Full report
The drive overFirst of all, I’d like to give a big thanks to my buddy Jim (RockSteadyEddie on here) for taking the best part of Saturday to drive me up there in the loan car. He saved my bacon there and although he was well fed and watered all l day, I’m sure he had better things he could have been getting on with.
ArrivalI naturally had a quick nose around the car. I’d quite forgotten how good it looked actually. It was a bit grubby but then it hasn’t been washed for a while. I’ll get on that next weekend. A quick call to the wizard himself and he appeared in a puff of smoke (or rather he hobbled over) and started walking me around the car so I could see what he’d been up to.
The walk-around
The exhaust looked incredible. Really nicely made and still very shiny! Leighton told me that they’d spent a lot of time and effort building it to minimise the boomy nature of a poorly made 3” system at this point. The short route piping for the FMIC looks very professionally done. Opening the bonnet, it was obvious that a fair amount of work had occurred here too; looks of shiny metal on the turbo, diverter valve and new SIP, a new APex’i Power Intake and lots of blue stuff. In fairness it should have been before – it was just filthy! He’d cleaned it all up and told me off for leaving it in such a state. I’ll try to keep on top of this now!
Next was the interior where the new missile switch was fitted. It now has three channels:
- High boost (which is the default down setting). 1.5 bar trailing to 1.4 bar
- Low boost 1.2bar right through
- ‘Supercharger’ setting. This is something that you simply cannot manage with a traditional boost controller. This starts out at around 1.1bar and ramps up to 1.3bar at the redline (if memory serves), the boost increasing with rpms like a supercharger. The idea is an even more progressive delivery for wet weather. I haven’t used it yet but it will be interesting and, I’m sure, very useful in the coming months. I’ll report back on this when I’ve put it to use.
Feedback from Leighton
At this point, Leighton took me through some of the problems he faced in tuning my car. It is good to know that it isn’t just me that this car hates! He will be sending me a list of those problems that he couldn’t / didn’t need to fix so I can start working through them, but the ‘highlights’ included a dodgy air-con system that was always ‘on’, some of my dodgy attempts at wiring, brakes pads that were almost gone (new Pagid Grey RS15s already on now!) and a number of engine mount bolts that were missing. He did say that the cockpit did receive a fair amount of vibration from the Vibra-Technics fast road mounts. So much in fact, that he’s made the decision to not fit them to his based on this experience (I think this is just age related though…).
On a more positive note, he did say that mine appears to be in particularly good condition underneath and that, overall, it’s becoming of the better examples he’s seen /smug.
Driving away
Having parted with some money, I trundled off with Jim now in the passenger seat. Off the bat, I couldn’t believe just how coarse the car felt. Around the hilly roads of that part of Bristol, it was creaking and groaning and everything was rattling. As it turned out when I got home, this was all due to the old parts – it was lovely and quiet when cleared out! The car did feel a lot more raw in terms of engine vibration also but this was due to me having been in the Alfa loan car and Emily’s 350Z for the last 4 weeks. Now I’m using the Coop again, it feels great again!
What did it feel like to drive?
After pootling through Bristol and then finally getting some fuel in her for the drive home, we pulled onto the motorway. Before opening it up, I just gave it a little squirt and… not much happened. I said to Jim “this doesn’t feel much faster at all?”. A few minutes later, traffic cleared and I tried again, with a little more throttle. It was only at this point that I realised that the throttle pedal now has an analogue function! The old digital 10% throttle = 85% power has no gone. I hadn’t appreciated how long the pedal travel is before! Full throttle in third gear and it was off! Into fourth and it just kept pulling. This was more like it.
So it clearly goes in a straight line and the rest of the mostly Motorway drive home was pretty clear and it was just trundling along. At motorway speeds / revs it felt so smooth and refined managing motorways speeds without apparent effort. And no boomy drone at all – very impressive!
Back home where I now on low speed roads I know well, I quickly noticed another huge improvement. The now analogue boost delivery seems to work in reverse also. Where before a slight lift off would result in a jolt as the turbo stopped spinning, now it winds down progressively. I can now lift off mid bend without the car bucking around. Mid corner and this was a recipe for lift-off over steer. I haven’t really pressed on as the brakes were either shot or so new I can’t yet use them in anger, but I expect it will be a lot sweeter to play with.
What does it sound like?This was of course something I was going to be paying careful attention to. For me, these cars are first about looks and then noise, and I’m very impressed with how it sounds now. To a certain extent the grumbly 5 pot warble and flat out rumble has largely gone. It’s no-where near as ‘angry’ as it was before instead sounding for more mature and… potent. You somehow get a sense of a huge volume of air being processed – it’s all sucking induction, whooshing turbo and jet engine exhaust. It sounds like a piece of machinery that just does the job it needs to without any needless fuss. It also doesn’t pop and fart at all. Has it lost some of the previous character? Possibly, but it’s adopted a much more OE, refined and serious personality. I’m falling in love with it already. The new Synapse Synchronic Diverter Valve should really have a mention here. Leighton said it worked very well in its primary function of aiding the turbo while holding boost. It isn’t ‘dumping’ as crisply as it should yet and I will be tweaking it to this end, but it too generates a much more serious noise. A higher pitched faster psst! Rather than a rattle snake of a thing like the Forge DV007 did. Again, this is very much to my liking!
Hot startIf there is one thing that isn’t ‘perfect’, Leighton said it can take a bit of throttle sometimes to get it started when hot but, in my hands, it’s only done it once so far and that was at the services on the way home. Another 10 or so hot starts since and it’s been perfect. Honestly, if he hadn’t said it might do that occasionally, I wouldn’t really have noticed! It also settles on a rock solid idle from the get-go which it never used to. Yet another example of moving away from that modified feel to OE that can be lost when upping the power.
The ultimate testI’m really looking forward to the misses trying it out. When she used to drive it and wasn’t used to having to constantly blip the throttle to stop it stalling, it would always stall. She would get annoyed with it and we’d end up swapping over. Now it’ll be lot easier for her to drive, the throttle controlled boost will stop it being on/off power, it won’t keep stalling and it won’t get away from her on the low boost setting t 377bhp. She drives a rev-up 350Z (296bhp) so is used to a fair amount of grunt but it is a complete pussycat compared to my Coop’s previous lag…lag/full boost delivery before.
SummaryOverall it is a much more polished and complete package. Aside from the sometimes awkward hot start (that I’m not even sure really is a problem), it is just better in every conceivable way. Oh, and it goes like the flaming clappers!
In closing, I’ll get Leighton to post up the dyno charts. He has one showing all three boost channels and another showing the before and after chart. This will put things in persective!
Over to you then Leighton!!
One that I designed on a Focus RS Mk1 that made 450bhp, albeit at 1.8bar, and it spools like GT28RS. However, what favours the Coupe is revs, and as we have a nicely balanced engine we can look to make more power with less boost. The icing on the cake will be the 3D boost control, with this we can control torque very easily, and with a 3-stage boost switch the best of everything is going to be available!
