WW_VRS

Sad to read about this - RIP Andrew and condolences to family and friends.

I wouldn't bother dropping a PD150 turbo on the PD130, yeah it is stronger but not much point 'straight swap' wise. A hybrid is a different matter, I've had a stage 1 and stage 2 on my PD130 at the time and they were both rock solid with great usable range. With regards the straight swap, it is as close as it will get on that - the housing needs rotating 90 degrees (from memory). This is dead-easy, there are screws that you undo a tad to allow the rotation, then just tighten them again afterward. The easiest way to do this - take off the old turbo. Put new one side by side with it, then figure it out. It is very obvious how to do it (hell I worked it out :p) Get new gaskets for the swap if you do it yourself, they tend to have them in stock I am now running a Kia 1.4 petrol which is a VERY different (slow/boring) experience compared to the Fab vRS estate which Ross (at that time at Unit 18) built - that was quite a lot more fun to drive hehe. Even without the additional hardware, the benefit of the hybrid (when mapped) would be that it has to work way less hard to get you the same airflow/pressure your map requires, which keeps the temperatures lower as compared to a stock PD130 turbo being pushed to the limit (for similar power). A FMIC or at least venting the SMIC does make a difference in summer, but hey, we are getting weather reports from the UK on TV here so I doubt you're too worried on that front right now :p

Looks nice

The Fabia vRS (Mk1) I had took about that long to get the good numbers. Also winter diesel is WAY lower on MPG in my experience (for me up to 10mpg difference was not an exception, but when I lived in the UK I didnt hang about too much;))

Turn off wireless. Connect a single PC to the router and disconnect everything else. Run a speed test after the machine has completely finished starting up. Note if your anti virus or windows update kicks in then clearly that will create a ton of traffic for a bit. Either way. Once you have the results, disconnect that PC, connect next one, repeat etc. If one of them shows a massively different speed compared to the others, that one is likely to have some upload type program active, most likely P2P related of course. There is tons of this junk out there, all it can take is a nasty toolbar coming along.. If you have any switches involved due to cable length & need to distribute traffic, it is worth having the test where you connect your switch and then only connect a single PC at a time to it, same process. I don't know if any machines are running IPV6 and whether Virgin supports that now, but if nothing is using it you may as well disable that protocol IMHO - just in case - until such time as it becomes ISP supported. Fingers crossed you'll find it, if not, at least you know your machines and network are sound. A lot of routers also have DHCP client tables, you could compare that list against your machine's MAC addresses. Any that are clients but are not known to you, are suspicious. Good luck!

If you cannot go Win7 (quite possible, there are a ton of older programs out there that just won't work, but there may be newer stuff about you can use instead etc.), then at the very least you should be on XPSP3 with whatever other patches are out. Not doing that means you'll be vulnerable even more. I have a similar situation, running Windows 2003 Server on a laptop. Very much cr*ppy situation, and I cannot wait to get the RAM doubled from 4-8GB plus I'll be running W7 64-bit at long last. The speed of the machine will be WAY better, plus even though I'll still have to jump through some hoops to get W2008R2 hosted as a virtual image, it will do it. More security built-in from the ground up. Less drivers available perhaps, but as I do not have that much hardware to connect to it anyway, should be just fine

Based on how smooth it is running I'd avoid Propane - impressive stuff, hopefully the turbo tweaking will get rid of that cloud of black, should be blistering fast but I'd imagine you have to be pretty careful in the wet even with great tires & the Peloquin?

The old intel wifi drivers were full of memory leaks, handle leaks, and would slow down the whole laptop to a crawl after running for a few days. More recent drivers have fixed those issues as well as security issues - some pretty nasty - will be fixed. Wifi routers, including some branded ones, have usually given up the ghost because of problems with overheating. If they don't fail, they just reduce power output which could have an impact on throughput if the signal strength & signal/noise drops where you are using your laptop for example. Another thing I've found to really make a difference on laptops is the power management. Some manufacturers (Sony for one) seem to think I want to turn off my full-power setting on the laptop's wifi to save power. I personally prefer to have a working connection, so I tend to disable these kinds of power savings unless I'm really not going to have any means of powering from the mains, nor spare batteries. If I plug into a cabled network, I turn off the wifi though. Unfortunately I no longer live in an area where broadband at UK levels is affordable, I'm paying about 75GBP/month for 3.5Mbit/s down, 800kbit/s up. Still, streaming over the gbit network works just perfectly hehe

I found sorting the handling out was a very good step, I used to have FMIC, hybrid stage 1 then later 2, full exhaust (not so much for the power that one), 312 mm brakes, rear ARB, rear strut, front strut. Eibachs and Koni FSDs. It was a good combination, although you can go more extreme, or lower, or both lol. I ran with an uprated Sachs clutch, and didnt have any trouble with the power which was at about 200 bhp, very low for what it could have done and it was tuned up later in 'the fabia vrs estate' by Ross - also, I had a quaffe ATB diff which really helped put the power down whilst cornering. There are many cars out there that are faster, or slower. It was one of the most enjoyable cars I've owned, easy to drive for long drives, fast or slow. I disagree that the stock brakes don't need to be upgraded though (fronts) - the 312mm gives incomparably better feedback - although suspension upgrades reduced the dive a LOT, which was part of the problem with the standard setup for me. I found the 312s didn't fade for me but I guess if you really go for it, maybe you could, who knows. I have not driven on the track and I would imagine that would push them a lot harder again. Definitely looks like you're able to spend a nice chunk of cash making it run smooth and safe - it will put a smile on your face

In Uni we built a clone of one of the Quad amplifiers, seem to recall it was a 60W stereo power amp only, amazingly heavy heat sinks etc, but it sounded awesome (official diagrams and circuit boards etc)

The main streets in Bogota are usually fairly good (government covers those), side roads are shockingly bad (as they are meant to be fixed up by the residents pulling together the funding). But the situation in the UK is insane, as a LOT of money is being taxed out of motorists and then used elsewhere. There are good roads too, but definitely it is extremely variable in quality even on motorways. Add to this that fixing the road happens too late in GB, meaning you can claim back the damage it DOES do to your car if you rip your car to **** when hitting one of those barsteward sharp-edged holes.. How about the concept they have in Holland - road tax is for road repairs, maintenance, investment in motoring-related infrastructure.

Yeah the shape is very different, won't fit without a fair chunk of hard work. Ross did the one on my old car, hit up the Unit 18 forum section as well, Alistair might well know where to source it as well. Depends a bit on how far away you are etc though I guess

should be pretty nippy Love the bit where it is faster than the super car Lambo lol

Great stuff, should be 'fairly' rapid once she's ready

Stay positive, even though it sucks, but it usually ends up as an opportunity to learn new stuff or use your existing skills in a new way at the very least. I've been made redundant various times. Sometimes with a bit of luck I had a new job before even stopping the work, other times I was out of a job for a month. I have been lucky there. Good luck with the job hunt, show you're willingness to take on challenges and you increase your chances.