The Bendoco Limo (Long - Lots Of Pics)

[BenDoCo]

I think it's time for me to make a build thread for my 2010 FG G6E Turbo now that I've done some work to her and this is a really good way for me to keep a record.

I bought the car with a bit over 30k on the clock in April '13 because of the color to start with. The paint code is ED (Edge) and it seemed to change colors as I drove past it at the Ford dealers so I had to go back and have a better look.

After a test drive of the Turbo and about an hour and a half of negotiations, I signed the contract even though I had no intentions of buying a car that day but I didn't have to go for a drive to think about it or anything, the purchase just seemed - right.

That was a Saturday afternoon and I got the dealer to tint the windows and give it a damn good detail in the deal so they told me to pick it up Monday arvo. That was going to be a very long 48 hours before she would be mine but as sure as the Sun will rise in the morning, she will be mine.

Some of you may have already seen a lot of the pics that are in this thread already. Sorry about that but... isn't that right Angel.

For a couple of months before hand, I had been reading quite a bit about the power you can get out of these things and most of the info came from this forum (thanks Google) so I raced home that Saturday afternoon after signing the contract and joined up. I think the first reply to my very first post was something along the lines of "wait until the mod bug hits" and sure enough, 3 months later I started -- the list.

The next few months saw me living on the forum reading heaps and asking a lot of, and in hindsight some stupid questions but that's OK because sometimes the best answer comes from a stupid question and I was put on the right track and pointed in the right direction every time when it came to what I wanted to do with the car or more precisely, what I thought I wanted at the time.

First on the list were wheels and tyres... The standard 7 spoke 18 x 8s just didn't cut it so I read the threads on wheels, tyres and suspension (knowing it would get dropped a bit as well) to ensure I made the most informed choices.

20s and 19s where out cause I wanted a bit of tyre wall to help when she got lowered. I'm sitting at half a ton atm (age, not weight.....yet) and have lived with a spinal injury for the past 30 years so the last thing I wanted was a really hard and harsh ride.

After seeing some pics of what I reckon is the nicest G6ET around, I sent a PM to the owner, wombatG6ET and asked if he minded if I went with the same wheels as he. "It makes me happy that you to have good taste" was his reply.

Wombat helped me with the offsets for the Koya Bathurst SM Big Brake Wheels (18 inch - 8.5 front with a 30 offset and 9.5 36 rear) to ensure nothing will rub once it's lowered. Thanks heaps for your help & advice mate.

As soon as they were delivered, I took them to my crashie mate - or should it be crashy - and had him paint the inside 2-pac Black and they then lived in the lounge room for 3 months or so until I finally sold a block of land I owned and could afford some rubber and get them on the car.

Even after all the research, tyre choice was still a huge headache. I didn't want to spend too much money on tyres as I was still having fun with the single pegger diff but I also wanted to get better than the 9000k's out of them if I could, which is what the current tyres had done and had been down to the wear-marks for the last few weeks so I decided to go with the Toyo Proxes T1 Sports (245 x 40 front and 275 x 35 rear) and had them put on the car.

I really am happy with my choices and they are sooo light. I should have weighed them but the rear wheel and tyre weigh less than the standard rim - by a lot.

The only thing I didn't like was the rear suspension (still standard at this stage) had become quite harsh - I guess because the side-wall of the Toyo tyres is a lot stiffer - and the 'minor road imperfections' were causing a horrible thudding and thumping which was going through the entire car and after a few weeks, this got very, very annoying, and was starting to hurt my back.

Around this time, I was researching and then bought an in-car-dash-cam because of a chic on her p-plates texting while driving. http://www.fordxr6turbo.com/forum/topic/86243-in-car-camera/

So, next up, suspension......or was it?

Yeah suspension components were the next thing to get purchased but fitting was put on the back burner...so I decided to have a chat with Matt at Race Brakes Sydney in the meantime because I was always taught when I was younger that it's fine to make a car go faster but you also have to make sure that it stops better as well so we'll come back to suspension in a minute.

With the new wheels, the standard brakes looked like, well, like an aerial view of the Elephant Man standing alone in the middle of an empty Adelaide Oval so Matt told me about a deal he had at the time on a package consisting of the Black 4 pot Brembos, DBA T3 355mm front and 328mm rear rotors and Goodridge braided lines so I showed him the money and he had these delivered to my place a few days later.

#carporn

I was gunna get them fitted when the suspension was installed but I couldn't wait so a mate and I fitted them up and they fill the front wheels quite nicely now and I gotta tell you, I have had to jump on the brakes a couple of times since we fitted them because of other drivers thinking that they are 'entitled' to do what they want on the roads and holly anchor Batman, they stop the Ford pretty quick.

Dusty as all crap though because the T3s really cut the standard pads to buggery and make a hell of a mess but the trade-off is --- boy do they work when they have too --- hot or cold.

OK, back to suspension.
As I said before -- got a bad back -- and the choice of suspension components really worried me but the ride the car was giving me with the new wheels and tyres wasn't good at all so I had to do something.

Luckily, I had the forum open (I don't think it had been closed up to this point) so I read and re-read the suspension thread.

Too Much Info....Brain Overload....
So I sent a PM to a member and Sponsor of this forum knowing that he will point me in the right direction for MY needs.

After only about 10 minutes talking with Pat at Wholesale Suspension, he recommended the Koni Red shocks with King Spring ssl on all 4 corners. “That package will give you the ride you’re looking for” he said.

There was a saying in the old days that went something like 'low springs = hard ride" and that worried me but have since found out that that is far from correct with these progressive King Springs. The top 2 coils on the rear springs are thinner, as you can see in the pic below, which allows the spring to compress easier and absorb that thump that I spoke of before.

Pat, you definitely know what you're talking about..........thanks heaps.

I took the car to "The Shed" and Jet installed them. Cheers mate The mud flaps were removed and the black center caps were put on the wheels while we were at it and as I posted in another thread, the first thing I said when we got it off the hoist and I climbed in to take it for a drive was "arrrrg f*ck - it's lower" as I was making old man grunts and groans as I sat down.

Now they have all 'settled in', she's sitting almost perfectly for me and the ride is so so so much better than standard in all respects. The G6ET now sits at 352mm front and 340mm rear - HTG.

[BenDoCo]

Engine Mod Time....sweeeeeeet.

I can't remember when I decided that I was going to take the car to Melbourne to get some work done but I do remember the reason.

You see, over the last couple of decades, I have been a member of quite a few different forums and whenever I could, I would always support their sponsors cause I'm sure you all know, that's how it should be - when you can - and since ratter, or more correctly, Pit Lane Automotive down in Frankston Vic http://www.pitlaneautomotive.com/ is currently a sponsor of this forum, I started to pay attention to his posts.

Now it may have just been coincidence but for a while there, every time a question was asked about modding, it was what I was researching at the time and more often than not, Mick was there with the answer - no mucking around - straight to the point whether it was what the poster wanted to hear or not, and I admired that.

It was obvious that this bloke had a bit of knowledge about these cars and from what I could pick up from other members, he and his workshop were admired and even praised by quite a lot of people so the decision was made.......it's gunna go to Melbourne.

I sent an email to them to introduce myself and a few days later Mick rang me. He started off the conversation by saying he only had half hour to chat about what we could do to my car as it was his lunch time ---- so 2 hours later when we both realised it was 2 hours later, we said goodbye and it happened again.....Brain Overload.......This guy has so much knowledge and is so very passionate about what he does and for me, that confirmed that I had made the right choice in Tunas.

Over the next few months, I had the pleasure of talking to Bel at Pit Lane quite a few times - in fact - we probably spoke for a total of 10 to 15 hours on the phone and only about 1 of those hours was actually about my car but in that time I learnt that she is pretty friggen knowledgeable about these cars as well.

Now I don't recommend this to anyone else but through the pure act of 'harassment' (sending half a dozen emails a day..........sorry 'bout that...hehe) Bel told me to have the car down there on a Monday morning at 8am so they can strap it on the Dyno to give it a run and we still hadn't nailed down exactly what mods where going to be done to the car.

I drove down to Melbourne on the Sunday and was invited to stay with Raband for a few days (thanks heaps (again) mate).

I have to say that I am so very impressed with the road system you guys have down there. I hit up breeze.com.au so I could drive on any of the freeways without the fear of being fined and it was just so easy to get down to Frankston. (note to SA Gov - your a bunch of idiots.......but don't you EVER think about building toll roads here)

The drive was a bit over 700 km and I averaged 8.6 l/100...That's not bad considering I get about 16 or more in the town where I live and the first thing I did when I got to Frankston was find this Pit Lane place.

Monday morning came and the guys gave it all a quick check over, strapped it down and then Mick plucked her into 4th, gave it some jandal (hehe) and we saw 240kw (the lowest of 3 b2b runs). So with that done, we decided to talk about what we were actually going to do to my car.

What a 'clean' workshop. If they weren't working on Fords, they could wear White Gloves.

Through the Group Buys that Pit Lane organised a while back, I bought a polished Process West Stepped Intercooler with the wrinkle finish pipe work and the PWR Heat Exchanger for the ZF trans so at least we knew 2 things that were going to be fitted.

At the time, this was going to be the first lot of mods because I had full intention of taking the car back down there in another 12 months so Pit Lane could kick it up to the next level. Because of this, I wanted the G6 to 'look' standard to start with and then go turbo side etc. etc. in round 2 but where possible use parts now that we wouldn’t have to change later. After all, the block of land I sold wasn’t worth 'that' much.

So we talked for a couple of hours and then Mick asked me a question which turned out to be the best thing for me and shows the integrity of this guy. The question proved to me that he wasn’t out just to make money. He wanted (in fact, I reckon he needed) to ensure that I was going to end up with the best car FOR ME.

My answer to his question came immediately and as you all would know, the first answer to a question (without stopping to think about it) is usually the most honest.

Mick: "So why do you want another round of mods after this ?"

Don: "Bragging rights. You see, there’s a chic that owns an FG F6 ute where I live that has 420kw so I wanna beat that."

Bragging rights………..pfffttttttt………..what a tossa. As I said before, I’m getting on in age and I wanted to spend a sh!t load more money just to be able to brag that I had a more powerful car.

Stuff that I will never be able to use all that power and I was already complaining about how much fuel it used around town and so it didn’t take Mick (and Andrew) long to convince me that I (me & only ME) was being an idiot.

2 rounds of mods may be the right thing to do for the next guy or gal but for what I really wanted from the car (nice (easy) power on the road, tow the trailer every now & then and maybe throw it down the quarter mile a couple of times), 1 lot of mods was the way to go for me and Mick obviously picked up on this fairly quickly.

"Don’t get me wrong, I'll gladly take your money if you force me too but I believe that in the long run, you may regret it" Mick said -- -- or words to that effect.

This caused me to scrub half a million questions that I did have but then raised quite a few more when it came to what we were going to do now to suit what I REALLY wanted from the car.

So after even more discussion, on top of the stepped intercooler and heat exchanger we decided on:

TruTrac LSD Inc. new bearings (That’ll upset Matty – won’t it) and new (genuine) bushes
Strengthened Tail Shaft with H/D rear CV & new front Coupling (coz ripped)
Walbro 341 In-Tank Fuel Pump
Nizpro Full Exhaust with Valve (boy – the valve really does shut the drone up)
12lb Actuator with the Port and Flapper job
ID 1000 Injectors
Atomic Valve Springs
Modified XR8 CAI with a K&N filter (to keep the x-over)
Braided Oil Line and Filter (to piss off the standard oil screen)
New NGK Plugs and a couple of Tunes with the Xcal3 and a Trans Tune.....

The G6 had 50k on the clock when I got to Pit Lane and I have changed the oil each 6 thousand k’s (ish) so I asked them to do an engine oil change, a full Trans service while they were fitting the heat exchanger and a Coolant flush as well.

WOW, what a list. Yeah we added a couple of things to the 'normal' list of mods due to the fact that Mick helped me save a bucket load of money and I left the workshop sometime that Monday afternoon feeling really damn good with all the decisions that were made.

Performance mods and preventative maintenance mods being sorted, time to leave the car in Mexico and let Pit Lane get to work.

Gotta thank the Pit Lane guys (& gal) for the following pics.

^^ Nothing wrong with this diff bush ^^

The end of week two without my car and Bel rang for a chat and said that they were having all sorts of trouble getting the Nizpro Exhaust to fit with my Heyman Reese (style) heavy duty Tow Bar.

As I said before, I (well......Belinda did) got Simon at Nizpro to install a valve in one of the pipes to try and stop the drone that the big 4" zorst has, but where the valve sits is right where the end mount for my towbar is but Mick in a *cough* calm *cough* manner modified it all a lil bit coz I use the towbar so it can't be removed.

Easy fix............lolololol
Please trust me when I tell you that the pics DO NOT tell the whole story.........................cheers guys.

I guess that when doing mods to a car, you have to expect something to get in the way and I reckon that something would be wrong if nothing went wrong even with the 6 P rule.... My thought is that if there's a pita situation now, then everything will go perfectly when it's on the Dyno being tuned.

↓ my fav pic -- -- gotta love the look of over-head cams ↓

↓ like a glove and no cutting involved ↓

Geeez, there’s a lot more tread on the front than the back and it’s not even going yet.

The phone call that I have been waiting (so patiently) for came and Mick spent some time going over the four tunes he put in the G6. A grandpa tune (3000 rev limit - save a bit of fuel in the little town I live in 'hopefully'), an 18 - 15 and 13lb’er but after a good chat, I asked Mick to delete the 18psi tune as I don’t think I could trust myself with a “tyre shredder” tune that ran out of puff mid rev range. It sounded like it could have been a whole lot of fun though.

I wasn’t able to get back to Melbourne for a week so I asked if he and Belinda could use it as their daily to enable them to identify any – possible – problems before I brought it back to Adelaide and they were more than happy to do that for me. Again, thanks guys -- -- above and beyond.

The first chance I could, I caught a flight back to Melbourne and I got off the plane, grabbed the bus to Frankston and got to Pit Lane about lunch time to see my car again after what seemed like an eternity.

Mick & Bel went through everything with me and then Mick took me for a drive and there is now a rip in the passenger seat because my ass tightened up sooooo much…….WOW……I couldn't believe how smooth it was and then all of a sudden it turns into a panty-dropper…...

He then taught me how to use the xCal 3 – the new version wasn't stable at the time – and because I had so much going through my head, I grabbed the GoPro and recorded it (no, I won’t upload the video. hehe) and then we chatted for another hour about everything including the engine mounts…….Left was stuffed. I would have thought that it would be the Right side that failed on these as the heat from the turbo must damage it but nooooo, not on my car, it was my left one leaking all over the place so both had been replaced just to make sure.

Pit Lane gave me exactly what I wanted even though I didn't really know what that was. You guys rock.

When I left Pit Lane that afternoon, I was amazed at how easy it was to drive and how fantastic the tuned ZF is and because I was invited to stay at Rab's again, we decided to head to Calder on Friday night to have a run.

I was only able to get 1 run down that didn’t turn into a 600 foot burnout. I don’t know how but since Wednesday arvo when I picked the car up, my rear Toyo’s have lost a lot of their tread so with some more practice and tyres that won’t spin up at every gear change, the work that Pit Lane did will see 11 seconds……..sweeeeeet.

This run only spun at the very top of 1st and 2nd hooked up nicely.

Not bad for an old guy - but I need a shave and that's just a dummy number plate on there............hehe

BTW: Apparently Open Faced Helmets are no longer to be used and I just bought this 1...bugger...they let me use it for the night though.

Cheers heaps Pit Lane (Mick, Belinda, Andrew and the new guy with the Smurf hair-do)………………..Absolutely Awesome.

And I gotta thank rab and his son for letting me crash on the couch and a huge thanks to Ash for showing me around that end of Melbourne. You are a fantastic woman for doing that for me mate…..thanks heaps (even though you wouldn't let me bring the dog home with me.... )

Now if you will excuse me for a while, I have things to do

Edited 21/06/14 06:42 AM by Dagabond

[Bizkets is Drunk?]

spinal injury and now arthritis in the hands from to much typing. lol

have to go for a drive soon mate.

[JETURBO]

Nice one Donald

[xr6tnv]

After reading your posts last night about the work done, I'm so glad that you've done a build thread mate ! Absolutely great read and gives me some ideas for my car can't wait to get pitlane to work on my xr6t. Keep us updated on any more changes !

[tab]

Goes to show what a valuable resource this forum is and you sir have made it even better with your excellent write-up.

Very nice work.

That Mick bloke has a well-deserved reputation as an awesome bloke, although I suspect Bel does most of the work.

And you must have got P@ on a good day as any dealings I've ever had with the bastard have been shocking.

[senna_T]

Cool Story Bro!

[MattyP]

Well thanks for the mention? Haha

I think your spot on about being the car you want and the standard for turbo is beautiful for a daily

I do miss it that's for sure

I'm going to pm you soon about suspension as I'm about do an overhaul as well

[Rab]

Great writeup Don, wrapped everything went together so well for you.

Will have to get you back to the track once you've got some tyres that can actually hold some traction

Was a pleasure having you over for the trip and the doors always open. Kids are looking forward to your next visit and Bella misses her couch buddy.

Was great sharing the different experiences and ideas on your tune and techniques - think we both learnt a fair bit just from the late night rattling on

+1 for the "extras" Pitlane bring to any work they undertake too - they answer the questions you didn't even know you had and aren't afraid to pull you up if you're headed in a wrong direction.

Am now just wondering how long you run the 3k tune for as your daily, switching to the full tune for fun before you just say "stuff it" and run the hot tune 24/7

Definitely worth taking the time to do everything right the first time - will be looking at your suspension ideas when it's time for mine

Edited 18/06/14 12:52 AM by raband

[MattyP]

Hot tune 24/7

SMASH MY DATE in

Edited 18/06/14 12:59 AM by MattyP