2007 Fpv Tornado Ute - Tinkering & Setup

[k31th]

congratulations, Phil

[discostig]

Great news man.

[FiftyOne]

Sweet merciful Jesus, thank Christ that's over. Your ever strong persistence has paid off again Phil

[PhilMeUp]

Now all I need is some actual money to get it licenced with.

 

Current bank balance:  $0.12.  I kid you not.

 

Not my best year.   

 

Money shall be borrowed to get this thing on the road ASAP.

[PhilMeUp]

Tuesday, 24th May, 2016

 

The Tornado has officially passed an emissions test!

 

I had been undecided all this time on whether to put the car back to standard for a licencing inspection or to get it engineered legally.  The first step to doing it legally was to get an emissions test done.  

 

I had been asking around about this for months but kept getting vague and misleading answers from various people in Perth.

 

In the end I rang Plazmaman in Sydney, and eventually had a conversation with someone who knew a bit about this.  He told me that getting this car through an emissions test would be a lot simpler than I was expecting.

 

I was told to put a standard Ford catalytic converter back on.  Apparently this is one of those rare times when the factory produced something better than any aftermarket place has.  

 

Regardless of the tune, it’s the catalytic converter that does the work in controlling the emissions.  

 

The first time my car was tested it failed.  Cars often pass the first time, but this one didn’t.  Catalytic converters work better when they’re hot, so to get them hot enough involves revving the engine a lot before the emissions test.  The hotter the catalytic converter is, the more effective it is.

 

When I picked up the car I asked how he got the car to pass on the second attempt.  The answer was, “I had to rev the hell out of it.”  This was done on the dyno.

 

So, with aftermarket Xspurt injectors, a Plazmaman intake plenum and a custom tune, the car legally passed an emissions test with the standard dump pipe and catalytic converter in place.  

 

No tuning changes were required in the end.  

 

The car might have failed on the first attempt because the catalytic converter was old.  I don’t know how old it is, or how many km it’s done.  I think it came from a BA Typhoon, which would make it over 10 years old.  I swapped it for something else last year, in case I ever needed one.  That turned out to pay off.  

If I was going to do it again then I would track down the newest and least used original factory catalytic converter that I could find.  

 

For the testing, I chose a place called Garage 101, as they have both an emissions testing machine and HP Tuners software.  HP Tuners would have allowed them to easily modify the tune if required.  This involves altering the air/fuel ratios and ignition timing.  However, this ended up not being necessary.

 

Naturally, I’m rather pissed off that I didn’t know about this option back when I first got the car.  I had asked around at various Perth tuning workshops, but got fed rubbish answers everywhere I went.  The owner of one place refused to even discuss it unless I paid him for the conversation.  

 

One thing that I did check: workshops keep a record of this stuff.  Although I had briefly pondered if it was possible to make up a fake emissions test, I figured that such a move would be way too stupid and risky.  Sure enough, workshops keep a permanent record of these tests, so if an audit was ever done by the Department of Transport then it would quickly become apparent that someone’s committed fraud.  

 

Getting this done was expensive - I paid $580 to have the standard dump pipe and catalytic converter put back on, and then the emissions testing done until it passed.  One place that I spoke to quoted me $1,500 to do the same job. 

 

Where I had this done:
Garage 101
70 McDonald Street (East)
Osborne Park, WA 6017
Phone: 9444 5977
Web Site: www.garage101.com.au

 

My next step will be to start the engineering process, which will end up making this car 100% legal.  Although ultimately more expensive than the option of temporarily setting the car back to standard for an inspection, getting it engineered will ensure that it won’t get a future defect notice (which would painfully restart the entire process). 

 

Getting it engineered will also mean that I can declare everything to whatever insurance company I end up insuring this car with.  If the car is ever involved in any sort of insurance claim then I won’t have any concerns about it being properly covered. 

 

To pick up the Tornado, I drove my other one there, parked it and drove the green one home.  I then rode my KTM enduro bike (ie road licenced) back, put it in the back of the blue Tornado and drove it home.  

 

Sooner or later I’ll remove the hard lid on the green Tornado so that it can carry motorbikes easily.  That will happen when I’ve got a second person here to help me with that. 

 

After 11 months of stuffing around, and being stuffed around, I’m finally getting close to actually getting this car through an inspection and licenced.  It’s about bloody time.  

 

 

 

 

Edited 24/05/16 09:50 PM by PhilMeUp

[barnz]

awesome news mate

[k31th]

another solid update and a positive result

[turboknapp]

Holy snapping duck sh*t Batman, a standard CAT will meet emission requirements!!!!!!!!!!

 

Regardless of having the car engineered, the 5-0 can still canary it. 

[discostig]

Are you saying my laminated engineering certificate is worthless???????????

[Ralph Wiggum]

Handy drink coaster?