8bit's Mk1 Leon Cupra R. Scarlett - as in Johansson...

Got the car back tonight, rear bumper is perfect now as far as I can make out, and the rest of the car is intact. They even managed to give it a decent wash and interior clean too. I did have to ring the manager at AC's today and complain bitterly to get things moving but it's done now and I have the car back.

Willie said:

Been there, done that and told you about it.
As I said there are only a handful of places I would recommend in Aberdeen and its 100% your choice not matter what your or the other insurance companies say.
I know of 3 I would recommend in Aberdeen/shire.
Hope it gets sorted out to your satisfaction, let me know if you want further pointer on getting this sorted out.

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Sorry min, I missed the bit in your post on Eastside where you said I did actually have a choice. When I raised it with Aviva they insisted on using Arnold Clark but had I known then what I know now I'd have insisted more and used my own garage - think they use the place you suggested anyway.

Car feels weird after floating about in the Mondeo and the other half's MX-5 for the last few weeks. Came to loathe the Mondeo but came to love the MX-5, it's a total hoot on the twisties, amazing handling. That said, I was expecting my car to feel brutally quick after driving those things around for three weeks but it didn't, which makes me sure there's something not right with it. Hopefully get some proper logs done soon.

Little update, nothing big just yet. Decided it was time to change some of the tatty, worn looking hoses in the engine bay so starting with the easy/cheap stuff I ordered up some bits of silicone vac hose of 4mm, 8mm and 10mm inside diameters:



I'll use these for some of the vac feeds from under the inlet mani and think I'll try the N249 bypass also, hence the little white T-piece in the above shot. If it doesn't feel good it's easily reversed and with the T-piece costing pennies figured it was worth trying. Also going to change the throttle body to checkvalve hose as the OEM one is perished near where it joins the TB. Not sure where this goes after the checkvalve, across to the bulkhead but what does that feed serve? Is it the brake assist?

Depending on time doing house stuff (e.g. getting dragged around bathroom stores, B&Q etc) at the weekend I'll hopefully do this on Sat or Sun.

Also decided to get one of these Bluetooth OBD adaptor things to try using Torque, a little bit of diagnostic software for Android phones (http://torque-bhp.com). This widget cost me all of £20 off ebay, there are better ones available but figured this was worth a punt just now. If it gives me basic displays of boost, MAF g/s, etc. then it'll be handy:



Finally, I wasn't expecting this one, these came included with the OBD Bluetooth adaptor as a freebie. Not sure if I like them but they might look OK, at least they're red



That's it for now, if I get to do anything with any of the above this weekend I'll post pics

If it isn't one thing, it's another. Really starting to think my turbo is on the way out now, it's been making a strange noise that rises and falls slightly behind engine RPM since last year sometime. Recently I've noticed that sometimes shortly after coming off boost (either on overrun or cruising at a set speed) I get some white smoke from the exhaust for a few seconds.

Got a thread on the subject here - http://www.seatcupra.net/forums/showthread.php?t=286532

And in case the worst comes to the worst, another asking what's involved in changing the turbo DIY here - http://www.seatcupra.net/forums/showthread.php?t=312744

If anyone can help with either I'd be really grateful.

Still not sure what's going on with my turbo but going to keep that to the other threads for now. Today I spent a couple of hours replacing some more of the rubber hoses with silicone stuff. A couple of the rubber ones had started to perish so decided it was a good idea to swap them out. There's a good thread which gives some info on various sizes here - http://www.seatcupra.net/forums/showthread.php?t=308833



Also, the keen-eyed amongst us will have spotted in the above pic that the N249 is now bypassed. Can't say I feel a huge difference just yet but have noticed a couple of times on part throttle when I'd expect the DV to open that it doesn't.

Decided to clean the car too, since it was a nice day - altho wasn't able to do it myself so I took it to a local place that handwash cars while you wait. I took it home afterwards and gave it a once over again with a drying towel, then waxed it, cleaned the windows and dressed the tyres.









So at least it looks nice for now

Cheers mate I never think it looks that great in photos but that could just be my phone camera and (more likely) my lack of camera skill. But in the metal, when its' clean the shade of red is fantastic. Seagulls probably messed it up again as soon as I was back in the flat tho lol...

Cheers mate Feels like a struggle sometimes, had a few problems lately but cheers me up about it when people make nice comments. I will get this car into shape one of these days

Cheers folks

Been busy moving house this past week and still no internet at home yet but managed to make a little more progress on the car so will try and post an update this week...

tyrer said:

Looks great mate! Normally everything goes wrong at once sods law!

Hope the move is not too stressful

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Cheers Move wasn't too bad thanks, still a few boxes to unpack and stuff to find homes for but it's mostly done, we're in and settling now anyway.

Right, so small updates. First, some more silicone in the engine bay, specifically the N75 and DV hoses from Creation Motorsport.



The one for the DV was just a little on the short side so had to move one of the hose clips around the filter/MAF/TIP assembly to the other side of the heatshield to allow the DV hose to reach and secure into place but other than that they went in just fine. The logos are on the underside though which is a bit of a screw up on their part but I'm not really fussed, it's two less hoses to worry about splitting or perishing. Engine bay now looks like this:



Couldn't get the black protective sleeve that goes round the two OEM hoses at the section where they sit in the clip attached to the charge pipe but in any case I could only get the larger hose in that clip anyway, figure it's not likely to move about but I'll keep an eye on it for rubbing anyway.

Next update on the next post to keep the index on post 1 usable

Next update, last week I had the car checked on a proper laser alignment machine (a Hunter I think??), and the results weren't great, see below:



The right-rear is outwith spec which is a problem given its' not adjustable. I've had my wheels powdercoated and the guys at Clark Motorsport (top blokes if any Aberdeenshire area folks are looking for alignment or specialist performance car work) reckon its' likely that the place that did the powdercoating didn't remove the coating from the hub-face of the wheel. Also the negative camber is skewed to one side on the front so that'll mean a bit more than a simple bolt adjustment so Scarlett is booked in to go back there next Wednesday.

They're going to remove and clean the powdercoat from all the wheel faces, balance the negative camber evenly across the front wheels, sort out the toe and caster (that'll be why the steering wheel doesn't sit straight then!), change the post-cat lambda (if I can't get that done myself before then) and change the thermostat. So another month, another garage bill.

I've also ordered the Forge breather hose kit as there appears to be some sort of leak around there, the suction jet pump (Y-shaped plastic bit under the inlet manifold) is caked in oily crud. I also changed the OEM aerial for a Citroen C2 one and now get absolutely no radio reception whatsoever. I never use the radio really but do want it to work for the odd time so will need to get round to fitting the aerial signal booster I got ages ago but didn't use.

Still need to trace the funny whining sound I get at low revs too, think it sounds like it's coming from the front of the engine bay so maybe it's the leaky breather pipe, if that doesn't fix it then I'll try the WD40 on the aux belt to see if it's something there.

That's all for now

KatCowie said:

Glad your getting all these small things sorted Niall. Reading about your rear bumper and how the match was awful... Starting to panic as my car is in just now. Glad you are finally happy with it.

Good job on the cleaning too, keep up the good work

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Cheers Kat I always start out washing the car with the best of intentions, look out my clay bar and Meguiars detailing spray, Tardis, the works. Then by the time I've finished the 2BM wash and MF dry, and been in about the wheels and arches my back is aching and I'm fed up so I just think "sod it", put a bit of tyre dressing and a quick shot of aquawax on and head inside

I've got a garage now so one weekend I might do the basic wash stuff one day then put it in the garage overnight, then clay it and whatnot the next day.

Where's your car in for bodywork? So long as its' not Arnold Clark in Torry you'll be fine It wasn't so much the colour match that they messed up it was more the finish, there were white, plasticy bits sticking up through the paintwork and there was a lot of that orange-peel texture on patches of the paint. It's not perfect now but it's not bad, better than it was before and no worse than the rest of the car.

Must have been frosty last night but defrosted in the sun before I went out to the car - some very fine water beading which I thought looked quite cool, almost like the car was covered in velvet. Pics also show the small (useless!) aerial too but mainly took em just cos I like water beading pics