GKTaylor

I see your point. The plug gap was marginally narrowed, as was indicated on many sites with much debate, the car has seen many track days since these mods which means ive been lucky, as its will see many more, I will throw a few more dollars at a tune this time. Cheers

Sounds like these generic tunes have a lot to answer for, a tune will be in order, Its gonna be fun and I'm looking forward to it.

I shall take that advice!

Are you suggesting the Cappa II tune is not suitable, perhaps people should be more wary of Cappa Tuning boxes on standard engines running the tunes that come with them, as the modifications to to this vehicle do not promote any change over the factory parts.

Yes full system, unless there's internal differences in the mufflers and CAT which I doubt as the numbers on them both are the same, they are identical to the standard pipe I took off, every dimension is identical bar the fancy exhaust tip and the heat wrap on the pipe, my original had no heat wrap, was swapped purely for the fancy tip and my pipe had the the rear mounts bent, and it was free. The bigger fuel pump was put in as the original died and the originals were ridiculously priced. Neither of these additions should require a custom tune, as they pose no potential gain anywhere over the standard parts, the fuel pump could in future contribute to gains if larger injectors and higher boost is required, which would involve a tune, air/fuel remains the same as the fuel pump is regulated. The tune on the Cappa II unit I have is the default 98 Octane tune based on a standard engine configuration and a filter, plenty of people run this configuration, wether they spend shy of 1 1/2 hours tearing around a track with this tune and surviving, I wouldnt know. Supplier info for the springs would be helpful.

Giving my 03 XR6T a good thrash in the weekend and it has dropped a cylinder, symptoms are a melted sparkplug, pressurised crankcase, dipstick was half out, oily smoke coming out breather, smoking from exhaust once warm, replaced plug ha ha, no chang still running on 5 surprise surprise, I suspect a holed piston and who knows what else, scored bore, perhaps molten sparkplug infused into head etc. Question, what is the correct name and does it have a measurement for the tool that removes the cylinder head bolts, they look like a star of sorts, and are these sacrificial (use once) bolts of are they reusable. Can anyone also point me in the direction of heavy duty valve springs (NZ or AU), may as well do them while its all it bits. Running Cappa II, FPV Exhaust system, K&N, Walbro Pump, never seen a dyno.

There are a few plugs under the drivers seat, one is the seatbelt sensor which works in conjunction with the airbag, the other is the seat rail, pull off the seat belt one and push it back on again, this may help conectivity in the plug (they are gold), takes only a small amount of resistance for these to fault, you will need to get your mechanic to clear the fault code, if you do pull both off the seat rail plug even registers a fault. This worked on mine, if that dosent help, confirm the fault code correctly and go from there.

This is exactly what mine was doing - identical! - I was stupid and listened to a lot of people, spent a lot of money FOR NOTHING, I did coil packs (6 good spare ones going cheap), plugs gapped with three different settings, fuel filter etc etc, at the end of the day it was the fuel pump strainer, its a little filter on the bottom of the fuel pump, forget about replacing it, Ford will try and sell you the whole pump and assembly, thieves!!! below is a link to some pics of it, it should be white and clean, once it was off wham, better than ever. Leave your plugs alone, the factory ones are fine, you can reduce the gap, but really unless your pushing big boost forget it. I also as part of the mission checked all the hose lines and clips on the turbo system to make sure they were all fitting and tight, one was loose but didnt resolve the issue. The fuel pump assembly is under the back seat, its about a 15 minute job with the only pain being the clips on the feed, return and breather hoses on the top of the assembly, the pump is inside of a big plastic, in my mind "design fault" don't be shy trying to separate it, it will come apart with even steady pressure, do not attempt to take off the fuel line to the pump, its not the type that will go back on, or take it to your mechanic to do. http://gallery.me.com/taylor.family#100140

Are the F6 ones your talking about a Denso Plug?

1. Installing spark plugs Torque is one of the most critical aspects of spark plug installation. Torque directly affects the spark plugs' ability to transfer heat out of the combustion chamber. A spark plug that is under-torqued will not be fully seated on the cylinder head, hence heat transfer will be slowed. This will tend to elevate combustion chamber temperatures to unsafe levels, and pre-ignition and detonation will usually follow. Serious engine damage is not far behind. An over-torqed spark plug can suffer from severe stress to the Metal Shell which in turn can distort the spark plug's inner gas seals or even cause a hairline fracture to the spark plug's insulator...in either case, heat transfer can again be slowed and the above mentioned conditions can occur. The spark plug holes must always be cleaned prior to installation, otherwise you may be torquing against dirt or debris and the spark plug may actually end up under-torqued, even though your torque wrench says otherwise. Of course, you should only install spark plugs in a cool engine, because metal expands when its hot and installation may prove difficult. Proper torque specs for both aluminium and cast iron cylinder heads are listed below. Torque Settings Specifications Table Spark plug type (Thread Diameter) Cast Iron Cylinder Head Aluminium Cylinder Head Flat seat type 18 mm ø 3.5 ~ 4.5 kg-m 3.5 ~ 4.0 kg-m (with gasket) (25.3 ~ 32.5 lb-ft) (25.3 ~ 32.5 lb-ft) 14 mm ø 2.5 ~ 3.5 kg-m 2.5 ~ 3.0 kg-m

Coils are brand new - as are the plugs NGK Laser Iridium Premium FR6EI-11 These are listed on the www.ngk.com.au site for this vehicle, I'll check for air leaks and splits tomorrow, everything looked fine on re-assembly, I might get a set of these NGK plugs your talking about. Why would this vehicle prior to the new coils and new plugs, behave in the same manner with new coils and plugs, yet it operated for a long time just fine, plugs removed are Iridium Denso K20SR11

Time to put your thinking caps on, dropped the gap down to .80, made sure all the coils were reseated and all the rubber bits were there..... Its now worse.... One thing I did note however, the plugs looked very lean and grey, not the usual black. ??

Dam it - Fuel filter didnt help - if anything its worse now! - I was pretty particular about getting these new plugs gaped at 1.1 perfectly, the new coils well seated, the little rubber thingys that hold them down, back in place, and ensuring everything was very accurately put back together considering the BS involved with getting to the plugs, BUT I will go through the BS again and pull her down once finished here, and gap them to .8 Ive ordered one of those CAPA Ford Flash 2 units, I'll be holding off doing anything with it until this problems sorted!

What sort of PSI should the factory pump be pushing, is it regulated at some point, if so what sort of PSI after its been regulated, I'll go looking for the pump tonight whilst I do the filter, general direction anyone, please dont say in the tank Cheers

Quite possible , I actually found an Iridium NGK spec'd for the XR6T myself, and Ive begun to explore this Tin Top myself, used to working on bikes and these things are massive considering the poor power output per cc. Cheers

Ah yes, I saw that when I was dragging myself around underneath changing the oil filter

No not yet - will pick one up tomorrow, can someone point me to a forum where it explains where it is and what is involved, I havent found a manual yet! no doubt its an inline filter with a hose at each end, I'll go have a look for it, slowly getting to understand where everything is, working on motorcycles is a lot simpler.

Yes - these were pointed out in the instructions I got off here, all in there!

I have a standard 2003 XR6T with a K&N Filter, I am experiencing long power hesitation and continuous back firing in the higher rpm range, I have replaced the plugs with the NGK Iridiums with a 1.1 gap and all the coils, I have done the boost solenoid maintenance as described on here, I have just read, a fuel filter, this happens in D or held in the gears, ive even tried with traction on and off, there doesnt seem to be any odd sounds from the engine back, is there anything else I should be looking at next.

Just got this response from my mechanic, after forwarding this to him! NGK Australia lists your plug as FR6EI-11 - that's a 1.1mm gap. NGK don't actually list an iridium option. I'd hazard a guess that 'Mike XR6T" isn't actually experiencing a big mid-top end power increase but it's just feeling that way because he's created a flat spot in the bottom end with a smaller plug gap (being not under boost so a less dense charge not requiring the smaller gap of a high density charge) which gives a lower spark temperature. Also, the spark doesn't 'continue' as he claims - it's merely a trigger. The bigger the gap the higher the energy created by the ignition system to jump to the grounding electrode so the higher the temperature of the spark and that temperature is what matters but only to initially ignite the charge - once the flame front begins it propagates on it's own because it's an exothermic reaction. I don't need to use ignition temperature it when calculating the vent area for vessels for explosion proofing them so they don't tear open in the event of an explosion because once it begins it's self-propagating. http://www.ngkspark.com.au/part_index.htm?...k_plug_cars.php

Just wondering what glue you used to fix the rubber mount on the left hand side of the crossover next to the PVC valve hose, I see in one pic the rubber is sheared off, then adhered back on with the thread and rubber in the later re-assembly pic, I followed your instructions looking for the third and found it thanks, did ya miss it during removal..