El Andrew

Wow good effort in the driveway though!

Good to hear from you@Puffwagon and@MBAF Feeling a bit old man myself. Went for a run yesterday for the first time in 6 months. Right hip was very sore for the rest of the day. Woke up fine today so hopefully it will stop if I stick to the running.

Rods and pistons are weaker in the NA. Exhaust valves are different. Also compression ratio is higher in NA which increases chance of breaking said rods and pistons with anything beyond low boost. Heaps of info around about this too.

You'd think maybe the cylinder head temp sensor was dead, preventing the gauge working and preventing the PCM from switching on the fans. Previous owner then hard wired the fans as a work around. Light is probably coming on once the PCM realises it isn't getting a valid signal from the CHT sensor as the temp isn't increasing.

15 pounds again! New actuator in and it is as good as gold.

Yep you might hit the overboost threshold on a B-series and the wastegate maps would be a bit out. As a rule of thumb you can generally tune for double the boost of your wastegate spring. So if a B series spring is 5psi or something you will be limited to about 10.

Yep MTQ was about $200 delivered. Ask about the spring pressure, but should be the FG one you are after.

Couldn't find them online much. Rang these guys and did it over the phone https://www.mtqes.com.au/mtq-sydney-branch

Lol I never noticed they snapped off! Only time I have seen them was the radiator hose clamps on the old BA, which I was removing to fit a new hose kit that included new clamps. So I just unscrewed them once with pliers.

Yes, only difference is the spring pressure. The preload is preset and is not adjustable, so is a straight bolt in. Couldn't really find them online but rang MTQ in Sydney and it was on my doorstep in Canberra in less than 24 hours

I've undone this previously by unscrewing with a pair of pliers.

Or a friendly 'cash only'

Try the PCMTEC or Haltech forums too. On The PCMTEC one at least, there are plenty of other pros, hobbyists and DIYers who are generous enough to give others advice as to whether or not you are in the ballpark or sometimes you even see people share their maps. Obviously you need to make sure whoever you are listening to knows their stuff. If you read heaps and take a safety first, incremental approach to making changes you'll get there.

Yep the actuator, bracket and rear housing from your 82 will fit on the 76. I think the spring pressure in the FG 76 Is higher than the B series 82, so if you want to run 15psi or so on the little turbo you will need to change the actuator. (I just bought a new genuine actuator for my FG and MTQ said the spring pressure was 7.8psi.) If you are tuning it anyway, might make sense to out the right actuator in now so you don't have to pull the turbo again. Edit: someone else might be able to confirm what I've said about gate pressure

Going from a BA to an FG I was amazed at the response of the smaller turbo. I had been planning on swapping the bigger turbo in, but decided not too. Depends what you use the car for, but if it is a daily driver it's hard to argue with the response of the smaller guy.

That comment could apply equally to Keith!

I had a key cut and coded for my BA pretty easily by a locksmith so you might be able to do that so that you have two? Tried Mister Minit the first time - key would go in and start the car, but would not come out again... [emoji1787]

Looks like the genuine actuators are a bit rare too. Everyone sells the Turbosmart ones, but plenty posts about then being painful. Hopefully that's just an initial setup thing and once it is done and the WG DC fiddled with, would be ok.

So a bit of progress with this. Over the past few weeks I've had the cat off the road tidying up a bunch of things, including replacing all of the intercooler pipe clamps behind the from bar with t-bolt clamps. Now tests fine for leaks. The car still won't boost past 10psi. However now it holds 10psi, rather than just falling over. Made me suspicious I had two problems going on, so I started testing everything again, in case the boost leak was masking the secondary issue when I first tested. And hey presto - disconnected the vac line from the compressor cover and had to jump off the throttle at 16psi. So I'm thinking maybe time for a new wastegate? Solenoid is new and I've confirmed it's not the tune (have checked it, haven't made any changes pre and post the problem and same issue if I flash in the 13psi workshop tune that was in it when I bought the car). Edit: when I suggest wastegate, I'm thinking due to a weak spring and the wastegate opening too easily. As opposed to a wastegate failure causing the wastegate to stay closed.

Yep! Good news here is winter is usually clear blue skies which is more incentive to get out and about.

Well right now Melbourne is about 5.5 degrees warmer than here! Turbo car weather.

Yuck. Checked out a friend's Focus recently because it was dripping coolant underneath near the rear, which sounded very odd. Heater core was leaking and running under the carpet to a drain hole near the rear seats. Was a real mess.

Yeah 3-4 hours. Worth a go myself I reckon! One of mine has some pretty decent rash. MCM also have a wheel painting video. Looks easy enough and if I use cans, I could even just do one at a time and keep the spare on. Painted the lounge room on the weekend after spending a couple of weeks doing car stuff, so maybe I'm free to switch back to a car lockdown project!

Yeah I was thinking of going back to that one and watching it. As a guide I just got a quote for a mobile place to come out and do mine - $700. Could probably buy a decent set for that! But at least by repairing them they would be perfect. But no harm in giving it a go myself first.

Interesting! I'm keen to tidy up the gutter rash on my FG lux pack 19s so this has given me some food for thought.