Fiftyone's Bitsa Build

[FiftyOne]

I've been meaning to up the output of the tornado for a little while & now I've got the daily whip this Easter seemed like the right time to do it. Right up until my PC shat the OS drive again, this time with a heap of personal documents. And right up until the focus shat a wheel bearing in spectacular fashion, and the flash tuner decided to brick itself. Fml. But as we do, we keep gumballing & follow dreams. So with some trepidation starting this build, here's the story so far;

2006 BF mk1 F6 Tornado - Build #0077. 491 examples built in the B series range by my count, makes this more rare than a GT-f. Fully optioned less the luxo electrics in the steering & peddle adjust. Condition when I found it wasn't the best. I negotiated $1500 of repairs before the sale, the paint was ordinary in some areas with swirls & stratches in the clear. Rear bar is cracked, rims stratches as hell, classic brembo 6 piston clear fade, auto needed some love and as all cars get with age, several minor things in need of attention.

History was the ute was brought by a fella that owns an aircon business in NSW. The second owner brought the car from a dealership he'd traded it at. They had told me he had lowered it day one and used to hawl big AC units around in the back. Second owners soon realised this was so impractical and then lifted everything back. As I found out before sale, the trans mount was smashed to buggery and the box was half hanging out of the back! After replacing the box oil, I started to see somewhat of a life the ute had to date

It wasn't pretty, plenty of sparkle too in the pan. So it's far better now but far from perfect. I do expect at some time to be needing a box rebuild with the power mods. I managed to get in touch with the first owner and he was good for a chat. Wanted to know where the car was & what happened to it. He drives luxo c63's and such now but does remember well the black ute he had. As the story goes, had lowered it, and also flashed it. "Undrivable" where the words he used. He then had it retuned with another tuner, and said he was making about 320wkw with everything except injectors stock. He kept it for two years and turned the car back to a merc dealership where it waited for the second owner. A woman in the armed forces that wanted something that stood out. She didn't drive it much as she was away doing drills all the time so I managed to get it with only 114,000ks on the clock. She had been meaning to sell it for a while (3 years) but never really tried to commit to selling. With her second child it was time to let go as it simply wasn't practical so I now own it

Edited 03/04/15 12:50 PM by FiftyOne

[FiftyOne]

The plan;

Ute need to be a ute. Usable, utilitarian, practical, somewhat sensible (as sensible as a ute with several hundred horsepower can be!)

I don't plan to use it daily, but I will if I had to. Also it needs to tow, be reliable and maybe the biggest suprise to many of my friends that drive it, stay quiet & comfortable. The shock people get, and I'm still pleased by is the NVH is pretty good. Leather seats, full climate control & quiet enough to hold a conversation with someone. Also must be subtle & appear see at stock. No chrome or shine in the engine bay. The mindset for reliability has been to pay the money & do it right. Insted of a patch (like voltage boosting the pump or a surge) replace the lot. Do the job right with parts that won't create more flow on issues.

So maybe to start with the things I won't be doing;

Rear of the exhaust will remain stock

Will try everything in my power to not move the battery and use a turbo side intake

No major cutting or irreversible modification

Right, that's quite a wish list! So why call it a bitsa build? To achieve all this I'm going to take parts from several kits & sort of throw them from a distance in to the engine bay and see if it works. Some people are flat out negitive and say things won't work from the start, I say it's all about compromise, and I'm going to see how far I can get without moving that battery.

The components so far;

A PW stage two kit that has come off another car

WeaponX coils

KPM 1000's and a 460 replacement fuel system

Nizpro plenum and cold side pipe work

Several airboxes to pick and choose to mod

[FiftyOne]

The build;

I'm going to be a little vauge on this tonight but so far all the injectors are in with the new reg. The stock air box and piping is out and I'm starting to remove the existing plenum which is going to prove to test me. All the bolts are hard to get at and seized.

Re the intake, this is where the madness starts to come in. I'm hoping to use an fg muffler on the turbo and the fg cross pipe to get over the motor. I've got my hands on a KPM streetfighter intake that I'll chop up to suit. The kpm unit is fg specific but as I suspect the bolt locations to the chassis are almost spot on so I'll work with that. In my minds eye I think the tb will just crash in to the box plus there is pipe work that needs to come either under the headlight or under the rad support and up. So the fix there will be to chop the box some more & tastefully use some thin rubber to cover it in. I don't know how much of the original box will be left but I'll keep gumballing to find out.

As a matter of interest,

You can see the difference in the injectors pretty clearly. Lots more fuel to flow through a 1000cc unit! The choice to go this way on the fuel system was made pretty clear after being at one of the KPM fuel system evenings. Boosting the pump voltage is a crappy way to do this, a surge is illegal and will likely cause issues as the Venturi in the tank will make the fuel pressures high and to do everything right, best practice say to use a higher flow fuel reg too. Anyway I go there's wiring to pull through so that's not a consideration. KPM make a good drop in kit with a bigger swirl pot so you go with that. Yeah the tank will be a right PITA to get at but let's face it, there are far more difficult jobs to do on, in or around cars

I originally planned to just get the engine side of the fuel done today & fire it off, but the flash unit decided to brick itself and in doing so pretty much makes the ute unmovable until I get that sorted. But of a plug here, I had responded to a Facebook post with people saying they also had flash issues. Literally within 15 seconds I had a message asking what the deal was from a Herrods rep. So I'll be making a trip in asap to have them take a squiz. Got to say, the Herrod's crew impressed me with a no bs, chat to get the unit to them to get sorted.

Also forgot a couple more bits that are either on or that will make an appearance later in the build;

PWR cooler replacement installed

Advanced dump pipe, ceramic coated with 5" cat

Turbosmart kompact bov. Choice of 25mm & 32mm pipes

GFB turbofuse. In central vic temp will range from +40 to -4 last year. You'd have to be deadset nuts to want to boost hard with that much heat but you better believe Id like to breathe pleanty of crisp fresh air in winter. I picked it up on eBay half priced unused so that will go in at some stage

Edited 03/04/15 01:45 PM by FiftyOne

[Peppy_t92]

Hey man, sounds like you've done your research, and should all come together well... IMO stick to genuine coils, and the turbo dues is not really needed if your getting a custom tune, the factory boost control will be sufficient..

All the best Joe

[FiftyOne]

Cheers mate. Had a dead or dying coil anyway so I went new plugs & a set of the COP coils. I was looking at ~$150 for a replacement set, and then maybe a herrod booster on that. I've heard both circumstancial as well as first hand evidence about an improvement to idle & power delivery, but really it was another ~$400 again and a more difficult install with me still needing to pop the coils out to begin with.

[FiftyOne]

So I'm seeing a bit of early potential in this stupid idea. But it's still early.

Main issue today was getting the dam plenum bolts undone. Dem some a bitch tight! Anyway moved all the tb & sensor gear off the old unit & on to the new. The kits I have are the nizpro cold side & the pw set matching the pw throttle relocation. In my case I'm going to be relocating the tb a little more again so I'll chop a few pipes and mod it to work. Haven't decided on the tb orientation as yet.

If you can use your imagination you can see the airbox should fit with a few well placed holes & the filter has room. If possible Id actually like to get a bigger filter again, but that one came off the other car & was making mid 300's with 60lb injectors so it'll do for now. Need to figure out what to do with that pita AC line. All sorts of everywhere I don't want it to be right now. Thermostat housing went on too, along with taking all the sensors & fittings off the old plenum too. If someone had an old fg rocker cover Id love to have a chat too as that'd probably make fitting this new fg pipe work up far easier.

[FiftyOne]

Few more pics. Forgot to mention I need to get hold of a right angle drill attachment as you need to drill out the front & rear threads to fit the new plenum. The one at the back is just a tad too close to the fire wall. And I'm definitely not taking the whole kit off to get at it

[FiftyOne]

Lol the things you find when you look. Does explain some of the vibration issues I've been having though. Just another thing to fix. Interestingly this does mean I'm actually going through fronts quicker than rears

Edited 04/04/15 11:12 AM by FiftyOne

[PTR_NITRO_FG]

^^ lucky break catching that!

Lowered at all? Mine at stock height (FG) is apparently chewing the insides out a little too. Apparently needs shim kit to do a 'proper' alignment... I thought it might be due to my agressive cornering, especially at roundabouts lol

Also whats your objection to relocating battery and going turbo side? Just cause of the fact you already have the kpm kit? If I could do it again I would have gone relo into the boot...if I had the ability to do so; which I assume you probably do

Looks like it will be a good thread! Good luck

[FiftyOne]

cheers PTR. I think it could be toe related not camber but the B series do have very soft upper wish bone bushes which I was always going to replace. So looks like that will be moved forward a bit. I've also got an out of round rim on the other side too fml. So yeah, pushing wet sh*t up hill

Don't want to move the battery as Id like to keep it as stock looking as I can. Also Id rather not muck around swapping earths & running cable. I've also seen batteries located in the cabin & tastefully in the tub but I'm trying to not go too silly on this. I did have an earthing issue in the headlights which I think I've sorted with a loose bolt under the air filter

While I'm thinking of it too, God dam ford, you could have made the gap under the headlights just a tad bigger yeah? Would have been able to get a full side pipe under there