So I haven't actually seen the car yet. I don't seem to be phased one single bit any more when the car spends time away, as long as its making progress somewhere. 3 days or a week doesn't even bother me in the slightest heh. They can have it all week as long as its a good job and all nice for the micra meet.

After all this, I might be taking it very easy for a while as the car is really close to finished all over. Getting very content with it in its current form. And thinking of moving houses, so if it can park in a new garage for a while and just look pretty and not snap in half, I will be content. Just do a bit of relaxed weekend boosting and it will be good.

New house?!

Your house is just getting sooo nice!

Where abouts are you thinking of moving to mate?

Sean

moving already? sheesh..or are you going to rent out the current one?

Cheers. Yep about to put a deposit down on a place I'm pretty certain.

I'll give you all the details Seano, you'll have to come over and check it out once it all happens.

Nah evade selling this one..

Hope buying new house go's well Cisco. Just sold and brought new house at the start of the year and hopefully don't need to do it again. Very understandable why you would want to sell anything that your not planning on keeping.

Ahh is it a new house? Around the same area?

I'm guessing it has a bigger garage :P

Sean

Well Blue Monster is ready to go.

Can't wait to see the new alloy intercooler pipework. That's about it.

Hopefully all going well, it will be a weekend of conservative cruising.

It'll look good in the new garage :P

Sean

Wow. Cheers to Powatone exhaust in Fyshwick.

Man you should see this alloy intercooler pipework.
Better than I even expected. Its PERFECT. Totally smooth perfect mandrel bends everywhere. They even polished it all up and it looks superb. Really made a difference to my engine bay's appearance. Everything looks tidy and quality now. They even made a better mount for my positive battery terminal housing thing without even asking them to do that.

The ground clearance is now much better. This lukey truck muffler thing is what you want. Perfect fit on a micra and now I can get over speed humps.

Car driving brilliantly. Snow up on the hills today, boost cruising everywhere so efficient and great feeling. This is what its all about!

Mate, I'm so glad to hear that you've finally started to get some decent customer service after all the hassles you've had in the past!

Well done and I can't wait to see the end result, as well as that positive terminal mount as well..

Sean

Yeah its funny. I haven't lived in Canberra for very long, but you end up getting your own little shortlist of the places you would happily deal with again everytime. Mine is:

- Ben @ Intune in Fyshwick for anything mechanical and especially performance/tuning related.
- Ian @ Powatone exhaust in Fyshwick for anything to do with exhausts, mounts, intercooler piping both steel or alloy.

Here's a couple of quick and bad night photos..

.

You can see down at the outlet of the intercooler on the second photo that the pipe couples into the black silicon bend. Which is great because its black, you can't see any sign of an intercooler or pipework from the front of the car now. Yay.

Looks great Cisco. This is the end of the journey. Just fire her up and enjoy.
You are fast reaching the stage where you can just amuse yourself with all those little pimping type projects.

Yeah cheers.

Actually, I've been doing some other minor pimping today heh.

Placed the jaycar sound deadening mat around the place to see how effective it is in varying locations..

Now I'm making a custom turbo turbine heat shield out of an old stainless steel saucepan. About half finished, back out to the shed now.

Oops gave up. I accidentally hacked the saucepan.

Might try that flexible mesh heat shield stuff off Ebay that ACL make.