Please note - I am not a mechanic or expert in anything.

 

52 minutes ago, murcGuru said:

So stick to stock suspension if I dont want to lower the car? 

When items need replacing that is a good time to upgrade if the car is still fairly new to you, by new I am thinking less than say 12 months round year regular use,

 

But if you have money to spend or lack of will not to you can change what you like when you like, it is your car and your money and your life.  My experience is that some upgrades and improvements just are not but I might have always chosen badly as I do not claim to be the sharpest knife in the box.

 

39 minutes ago, J.R. said:

Cumalatively there are millions of miles of testing, companies like Ricardo have whole sections of employees that do nothing but drive pre-production vehicles on 3 shifts of 8 hours a day every day. Also new drivetrains transplanted into existing models.

 

But it can never be the same conditions as commuter cars driven infrequently, the more you condense the test program (more cars running more hours and miles) the further away it gets from what the majority of production vehicles will experience.

 

You obviously mean Retardos, however the major problem most manufacturers have is the end user, many end users drive their cars like such pussies that they end up with bore glazed oil burners which cannot be economically repaired.

 

Let me give you a real world example, my Fabia has a 2.0 AZL engine which has covered 133k miles and doesn't burn a drop of oil. I just bought an identical 2.0 AZJ engine from a 2003 VW Beetle which had covered just over 100k miles and upon stripping it the plugs, valves, ports, pistons and head were thickly coated in wet black fudge where it had been using oil at a ridiculous rate, the bores were polished to a mirror shine, you could see the hone marks like they were buried under ice.

 

End users ruin good engines because they don't drive them properly, this is especially true of more powerful engines which get tickled about even worse. Never buy low mileage cars, they'll be utterly knackered already.

I agree.

 

I could not afford to run in the engines I built on a dyno so would stink up & cruise down Bury Hill (not far from you) in the early hours of the morning repeatedly on full throttle in 3rd or 4th gear loaded with ballast.

 

I have seen engines dyno run in and its amazing to see the blow-by reduce as the power goes up, occasionally if the honing had not been done correctly and the break in was not happening they would tip Ajax powder into the intakes.

1 minute ago, J.R. said:

I agree.

 

I could not afford to run in the engines I built on a dyno so would stink up & cruise down Bury Hill (not far from you) in the early hours of the morning repeatedly on full throttle in 3rd or 4th gear loaded with ballast.

 

I have seen engines dyno run in and its amazing to see the blow-by reduce as the power goes up, occasionally if the honing had not been done correctly and the break in was not happening they would tip Ajax powder into the intakes.

 

Exactly so, run in the tappets on the cam then give it death until the rings seal, as you say, you clearly see when that happens because peak torque levels off.