Azzman460

Having not had any problems with my car as yet I can't comment on any dealer experiences, they have all been good so far, aside from the exorbitant (spelling?) prices they charge for the services, it has all been good so far. I can see however, how having been screwed over so many times by the dealerships can make you want to change manufacturers, and I don't blame you! I understand what it is like, as I work for Ford Australia, and I believe their problem lies completely in the advertising. How many good ford ads have you seen in the last 2 years? Even the latest FPV ad isnt that good. These cars won bathurst 3 times in a row and the company doesn't care to comment on it at all. They are winning the V8 Supercar Championship and they don't car to comment on it. They don't care to comment on anything and its so frustrating! Watching all the motorsport I do on TV, when you have most car enthusiast watching the same thing, and they put no ads on at all, What a crock! The fords are really good cars, they have the best motor out of their direct competitors IMO, they look good, they go good, sure there no the best but you get what you pay for! They are still good cars, better than their competitors, and the advertising just does not cut it.

I often take my hard lid off and on to put the bike or whatever in the back of the ute, and the plastic tub liner does warp a bit but who cares I say, no biggy IMO.

why are the first half more expansive than the second half?

well done to all you guys getting revenge on these bastards! If it happened to me and I was there, I'd be doing the exact saem thing!

haha yeah that old chestnut! Not a bad place to live, fair drive from work in geelong though. Ah well, good excuse to buy a new car haha

haha cheers I was hoping to stir up a bit of jealousy on that one!

NAME: Aaron AGE: 20 OCCUPATION: You guys will love this, Apprentice mechanic and test driver, Ford R&D Centre and Proving Grounds, Geelong LIVE: Bacchus Marsh RIDE: BF MKII Ute, Craig Lowndes Limited Edition

yeah you will be able to see the main rear diff bush and see if that's flogged out however the side ones are harder to see. If you wiggle the diff you might be able to tell.

I think its a case of they know you can beat them so they just hang it on you. I wouldnt worry about it, you know and we all know that the turbo's are a better choice, they're just in denial!

g'day mate. How many kms has your car done? A throttle body clean will probably help you out a fair bit with the idle problem. As for the A/C Problem, when you turn the tempereature knob all the way to the left and it clicks over to A/C MAX, This automatically sets the flow to recirculation (so the little loop inside the car) and changes the vents to the dash vents pointing at your face. If you click it just off A/C MAX you can set it to recirculation or fresh air and whatever vent you want, this might be where your getting lost but I'm not too sure!

ahh rightie dokie then I'll check up on that for sure, no good if you have a warped head for some reason! Also, how do you get the casing off the oil pump? the screws are tight as a nuns nasties in the housing and all I could think of was an impact screwdriver but I wasn't sure if I should use that! what do you guys reckon?

aahhhh ok then I didn't realise that you couldn't machine the head. Why is that?

Yeah I certainly will be, I'm an apprentice mechanic and work at ford, so I want to have the experience of building my own engine. I'm not doing it to try and get it cheaper or anything like that, I just want to do it properly the first time! I get sick of hearing oh I did this then it broke so I did this then I blew my engine then I did this and blah blah blah, just do it properly the first time! I have a little bit of experience with engine building and can get help and advice from the boys at work anyway. I believe its not that hard to do it yourself, just the research a bit of knowledge and a good pair of hands should do that trick!

Yeah oil pump gears are definately on the cards! Still getting a price on a kit from spool with the rods, pistons, ACL bearings and ARP studs so I'll compare that price with Atomics and see where to go from there. Yeah with machining I'll budget 5 grand that should keep me safe!

ah very good, that make sense. So I could take it to an engine shop and get the block crack tested, honed and the rod big ends machined. Anything else I should get done to the block? Where abouts would I get the VRS kit from? I was thinking I'd just buy all these items seperately! Thanks guys you've been heaps of help!

yeah that's a fair price, competitive with atomics pricing for sure. So by the looks of it its really much for muchness between any sort of combo if its atomic or anything else or a mix of both, it's all good and it's all going to be strong. Still beats me why these guys advertise with "no machining needed" I thought this odd at first but thought they must know what they're talking about! ah well machining it is! Also VRS kit? excuse my ignorance but whats that?

hhmm ok then so after doing a bit more research, I'm getting prices on the spool rods and CP psitons in a kit from spool. I Looked up ACL Race bearings which don't seem like a bad choice, but couldnt find anything on ARP Bearings. Spool seemed to have a better description of their conrods than atomic as in the dimensions, metal used and what not. But they had no information on the CP pistons. Spool also claim that no machining will be needed, I understand why you machine your block but how can these guys go around claiming you dont need to, but after you put it together it'll be all sorts of noisy and what not. just means you would have an unsatisfied customer when all they needed was a little machining and they could be the best parts in the world. Anywho I'll wait til I hear the price back form spool, but spool rods, CP pistons and ACL bearings might be a good choice??

hmm ok then, is there a web page or some info on the spool rods and CP pistons so I can compare them to the atomic parts? I want come to a happy medium with the weight, cost and strength of the parts I buy so I want to get as much info as I can!

ok then so either way, if I get the atomic rebuild kit or a separate combo I still have to get my block honed and the rods done to fit the crank? By the sounds of it the atomic kit is still the way to go, or would the suggested spool rods, CP Pistons and ARP bearings be a better choice? or is it really up to me? I'm just trying to find out which combo would be better!

haha, if you were to cast your eyes 4 posts up......

Hey guys. I'm on the search for pistons, rods, and bearing for my engine. Now I have been dealt a good price on the atomic engine rebuild kit and I was pretty set on this for a while, but now I'm thinking there might be some better options out there. I'm not ready to buy at the moment but I'm doing my research and want to find the best parts I can. A couple of brands I'd like to get opinions on are Spool Conrods and CP Pistons. Are these decent parts for quality and price? The appealing thing about the atomic kit is it all comes in one kit and you don't have to get any machining done. If I get these other parts will they have to be machined to suit each other? What about the bearings? Do people change them in these engines or no need to bother? Any information would be great! Cheers guys Aaron

haha very nice work, I like your style. So is it just an inhale/exhale? or am I correct in saying that this feature is only for brand new clusters?

So would I be able to do an inhale/exhale from my cluster to the secondhand FPV Cluster or would I have to do something different? That way the new cluster displays the exact same information as the old one. (for those of you that don't know, inhale/exhale is where you take all the info off your current cluster and put it all into a new cluster, so the scan tool inhales the info, then exhales it!) I'm just not sure if you can do this onto a used cluster form your current one, or only onto new clusters.

ok then, so I can just put this cluster in and go regardless of the kms? I have no intention of lying about the kms, its just so I can record how many kms each engine and gearbox has done. I May just do an inhale/exhale to the new cluster and keep the same amount of kms travelled for the entire car. On a seperate note, will a BA FPV GT cluster fit into a BF MKII ok without having and programming problems??

well its going in fully rebuilt with new pistons and rods and all the other gear. So I would have to leave my original cluster in and there is no way around this? or I would have to do an inhale/exhale to my other cluster?