What I accomplished this weekend

[Jack91]

Did about 10 hours on Saturday (4 of which talking crap with pistonhead) and 2 or 3 today. Addressed a few things Ive been meaning to do for a while.

First: Apply club sticker (wanted one for ages)

It wouldnt come off properly and took an hour or so to get all the letters off in one piece. Got there eventually.

Pod filter conversion, my old airbox mod some of you may remember I kept losing the clips and the mod itself wasnt really doing anything and I had a filter lying around so I went this way. Just over 1m of the tube was $38. Bargain.



Tried mounting it to the old mount with a clamp and drilling out the middle of the band and putting the nut back through. That worked well until I screwed the bolt in a bit too far and snapped it clean in half. Had this peice of aluminium laying around so I put it to use. A lot more solid now, and its actually bolted through an existing hole. Gains are awesome. I didnt expect much but I can vouch for this being a VERY worthwhile mod. Its not boxed, but its getting super cold down here so I dont think its necessary. When the weather heats up I will box it.

New radio antenna.
Ive always had automatic antenna but I hate the look of it and it was bent slightley. $25 for one of these, signal seems to be better, it looks better aswell. Unfortunately the guard really has to come off to do it, but now that Ive taken one off I know where all the bolts are so should only take 2 minutes next time. Lining the guard back up though to get even panel gaps was a pain but Im pretty much on the money now. Note that you dont have to run a new aerial all the way to the radio, just above the ECU there is a female plug which goes the radio. Just plug it in there, saves a lot of heartache stupidly I went through the trouble of taking it out (30 mins or so) before looking.


UHF install
Been dreading this because I knew Id have to drill holes in my car, its been sitting in its box for months. Finally got around to it and I think its the perfect position. Its a detacheable face unit with all the options and features. The actual unit is in the glove box and I got power from the cig lighter. Unfortunately, I broke my $100 aerial trying to mount the z bracket. Those cords dont like being pulled tight. Also tried repairing it and broke the rest of the aerial so thats a waste of $100. Oh well.






Really suits the dash at night and doesnt look out of place. Also, if I remove it the only screw holes that you would see are the 2 for the microphone clip and I put them on the removable panel anyway. So I can revert back to a whole free dash for a $5 cover. I tried double sided tape but it wouldnt stick, and glue wouldve made a mess.

Really proud of the pod. I always talk crap about them, but now I can see why people do it. Trust me guys, even eliminating the one restrictive bend into the airbox has caused a pretty big difference. I dont know if its the cold air or not but the car is a lot more fun now, anything over half throttle from a stand still and you get wheel spin. Full throttle its all over the place. Not that I would ever do that though. Do the pod conversion. I will eventually go all the way to the throttle body but I really need another day to do it and I wont have that for a while and I think what Ive got is about as good as its going to get. Relocating another oil breather will be a pain aswell. If anyone wants the length of the pipe I can measure it for you some time next week.

Thats about as far down as I can go with the pod or it will be too close to the headlights for my liking. It seems thats the perfect place though, as its getting air from everywhere. Ignore the super dirty engine bay aswell. When I pulled the guard off about 50kg of dirt and sand came out with it.