Next bit of fun, I ordered some of the new style badges off ebay. I didn't fancy being a sheep so decided I'd mod them a little bit. Got out the hairdryer and split the badges, then some Pantone 348 paint and a satin black rattle can. Decided to respray my front grill while I was at it. It had started to get a little bit stone-chipped.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Decided to do the back a bit different. Left the chrome but just painted the back part in Pantone 348. I think it looks quite tidy. I did an absolutely mint job on the rear badge. Unfortunately the front grill is ****. It looks good in the picture (to me at least) but in the flesh the finish is really poor. Looks like I've used a paintbrush so I'll re-do it at some stage

Fast forward to September and MOT time.

 

Probably worth adding at this point that my exhaust still chugged away like it wasn't fitting right even though it absolutely was!

 

My biggest concern was that, like most modded fabs, the exhaust has a de-cat downpipe. Dropped it off for the MOT regardless. Guy phones me later to inform me there's a large crack in the manifold and I need a new number plate bulb and rear pads. I 100% didn't believe him until I saw it. All of a sudden it turned in to a turbo off job. The garage wanted to weld it up and stick it back on. I took a few pictures and sent them to xman, he told me to send it to him right away and we'd swap for a new one as there were some huge cracks in the manifold. So quite quickly MOT has turned into a new turbo! I also decided to replace my 102k mile old rear calipers for a brand new 256mm rear set-up to match the 312mm front brakes.

 

Once the turbo was off I got a few pics:

 

 

 

 

Issues started with the crack in the manifold. The soot all over the actuator shows how bad an issue it was. The leaking exhaust gases actually burned the actuator so it was no longer holding vacuum. Just a bit of a freak issue. Fair play to xman he was extremely helpful and sent out the new turbo immediately, very impressed with the service on that one!

 

The rear brakes were fitted at the same time, binding on one side previously so some interesting wear on the pads, here's the gammy old calipers. I was told these calipers were knackered 15k ago by a mechanic and the helper springs plus a good clean now and then got me this far!

 

 

 

These came out of the same caliper!!

 

 

and now, shiny and new! I swapped the helper springs over straight away so no squeaking or mooing (yet) which the 256mm brakes are notorious for.

 

So after 4 days sat in the garage (that's a long time for me!!), I had a week of the car being back on the road with the new turbo before I got my act together and replaced the clutch and flywheel. Literally have no pictures of this but I bought a stage 1 Kevlar clutch from xman way back in Feb and it has been lying around ever since. I had this fitted, along with a brand new Sachs DMF and Sachs CSC plus new bolts and a change of gearbox oil.

 

Clutch has long since been run in and the verdict is that it feels very much like the stock clutch. Occasionally needs a few extra revs to get off the line but that's the only difference. Oh and it doesn't slip on full boost. Even running 2.2bar of boost! Overall I'm really impressed. Total cost for the whole clutch including fitting and all the bits set me back about £750 which is reasonable IMO on one of these cars.

 

The latest thing to be sorted out is the mapping. Originally mapped by John (Faboka) and when I told him about the turbo he said we could start over so sent me a base map and we started again mapping. Now on my 3rd version of the map and we're back up to 2.2bar with fairly low smoke. Little bit on full boost but I can cope with that!