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First off, Dave - she's SORN'd for the winter. With that done, it's time for a spruce up. Well my kind of spruce up anyway - make it fastererer. You never know, she might get a wash too.

I've had a good 2+ years of trouble free fun out of the current S4 13BT that's in her and considering I bought it sold as seen on the floor of a storage container it has done rather well and not skipped a beat (apart from when the missus sat on the hand controller and buggered up the injector phasing ). Anyway, over the summer I've noticed an increase in water consumption - it always used a bit due to a weeping brazed joint on the radiator going bad but it got to the point where a top up was required every journey.

This has started to get a little boring so the time has come to pull it out, and while we're at it we just as well 'tidy up' them ports.

Also on the winter jobs list is to reconfigure my intercooler/radiator setup as on a hot day I suffer quite bad heat-soak with inlet temps up in the 40's, those of you who've seen my SA in the flesh know what stupendous sized intercooler I've got so these temps just won't do. A couple of the guys in the US have tried the V mount setup which I've always liked, and the fact I have a talented and enthusiastic TIG welder at my disposal means it'd be rude not to give it a crack. This will mean my guy building a custom radiator and modifying the intercooler with brackets etc to suit. I will also be moving the oil cooler as I'm sure it's not doing my airflow any favours.

If I get time I'd also like a custom fuel tank made with an internal swirl pot but I'll see how it goes with a view to being back on the road for Spring.

For those of you not familiar with my layout as it stands here it is...




Engine out within next two weeks then there will be a gap while it gets refreshed and then the fab work starts.

Tx Tim.

looking forward to reading this build...... got proper attitude this car....... keep us updated pls bud

Well due to general life/busy business/weather/house extension planning I've not had a lot of time to get going but today we finally sorted our lives out so after collecting 1000 bricks with some helpers of mine..


....we could get going getting the keg out of the SA with the help of Matty.

Poor photos as phone camera is goosed but you get the idea....




Off to Era's it goes.


Phase 1 complete.

Autopsy complete.

So as expected the water seals throughout the keg were not in good shape and based on its thirst for water prior to the strip down then this was as no surprise.

The other expected worn parts were the rotor and stat bearings - for those that remember back two years when this motor was put into Nev you may recall the failure of one of the oil cooler lines. At the time I counted my lucky stars that I still had an engine that even spun let alone ran, but always had a hunch that when it finally came to this time, we'd find tired bearings.

What I wasn't banking on was poor housings, both suffering a fair amount of flakey chrome so am on the lookout for a set of S4/5 housings in good condition.

The rest is stuff I'd also expected from an engine that was subject to my first 13bt conversion and in the process had a lot of mistakes learned upon. In the grand scheme of things it's done well, and survived being driven by Rammo so all in all a heroic effort.

So, onwards and upwards. Time to get parts. Some pics….

let Rammo drive it Amazing it ran at all

Those look like the teak fingers of Uncle Era pointing out ugly bits there

Housings sorted by Uncle Timmy (who else) so massive thanks to him for taking the time to hunt through his vast pile of housings to find a couple of good-uns. Need to order bearings from Mazda Christchurch tomorrow and that'll be me nearly there for bits I had to get.

Further developments, whilst waiting for parts I thought I'd have a closer look at the turbo as it's always been a bit of a mystery regarding it's specs. In short, it's a hybrid of an S5 turbo modified by turbonetics utilising the hot side of the S5 and incorporating a bigger cold side. Being in a bitty of a bored state and also pestered by Rammo I took it apart and got the callipers out to suss what size the turbine wheels were.



The trouble is, when you look closely at something, you tend to see things you don't want to.




So that'll be a cracked waste gate port then., Brilliant.

Anyway, on the upside it turns out (according to Rammo) the turbo is a T04E equivalent which'll do me for the moment. All I gotta do is weld up that crappy internal waste gate and introduce and external one to my manifold. And when I say 'I', I mean someone else with more metalwork talent than myself.

Here's a graph for my turbo. I've no idea what it means.

I've never seen a hot side in good condition yet.

Par for the course at this age.

True that.