2.4 Canadian Coupe

Finally the project I was supposed to complete over the Winter is now finished. The Summer driving season is very short here so the original plan was to do the work over the Winter and have the car ready by May. However I was too busy Snowboarding and it was too cold to work on a car. Therefore I didn't start work on the project until March but hopefully I'll get at least two months driving out of it now, maybe three before the Winter again. I've kept a track of the hours I've spent on it, at a rough guess it's about 200.

New spec:

Torque Italia 2.4 Rods
Torque Italia 2.4 Pistons
Torque Italia 2.4 Crank
Torque Italia Stage 4 Head
Torque Italia modified auxillary belt pulley
Torque Italia lightened flywheel
Torque Italia Uprated upper and lower engine mounts
Torque Italia red painted cam cover with chrome plated spark plug cover
Torque Italia remote oil filter kit
Torque Italia polybush wishbones
C&B Cams
Garrett GT3076 Turbo with .64 A/R
Helix Paddle clutch
Chrome plated slam panel
Chrome plated heat shield
Chrome plated lamda probe rail
Polished fuel rail
Polished Plenum chamber
Aluminium oil filler cap
Custom made ARP cap bolts

Almost everything else replaced or painted!

Engine bay was stripped down, any rust removed and repainted. All loom protection was replaced and new rubber boots fitted. Short block was rebuild by a local engine rebuilders. Head was prepared by Torque Italia. Assembled by me.

I'm running on standard injectors (which have been cleaned) and ECU for the run in period. Then drive to Vancouver (1200 km each way) to get a Motec fitted.

Took what seemed like ages for oil pressure to show on the gauge which had me worried. Connected spark plugs and it fired up on the button. Sounds like a diesel at the moment but Barbz says that's normal until the hydralic tappets adjust after 20 mins or so.

A massive thank you to Barbz who tirelessly answered my emails and rapidly shipped stuff to Canada for me. You're a real star and will be greatly missed. Without an expert like this I wouldn't have dreamed of taking on such a venture. Also thank you to members of the forum who answered my dumb questions like what's the torque figure for this bit!

John

Good to see you've got it finished John and, more importantly, that it's running nicely. I would think you should get some healthy figures out of it once any cold air arrives out there.

I do, however, feel that it is somewhat rude that you haven't thought to include any pictures.

Ditto. Well done dude. Not only are you probably the only coupe over there, but defo the only 2.4!!

Ross

It's hot off the press. The car only started it this morning before I left for work. Lots of pictures taken but for now imagine a huge pile of dosh with the sun behind

John

Pics give!

Huge congrats John!

It's been a long time, but I'll bet it's well worth it!!

Where in Vancouver did you take it?

I'm planning on taking it to:

Brad Zimmerman
22711 Selkirk Ave
Mapleridge
British Columbia

He's the only authorized Motec dealer in Canada.

comon weres the pics,hay and congrats on getting it all done over there, realy you done bloody well

Well done John,cant wait for the pics

Must be cool having the only coop in a country.
I'd imagine it gets a lot of attention with people thinking it's a new car.

People haven't got a clue what it is. The only person who has recognised it is a guy who drove past in a Range Rover and used to own one in the middle east.

I've had people think it's brand new or worth 100,000 CAD

John

What I want to know is how do u get hold of a chrome plated slam panel!!!???

Use a regular one and take it to a company that chromes things They clean it, coat it in nickle which gets into the corners better than chrome and finally a top coat of chrome.

John

Hmm, it sounds like you and Taz might be going for a Bling Off contest!

Not surprised they think it's new, most of it is.

the chrome jhon over there our over here mate

Nice work John, as always.

Very very well done John.


Sean

After this no-one on here can complain of being to far from a specialist!

Looking forward to seeing the pictures

Hey 100k dollars, i'd sell it. Vancouver what a miserable place to drive, stop start for sodding traffic lights, only saw one car of any interest a buick grand national.

For poser value John fit up a camera when you get near a busy area to film other drivers looks at the car. It must stand out so much against all those boring hideous cars over there!! Ok crysler 300c is nice.

Think of it as ego boosting for all coupe owners!!

rich

There are Coupe´s in Canada?
I lived in Vancouver for 5 months last year and I didn't see any...

Ur's is the only one?
Next year I'll be going to Regina, SK...
maybe i can see ur monster there...
hehe

As far as I know it's the only one in North America. It doesn't meet the US or Canadian standards. There are no longer any Fiat dealers here. There used to be but they packed up way before anything like the Tipo was produced.

Mine is allowed to be here as I bought it over with my work permit. I have to take it back with me when that expires and I can't sell it.

John

Nice one John ! I see why you need those rear brakes now .

Phil

Here are some pictures as promised

Engine Bay

Before

With Engine Removed
Notice the sprint blue colour. The original colour of the car. When they painted it Nuvola Blue they masked up the engine and painted the engine bay black rather than removing everything and painting it Novola Blue. It looked a mess so I cleaned off soem small spots of rust and masked it up. Took 3 hours to mask this!

Masked and painted

Finished

Engine

Original Engine

Short Block back from Engine builders
I only wanted the block painting and the sump cleaning but never mind.

Finished engine ready to go back in

Parts

New Pistons

105 empty Zip bags I'd used to keep parts in as I dismantled everything

Painted Parts

It may weigh 88 lbs but it's fragile
The box I made to ship the head to and from Barbz!

Inlet Manifold & Plenum Chamber

Inlet Before and After

To give you some idea of the attention to detail

This is the original inlet manifold. I Masked it for spraying. This is it after painting.

John

All them long dark winters... you got too much time on your hands, John

Neil

Now that looks

Very nice work.

John truly excellent well done

And you did that yourself, Kudos! gotta be my favourite coop on here too

Yes it was a huge effort but I'm very pleased with the results. It was originally only going to be the engine work but whilst I was waiting for parts I took the time to clean up as much as I could.

I still have to total the cost up. I know the shipping parts to and from the UK has cost 1500 GBP alone!

It's just a shame it doesn't actually run

John

Pics of exterior GIVE! I know it hasnt changed but hey it doesnt matter.

Interior has changed slightly. I now have a Alpine 7" fold out DVD touchscreen. I had to make a fibreglass surround for the head unit to pull it out from the recess. Pictures soon!

top work mate,

are you the only coupe around? I didnt know that coupe has reached Canada..

omran

read the thread Omran.....

An update...

I've now driven 650 miles since the rebuild. The car runs reasonably well but needs mapping. The tickover is a bit lumpy when cold as the fueling is very lean. Only once the car has warmed up does it switch to closed loop for this then the idle is spot on. She sounds fantastic at tickover, I don't want to switch her off when I've finished a journey. I've been running her in with no boost and no more than 3k rpm. This weekend I'm going to change the oil for some good stuff.

I'm having an Autronic standalone ECU fitted at the end of the month. Can't wait to hear her on full wail.

Temperatures have dropped again this week, winter is definately on the way. We're now getting a high of about +5 and a low of about -15. It's snowed a couple of times in the city but they haven't put and salt or grit (rocks) down so I can still drive the car. There is already a metre of snow at the ski resorts

She still gets plenty of looks and complementary comments. None about the driver yet though

John

Nice to know all the work hasn't been in vain John!

Absolutely amazing

good stuff John, glad to see you worked out the oil filter kit, this way, you'll never get a mucky engine again !

chrome looks awfully familiar !

Taz

It took me ages to figure out the oil filter tube routing, I'm talking hours!! I made myself a new bracket for the head bracket and the horns. I'm getting a very slight weep from a couple of the connectors. Might remove them, check they are clean and retighten.

The problem with the routing at the moment is it's snug up against the downpipe elbow. I'm hoping that lots of heat wrap around the exhaust and pipes will do the trick.

I quite like the idea of re routing the oil filter but why? just because its a bit of a bitch in standard place?

where did you source the kit?

I must say tipoboy, its looking good, what target do you have for bhp, or should i say what would make all you efforts seem worthwhile to you!

I am with shabba, we need to see the whole car more

Here are a few pictures from last year:

Kananaskis
Kananaskis
Kananaskis
Kananaskis


Driven To Perform
Driven To Perform

My favourites:

Don't drive around Canada with UK plates!!
Don't drive around Canada with UK plates!!
Don't drive around Canada with UK plates!!

really REALLY nice car there. was it easy to get it into canada? Does anyone know what it is? shame those girlys were in the way of the thrid pic though

the pics with the canadian rockies at the background look great

one of the best pics i have of coops...
do u have more?

-------x----------

forget it.. i found them from ur album
canada has one of the most beautiful roads in the world
great pics

I have lots more and in RAW format as well. One day I'll have to get around to sorting through them.

John

Tipoboy - I have just found myself a new computer background.......

Thanks!

what colour is that?

Alfa Romeo Nuvola Blue - Paint code 414B

As if having the only one in the country isnt enough you fit an le interior,a 2.4 engine,and spray it alfa nuvola blue!!!!!

super car tipo boy
The pic`s are quality too sure ross(h2yper) will want some for the coupe calendar????

That is stunningly good

What an absolutely stunning car - gorge colour also!!!

I thought I'd dig out this old thread bring you up to date...

I've just finished updating my Web Pages. My first show is on 24th May and there is plenty still to do. I took the turbo off to change the housing for a .86 to try and help it breath better and discovered that the turbine wheel was mangled by the spark plug insulators going through it!. I'm sending it back to ATP Turbos to be reconditioned. I still need to make up a bracket for the coil packs and then make up a custom set of ignition leads. I'm getting a new SIP made up with no MAF sensor.

Last weekend I fitted LED rear lights and the pusher fan and worked out the wiring for the new alarm when it arrives.

I'm getting a stainless steel battery try made up for the boot now I've relocated the battery there.

Cheers

John

the oil cap looks stunning,
quote Completely standard apart from........ gotto love that,thats the only coupe in the world that realy suits the cada grill,the hole car is bloody stunning,and a credit to its owner well done.

Yes, it's finished. Took it for a drive at 2am and all good to go to the car show this evening. It's taken a huge amount of effort and a lot of weekends under the car but I'm pleased with the result.

The 16" pusher fan isn't enough though. I'll need to complement it with a 16" puller fan.

A large amount of work went into relocating the coil packs now I've switched from coil on plug. I've made a carbon fibre "bracket" that fits where the battery used to. No problem with the sparks now though, I tried a plug touched to the metal of the car and the spark was massive.

Carbon Fibre with holes cut for coils

Coils mounted in Carbon Fibre

Mounted in car with custom made leads

Another View

One more!

Nice work John, well done!

Nice indeed

How did you make the CF bits - are there DIY kits you can buy?

Looks stunning - top work

I also notice that Amy Winehouse appreciated your car so much she took time out to pose with it. Looks untypically happy - she must really like Coops

Winehouse on the right

Sexy sparks, John... but isn't there supposed to be a battery under there somewhere?

The battery is now where the spare wheel was in a custom made stainless steel tray

John

When i have 30 grand spare thats how i want mine to look.
EPIC is how good your coupe is.

I took the car to Calgary's "Driven to Perform" show today. A show for tuner cars. There were about 200 cars there and mine won "Best Euro". Very happy.

Trophy

Very well done John. Pure dedication.

well done mate - a very well deserved reward for all your hard work!

<Happy Gilmore quote> What a tremendous looking trophy!

Excellent work John, must be a great feeling to win! What sort of euro-competition did you have?

hadto be a winner with all that work,realy well done you deserved it.

There was a quite a selection of European cars there. Lots of BMW, Audi (including R8), VW and Porsche. Several M3s with superchargers, a Lotus Elise with a supercharger, a MK2 golf with a VR6 and turbo, Ferrari 360, Aston Martin DBS, oh and a Merc SLR!

Lots of pictures here here from other people at the show, only a couple of my car but it'll give you an idea of the cars and models there.

Well done John

Have you any pictures of your car at the show, I could only find 2 in all those photo's

Yes I'll upload a few tonight for you.

Same but it was not exactly a chore to look through...

Here are a few pictures of the car at the show. No models this time.

picture
picture
picture
picture
picture
picture
picture
picture

Looking

Did you get good feedback from the locals?

Your car is so absolutly stunningly beautiful! lol Amazing work - I want it ^_^

People would walk around it and eventually spot FIAT written on the engine and go "It's a FIAT" as if in disbelief

All positive responses. Several people commented on a stunning paint colour. I got a big clap and cheer when my throphy was announced

very cool mate, must have been great.

Rich

Well done mate. All your work has made this easily the best all round coop.....if Carlsberg made coop's........this would be it!

Thanks, that was in it's glory days, last weekend. This weekend the engine's coming out!!

It hasn't been happy since the tune and yesterday I lost pretty much all oil pressure at idle when hot. There is plenty of pressure when cold. Even revving it to 4k when hot only showed 1 bar. The guys who tuned it are going to strip the engine down if I can get it to them. It bent another spark plug (#3) electrode as well. I checked the plugs and 2, 3, 4 and 5 were in perfect condition but #1 was wet and oily. Once we pull her apart we'll know if the electrode bending is due to bits of pistons or temperatures. The engine needs a strip down regardless to investigate the oil pressure problem. Hopefully we can turn this around so I can get some driving out of her this summer. On the two days I did drive her it was so nice to sit low, change gear and have responsive steering. So very different from the Jeep.

John

Does look fantastic in those show pictures.

Maybe I should have specified Nuvola for mine after all!

Last weekend the car was in a show, this weekend it's in pieces all over the garage floor!!!

Bits

There's something Missing

Missing bit

Crane

I removed the engine out the Coupe today. Far easier the second time, took me 10.5 hours. I'm taking it to Lightspeed on Monday for them to take it apart and see what the damage is. Number 1 cylinder doesn't look very well, the exhaust port is black and oily. The others look okay. When I removed the magnetic rpm sensor it had a bunch of iron filings on the end of it.

I'm hoping I can get away with just new pistons. However if the cylinders are scored then I'm not sure what I can do as I think this is the biggest bore I can take the engine to. I can't easily get hold of another block!

John

Bah sorry to hear its in pieces again! Was wondering though, what front and back bumpers are on the car, because they look amazing and i would love them on mine!

Geez John. I wish I had your patience! Sorry to hear of your car's woes.

I took the head off today to inspect the destruction! All the pistons had big chunks of metal missing from the inlet side. Some had the whole section between the two valve cut outs missing down to the top ring. Pretty impressive actually.

I took the engine and head to Cam at Lightspeed to rebuild for me. The head needs cleaning up and at least one of the valves is bent slightly as it's not sitting properly.

Cam's going to look at the bores to see if they can be honed or whether they need a rebore.

What the pistons used to look like.

What they look like now! The numbers are just identifiers not the cylinders:

1
2
3
4
5

John,

am I missing something?
why/how did you end up with all this mess? Car has been properly mapped, no?
What brand were these pistons?

Good luck with the rebuilt!

V.

Sorry to hear this, your coop has always impressed me

How did it happen?

Wow, that is some serious detonation John?! I can't see how that could happen from the mapping unless the timing was totally wrong in the first place. Could be that you timed it up wrong in the first instance or perhaps when the Autronics was fitted??

Hope you get some better luck this time.

Actually looking at those pictures again it could be that you have had very slight valve piston contact. Was it the inlet valve that was bent? Either way, it looks a timing issue.

Oh dea JL, det'd to F**k. I'd hazard the thickness of material between deepest part of the inlet valve cut out and the inner edge of the first ring groove was too little making that the weakest part (although just looking at the original picture there looks to be plenty of material there). seriously I would get guy Croft to design the next set of pistons as he'll only do it on cad and then you can tell what the thickness will be prior to manufacture - but the culprit is detonation, lower compression could be advisable for the fuel out there. Do Chambers show impact damage, pitting, are the valve seats coming away from the head at all? What temp did the car run at in the rolling road?

Rich

shit, that looks bloody bad John !

I hope my coop is never going to end up like that, or I'll just crush it, soz to hear about your problems.

But it also looks like the actual pistons have been hammered to death, then hit with some detonation & run bloody hot, as there are blow by holes at the cutouts....

something pretty bad has happened here

Bloomin eck..... they look bad

Yes the cost per hour driving is horrendous! I'm sure a Porsche/Ferrari/Lamborghini would be cheaper to run! However unless I fix the engine the whole car is useless.

I know this may sound stupid, but can you tell if the damage is fresh?

Could it possibly be from when you had first rebuilt the engine and were running it in unmapped?

I guess it could have been but I didn't go over 3k rpm and ran with zero boost.

How much advance was it running?

John

Seeing the car you're trapped. As you say the car would be useless, it's just too special (and probably rarer than a Ferrari or Lambo in N.America) not to put back on the road. Besides you promised me a ride if/when I come over to visit my lad

i would'nt put it all down to det yet to be honest

Alot of what look like det marks were more than likely caused by parts of the piston floating around

Looking at the piston the squish band is at least 30% smaller than standard as a result there is a lot less material holding that part of the crown to the rest of the piston, i am not sure why you would make it smaller TBH??

Also what squish clearence was you running

it would also be interesting to know the CR and what advance you was running plus boost levels



Ricky

The tuning issues including advance and boost levels were discussed in this thread.

John,

did the turbo come unharmed out of all that???
where did all the piston bits go, surely turbo blades must have been battered really badly...

Odd, v.odd!

V.

Yes the turbine blades were mangled, I sent the center section back to ATP and they sent me a replacement. I thought it was just the spark plug insulators going through the engine and now we were not seeing that problem any more I thought it was safe to put the turbo back on. Unfortunately the same thing happened again so I need another centre section. It costs me $80 to ship to ATP then ATP change me $550 for a new centre section and shipping back so it's not something I want to keep doing!!

On that subject it might not have been heat that had previously damaged the insulators, it could have been bits of the pistons hitting them!

any photos of the cylhead (combustion area...)?

It seems like parts of the piston have broken/sheared off I very much doubt it's anything else than mechanical. Mind you some of the "breaks" look rather shiny and untouched.

V.

No unfortuately I didn't take a picture.

The valves looked untouched except one exhaust valve which wasn't sitting quite right on the seat so that one is definately bent. The top of the combustion chamber was pitted in a similar way to the pistons but not as much. The head is being sent away to be cleaned up and made like new. I'll let you know what the report says.

John

No, detonation caused that damage. The piston might have been week in that area - like I said you need a drawing to see how thin that area will become. Det occurs most common on the inlet side which had the largest cut outs coupled with what maybe a weak design the det pressure mechanically failed the piston - but det would have been the root cause. For mechanical piston failure high rpm something like 8k would have to been seen and I doubt that in this case.

I agree with this, det has a caused a week piston design to fail and as a result the parts of the piston have caused alot of damage on top of the det damage.

Just look at a standard piston and you will see that the squish band is larger and as a result has more material holding it together

what brand are these pistons? the custom Barbz JE ones?

V.

They were the CP Racing ones from Barbz.

The link to the piston specification has been removed until I know who owns it.

Hi John, I will mail you seperately also. But for info the piston spec request sheet is not synonomous with a validated full CAD design, while the material and production methods maybe CP's high quality they do not validate the design as to do so they would have to do a full cad drawing. For instance I can show you a Guy Croft example piston design one of 3 pages; this enables not only calrification of weak points it gives a document to compare what is returned, in many cases you cannot assume what you get is actually what you asked for.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v74/sediciRich/D18lowcomppiston_example.jpg

Rich

thats exactly what is needed

Guy croft puts a lot of effort in to every little job in an engine such as this, he will not rely on anyone else to do the job for him

this is one of the reasons why he is one of the best engine tuners in the world

Thanks Rich. To be fair the spec sheet I showed was what I got supplied in the box from CP Racing. It's not necessarily what they used to build the pistons. For example there is nothing about the valve angles or sizes for them to know how big or where the cut outs would need to be.

I'll speak to the guys at Lightspeed to see what their piston design is going to be like.

is it OK to have these drawings on the forum guys?

V.

Very good point. I hadn't though about the intellectual property. I've removed the CP Racing piston drawing until I find out who owns it.

I wrote to Guy first, and obviously he's allowed to ask me to remove it. Notice there are a lack of dimensions as I asked for something for illistrative purposes.

Rich

Rich, you've got to remember John posted up the spec sheet that comes out of the manufacture not the design spec that went into the manufacture.
If there is an issue with the strength of the pistons then I would've had a problem by now. I ran 20k miles approx at 408BHP+ before Barbz even sold the kit to anyone to prove that it would last and that included TOTB 3 & 4. The head was then taken off for inspection.

I had a det issue with mine in 2006 but it was because I switched to race fuel and stupidly forgot to run out the tank internal swirl pot. But even then my pistons were not actually damaged to that extent just dropped the spark plug core and scored two of the bores. I actually still have all of those pistons in my car despite that & they are still fine with good compression at my level of tune

I think the issue is the canadian fuel, but to get det on all cylinders is pretty rough going. The piston has a weak spot but as Guy said to me something has to take up the detonation pressure either the pistons or the head gasket. I'd say for that fuel a lower comp and thicker - minimum thickness between 1st ring land and VR. Its not a weak piston per se but it has an area which sholud be beefed up or rather made to a different breif.

rich

The pistons did go through finite element analysis and simulation as part of the design process, so a visual comparison of the manufacturing spec isn't going to tell you a lot in terms of where the actual strength is. Neither frankly would a 2d cad model. The sheet that John has that came with the pistons is purely for the engine builders reference so that they get the bore right etc.
I didn't pay for consulting on the piston design for a laff, it was because given the constraints it is quite obviously a very complex job to get the piston right.

Fundamentally fitting a 2.4 stroke into a modern 2.0 block is not a simple task. It would be easy adding 15mm stroke if it had 80s design pistons like the 16vt but it doesn't. There is no additional space left at either the top or bottom of the bore as a result of the conversion so to make anything thicker you have to make something else thinner otherwise the CR will go up or something else will be stressed. You really cannot say beef that bit that broke up because as far as I recall the most stressed point on the crown was not where the piston has broken, so that is a result of det. And why should you make a piston take more det than that? why would you compromise the design for something that was so extreme in terms of being incorrect.

If you make that part stronger or at least have more material there will be somewhere else on the piston which will become weaker given the requirement to keep the CR the same. There is no more space.

The pistons aren't designed to take that much det any way you look at it. If the std pistons had have had that much det they would've been in pieces probably with a rod through the side of the block. It is a testament to the pistons strength that it was not obvious it had failed, and this is why I said to John's tuning guy look in the bore with an engineering endoscope.

Calm down. The weak part for such combustion pressure is at the VR, clearly, and no pistons can take sustained det. FEA is fine but I assume only looking at cyclical loading not the compressive force that det could cause thus the weak point location is only a function of the applied load. Sure something is going to give way, but I wonder why the det wasnt heard, sure a trace amount before such a significant event? To make anything thicker you have to make something thinner perhaps- Id say reduce the rod length and put the pin lower, not point chasing capacity if its going to fall apart. In this case lower the Pressures or temp for that fuel or watch it happen again. (this assume the RR operator did all he could to minimised such an occurrance)

I've heard some news from Lightspeed. The new 2.4 crank I fitted to the engine is now worn 5 thou. They want to regrind it to 10 thou. However I see on the FAQ section here that you can't regrind a 16VT crank due to loosing the nitride hardening. I presume the same is true for the 20VT crank and I need to buy a new one.

John

There was a thread about this in tuning just yesterday John. The outcome wasn't particularly decisive although I remember reading that they are nitrided and cant be re-ground in a previous thread.

If you do require a new one, I'd suggest speaking to Johnnybravoturbo as I think he has one no-longer required.

This is becomming an expensive rebuild. It turns out the head has 4 bent/damaged exhaust valves and 5 bent/damaged intake valves. Ouch.

No other news

John

Ouch.

Canadian fuel is a little unusual in that they use MMT (wiki entry) as a high octane additive as opposed to something like MTBE (methyl tertiary butyl ether) which is used in Europe and elsewhere but mostly banned in the US due to groundwater contamination from undergound storage (no problem outside the US, I blame poor housekeeping/maintenance). In the US they now use ethanol or the (similar to MTBE) compound TAME. I wonder if that is significant? Sorry to hear about the damage, but in the pic of the new piston it did strike me how little material there was between the bottom of the valve cut-out and the top ring

Few questions:
Who built the engine in the first place?
Are you sure it was built correctly?
Are you sure it’s det as it’s very strange to see det on all cylinders like that?

Engines don't go wrong if they are built and mapped correctly. I feel your pain as I had to rebuild my engine a second time due to poor workmanship (incorrect clearances to blame) however if you wanna do something right you do it yourself and that’s exactly what I did the second time round along with a trusty mate to be 100% sure.

There are many people who run the 2.4/2.5 conversion from Barbz and they don’t have problems so I wouldn’t blame engine components as they have already been proven. I wouldn’t blame fuel either as a good mapper should know the fuel their using. I hope you sort it out John it’s just another pain that you could do without.

Lightspeed are being very careful and professional and not pointing any fingers.

I'm not going to mess around with regrinding the old crank and risking using the old oil pump. I'm ordering a new crank from the UK together with a new oil pump.

The old crank was worn 5 thou after only 1000 miles which is probably where I was loosing oil pressure.

John

Have you been keeping yourself busy through the winter rebuilding this thing John?

must be time soon when you and the coop haveto come home

I think the project is completed.. SEE HERE...

Engine started on 3rd of August, 2008

Hope to see John here soon

That's 2007, before the engine went bang and the same date this thread was started.

Ooooops.. yes it is 2007.. I must be

Hello,

Sorry for not writing sooner. It's a bit difficult to find the motivation to read the forum or talk about the car when the only state I seem to see it in is jacked up in the garage without an engine!

Lightspeed are slowly rebuilding the engine for me. There is no hurry as winter is here now and will be for some time. The weather doesn't start to improve enough to drive the car until about May.

I have a brand new 2.4 crank and oil pump. The exhaust valves have been replaced which required a new set to be custom machined. I have a new set of inlet valves from FIAT. The head has been cleaned and resurfaced. I'm waiting for a full update from Lightspeed. New pistons have been made by JE. I'm waiting to hear how they changed the design, what the new bore is and what they decided to use as the compression ratio. I've left all these decisions to Lightspeed. They know what they are doing and it'll be easier to map if they know the internals of the engine.

It's a little depressing to keep pouring money into something that seems to spend it's whole life broken. Hopefully this is the year when it all falls into place rather than apart again!

I've been keeping myself busy in the summer downhill biking and now that winter is here snowboarding. Silver Star Bike Park

My right shoulder is badly messed up. It was dislocating easily so I had surgery in 2003. However I crashed snowboarding in 2005 and undid the surgery. It's got progressively worse and last winter I crashed badly again on it. I landed in what can only be described as a one handed hand stand which hyper extended my shoulder. If I don't get it fixed it'll get even worse. There are numerous abmormalities with it. I'm aiming for April or probably May this year. That way I hope to get a good snowboarding season in and get the engine back in the car before I have the surgery and after the weather warms up a bit. Once I have the surgery I won't be able to use my arm for a month and it'll need about 4 months of physio. There will be no biking season this year which is a real shame as I really enjoyed it last year. With that timing I'm hoping that my shoulder will be strong enough to drive and the car will be finished for the summer.

John

Nice to hear from you John..

I hope that you sort out the Coupè problems soon and your shoulder heals quickly

All the best John

You seem to have a lot of spare time on your hands John. Do you ever work?!?

Good luck with everything.

Ouch, sorry to hear about the shoulder John!
Hopefully you and the car will be all fixed up for a late summer !!

Oooh, nice to see another coopster who likes a spot of biking and boarding. Funny - my best mate runs a Biking/Boarding business in the alps - he also has a coop! Weird...
Have a speedy recovery dude. I think even broken your coop is something to aspire to!

Best wishes mate .

Just looked at your website which is incredible, it is amazing the work you;ve put into it.

Looking at this page though http://members.shaw.ca/coupeboy/coupe/cost.html and that is just totally insane!!!!!!!!

Yes and that's exclusing the purchase price of the car.

I spoke to Lightspeed this week to get the latest news. The head is all finished. They didn't have to replace any valve seats just the valves and some of the guides and all of the seals. They've cc'd the finished head and it came to 9.5cc.

They rebored the block from 83mm to 83.5mm and this got rid of the damaged caused by the pistons falling apart. I asked about porosity and strength of the remaining cylinders and they said it was okay. However I remember seeing a discussion on here that questioned going that size. (2475cc)

The new pistons are a similar design with a slightly lower compression ratio of 8.5:1 compared to the previous 8.8:1 and a bigger quash area.

John

sorry not following much lately. But aren't exhaust valves sodium filled or something and are meant to be bought new and not custom machined?

good luck with all the pain and work needed!

V.

The exhaust Valves that Barbz supplies with the 2.4 head are Ferrea ones and I don't think they are sodium filled. I didn't have the specifications of the valves so we sent one off and they made a complete set for me.

I'll try and get hold of the specification off Lightspeed that Ferrea used.

John

They are sodium filled, that's why they are so expensive!

I just don't know how you guys find the time. I really don't....

I thought it was about time I wrote an update!

In summary, the detonation in June last year caused lots of bits of the old pistons to break off and scratch the cylinder walls, damage most of the valves and leave the head with impact marks. The crankshaft had damage caused by the rods walking up and down. The turbo blades were also mangled.

Rebuild comprised of 10 new intake valves from FIAT, 10 new custom made exhaust valves from Ferra, 5 custom rods from Carrillo, new crank from FIAT, rebore to 83.5mm and the head rebuilding.

I finally got the engine back off lightSpeed on 15th May. I was initially shocked to see the calculated compression ratio was now 9.3:1. Fortunately there was a 6 mistaken for a 0 in the calculations and the compression ratio is actually 8.3:1 which is what we wanted. As low as the pistons dictate to reduce chances of detonation with the fuel here. The quality of the engine build is very high. All finished very nicely with all the blueprinted details on two sheets of paper.

I eventually went for 120 and 107 for the timing of the intake and exhaust cams. We'll just have to see how she runs.

I spent an hour unloading the engine out the back of the Jeep Saturday morning and started to assemble the rest of the engine. A busy day, fitted:

Camshaft cover
Cambelt cover
Timing pulley
Front engine support bracket
Intake manifold
RPM sensor
Knock sensors
Oil pressure sensor
Driveshaft support
Oil breather
Rear bracket for wires
Oil dip stick
Thermostat
Water temperature sensor
Flywheel
clutch
Gearbox
Rear engine mount
Starter motor
Driveshaft

Unfortunatly I'm stuck now. I used a couple of the engine mounting bolts to hold the engine onto the engine stand. Lightspeed mounted the engine onto a different stand when it came back from machining and when I picked it up they couldn't find the bolts. I can't fit the engine into the engine bay without these bolts. Very frustrating as Monday is a holiday here and would have been able to make a substantial attempt and connecting everything else back together. Hopefully Lightspeed can fond the bolts on Tuesday but I'll order some from the UK as backup. Looks like another week delay.

Weather the last couple of days has been beautiful 24 degrees and sun. Didn't mind being in the garage through. Having say that we're expecting a high of 3 degrees on Monday and snow!!

I did find what look like cracks on one of the cam caps. It's the one that sits between cylinder 1 and 2 on the intake side. I'm not sure why this one is necessary because all the other caps are between each of the pairs of valves. What can be done about it?

Location in Head

Looking towards cylinder 1

Looking towards cylinder 2

not good, I'd ask GC. I wonder if it was ever in backwards or even the right cap as the journals would have been line bored so not as if you can really just replace it.

If you can get hold of an old cylinder head or at the very least the cam caps then you can try matching one yourself (or machine shop). I got lucky doing this with two broken caps, otherwise you are really looking at a new cylinder head.

Panic Over!!

I removed the cap and the bearing surface was perfect. I hand sanded the area around the cracks using some fine wet and dry paper being careful not to go anywhere near the bearing surface. After 10 mins the marks were completely removed from one side and substantially reduced on the other side.

Looking towards cylinder 1

Looking towards cylinder 2

Woohoo
When will you have it on the road?

Thought you might like to see some pictures of the progress. Spent 3 hours last night lifting the engine into place and refitting the front subframe. I'm itching to get going on it again, I can see the end in sight

Great work as ever!!

good work mate!

You are getting closer and closer, keep it up

Hope to see videos of her on the streets soon.

Lovely work. I'm dead jealous of your garage space....

I notice this thread now says 2.5 canadian coupe. Did the rebuild include a capacity increase/overbore?

Chris

Due to the scratches made by the bits of the previous pistons falling apart I needed to rebore it again from 83mm to 83.5mm. With a 90.4mm stroke this results in a 2475cc capacity engine.

One of my requirements when looking for somewhere to live here is it must have a double garage so I could work on the car and park both under cover during the winter.

John

excellent work John.

Out of curiosity, did you ever mic up the big ends ? I wonder as to why my coop always shows about 1.5 - 2.0 bar at very hot idle

keep your determination going dude !

Is this what you needed to know?

Connecting rod big end diameters:
53.899
53.899
53.897
53.897
53.899

Crankshaft rod journal diameters:
50.785
50.784
50.783
50.783
50.784

Connecting rod clearances:
0.034
0.036
0.034
0.034
0.036

Connecting rod bearing thicknesses:
1.54
1.539
1.54
1.54
1.54
1.54

Almost ready! Spent 8 hours today on the following...

Connected fuel lines
Connected throttle cable
Connected heater pipes
Connected reverse gear selector
Fitted clutch slave cylinder
Fitted gear linkages
Attached powersteering rack to subframe
Connected electrical connectors at back of engine
Fitted Power Steering hoses
Fitted Power Steering pump
Fitted pulley for Power Steering Pump
Fitted front water rail
Fitted alternator
Fitted exhaust manifold
Fitted auxiliary belts
Fitted wires between alternator, start motor and battery
Fitted oil cooler
Fitted cooling duct for oil cooler
Fitted remote oil filter hoses
Fitted Turbo
Fitted battery tray
Fitted earth strap for gearbox

Finished fitting everything else today. Pressed my foot on the clutch and heard a snap and pedal went to the floor . Trying to move the fork by hand shows no resistance and I can lift it up about an inch. I think it's snapped. Just when I was about to start the car I now need to remove the gearbox. I'm looking at the best way of doing this without removing the engine. I read the guide for the 16V engine and it sounds only slightly less work than removing the whole engine! It wouldn't be so bad without having to remove the driveshafts and drop the subframe.

Currently feeling as sick as a dog.

John

I don't know if anymore room is required on the turbo, when I did my 20v I was able to drop the subframe at an angle and drop the box down, technically if the suspension was undone at the top it would all come down with the steering coloumn undone. Would be a pig to manouvre though.

I'm going to have a go at removing it in situ first. It gets so depressing when you've spent the day trying to do things like refit the 5 stud downpipe only to realize you'd got to take it off again. I was just about to lower the car onto the floor and fill it with fluids before seeing if it would start

Okay, I hope the engineer who thought up how the starter motor is fitted was fired. That 3rd bolt is a absolute nightmare. I don't think you can get to it from the back of the start motor, you have to go in over the top. I could just about reach it with my fingers and could get a tiny ratchet on it a couple of clicks at a time until it's fully undone. I don't know how it's ever going to go back in! I think in hindsight it should be the first one to be undone because otherwise the weight of the motor sits on the bolt making it difficult to spin the bolt by hand.

John

What a nightmare John

A new clutch fork arrived from the UK today. I also ordered various other spares such release bearings, sleeves and gaskets.

Hopefully tomorrow I can finish removing the gearbox and repair the damage. We're expecting snow overnight so no loss being in the garage all day!!!

John

I got the gearbox off this weekend and discovered the clutch fork was actually okay. Instead it was the release bearing that was damaged. The two little bits of metal that wrap over the ends were snapped off. The main part was okay, just the last 5mm that bend over parallel to the pressure plate to fully locate the fork were boken off.

When fitting the new release bearing I noticed what I had done wrong the last time. There is a thin peice of plastic that goes around the end of the section that clips into the pressure plate. It appears that this is used to hold the spring in place whilst it slides onto the pressure plate. When I reassembled the clutch this plastic would have been pushed back onto the base of the bearing because it had already been fitted once. I wasn't aware it was in the wrong place. This is why when I thought I had located the release bearing onto the surface of the pressure plate it had not taken hold.

The gearbox is all back together now. What I job, it must have taken me 2 hours to get the gearbox aligned. The pressure plate hadn't moved but it was very difficult to try and get the angle correct. I used a jack to hold the engine in place and a engine hoist to raise and lower the gearbox. The clutch now works, very pleased and I've started to put everything else back together. Started motor refitted and driveshafts. I'm having fun trying to get the subframe to line up with the front mounting bolt locations.

I found the best way to get to the top bolt on the starter motor is from the battery tray side. You forearm ends up being in line with the engine and hand is under the heater matrix hoses.

John

Sounds like your determination is paying off!

yer the starter motor bolt (the one closes to the block) are a pain in the arse

It's almost alive!!

I finished fitting the parts that were taken off to repair the clutch. I lowered the car back to the ground. It looks very different at floor level rather than having it nose 1m up in the air! I filled it with fluids. I'd been having nightmares about driving it with no oil or coolant.

I cranked it over without connecting the plugs to build up oil pressure. This seemed to take forever. I must have cranked it for over a minute before the oil pressure showed. I remember it took a long time previously and you almost get to the point where you think the engine hasn't been built properly.

I hope I haven't done any damage to the engine. In hindsight I should have filled the oil filter with oil and also the hoses connecting the remote oil filter to the block. I think it must have been pumping oil through these before it could build up pressure. I removed the coil leads but I should also have removed the plugs to make it easier to turn over and less pressure on the main and rod bearings.

I connected up the plugs but it runs very rough. Hardly able to idle. Tonight I started to investigate why. I could hear the fuel pump start up so I'm assuming the fuel pressure is good. The easiest next task was to check the sparks. Low and behind plug number 1 was not firing. I tried a different working HT lead and that made no different ruling out that as the culprit. I tried a different working coil pack and that also made no difference. I tried using it's coil pack on another plug and it worked. So the coil pack is okay which is good news. I have joints in the coil leads as they come out of the ECU for connecting into the traction control. These are bypassed at the moment. I then tried connecting coil lead 1 from the ECU to coil lead 3 going to the engine. The coil pack 3 then fired. This proves that there is a signal coming out of the ECU for coil 1. That's also a relief.

So in summary I have a break in the wire between the ECU and the coil for coil pack 1. That's my next task.

John

Good work John. How long do you have left over there before you have to think about shipping it back?

I'm in the middle of renewing my work permit for another two years. Before the end of the year I also want to apply for permanent residency.

John

The ignition wires I was testing by the ECU are for the injectors not the coils!

I'm still not getting a spark on cylinder #1.

Cylinders 2,3,4 and 5 are okay.

I've disconnected all the coils and tried driving coil 1 using the plug from coil 2.
This works proving that the coil and HT lead are okay.
I've checked the continuity of all 5 coil signal wires back to the FIAT ECU plug and they are all good.
I've checked the continuity of the wire from coil 1 to the connector on the autronic multiplexer and that is good.
I've checked that the multiplexer is receiving a 12V supply.

This isn't what I wanted to find out. Something is wrong with either the ECU or multiplexer. The multiplexer is used to decode the output from 4 signals and drive 5, 6 or 8 cylinders.

Not a simple thing as its not earthed properly. Dry conector ?
Not done any work on the coil packs yet but does the earth lead connect just outside the rocker cover. Good luck

Oh the fun I'm having!

More testing shows up that cylinder #1 isn't getting a spark but cylinder #5 is getting a double spark!

The Autronic ECU has 4 ignition outputs. Because the Coupe has 5 cylinders we use an additional box called an Autronic multiplexer. These 4 ignition outputs go into the multiplexer and it converts the signal into 5 outputs. If I only connect up the wire for #5 cylinder from the multiplexer I still get a double spark. This eliminates interference from the other 4 coil output wires.

If I disconnect either the phase sensor or rpm sensor on the engine the Autronic doesn't fire so it's definately getting signals from these sensors.

My only hope is that by connecting a laptop to the ECU I can see something wrong with the settings or sensor inputs. Very strange because the settings in the ECU shouldn't have changed and the engine sensors are the same.

My only fear at the moment is the rpm wheel on the crank was damaged causing some funny signals to be sent to the rpm sensor.

Hopefully connecting the ECU to the laptop will show something up. If it doesn't I can connect a scope up to the sensors.

John

It's alive!!!

I managed to get my oscilloscope working and took this image of the output from the rpm sensor (60 - 2 wheel):


All 58 teeth are being picked up but the signal gets weak between teeth 30 and 58. Teeth 44, 45 and 46 are particularly poor. The peak voltage of the good signals is +5.12V/-4.92V. The peak voltage of teeth 44, 45 and 46 is only +2.23V/-2.16V.

From reading the manual the Autronic detects the rising and falling edges of the wave. Fortunately as you will read later the signals were still strong enough for the Autronic.

I could get my work laptop to talk to the Autronic as it had a RS232 port. However my home laptop only has USB. I was using the driver that came with my USB to RS232 adapter but it didn't work with the Autronic. I installed the Prolific drivers and my home laptop could then talk to the Autronic.

I thought I would try adjusting the divider offset. Nothing to loose. The manual didn't say what it was used for just to adjust until the sync/cylinder figure was between 20% and 80%. The old divider value was 6 and that gave an unstable sync/cylinder figure, it would bounce between 64% and 128%.

I unplugged the coils and removed the plugs to make cranking easier. I then tried various values and these were the results:

0 = 3%
1 = 7%
2 = 11%
3 = 15%
4 = 19%
5 = 64%/128%
6 = 64%/128%
7 = 32%
8 = 36%
9 = 40%

For some reason using either 5 or 6 messes up the sync/cylinder figure. I set the divider offset to 7 as this was the closest number to the original that gave a figure for the sync/cylinder between 20% and 80%.

I then connected a spare plug to ignition lead 1 and sure enough I now got a spark. I then connected ignition lead 5 and I now got a single spark not the double I was previously seeing This was looking promising. I connected everything back up and she fired up first time. I was very happy!

Using a different divider offset shifts the timing. I now need to use a dial back timing light to check that the TDC used by the Autronic is the same as the engine's TDC. There is another offset in the Autronic to adjust this if it's out. There are so many things you can adjust but it's tricky to know how they affect the running of the engine without access to the formulas/code.

In case you didn't know my Coupe is running with 5xMSD coil packs and ignition leads so it makes it wasy to clamp the timing light onto the HT lead for cylinder 1.

I need to use a dial back timing light because there is only a timing mark for TDC. I thought it would be more acurate to use a dial back timing light that mark the angles on the timing pulley.

John

my god this car is amazing but im more impressed by your genius john. well done and 10 points!

Well done John

John, looking at the signal (and assuming it's the same on every cycle), the teeth are obviously moving to and away from the sensor. This might just be normal manufacturing tolerances, but it might also be either that the wheel is mounted eccentrically or that it's been bent slightly.

The digital timing light is a great tool. I trimmed the setting in the Autronic and now the ECU and the engine advance figures are the same :-) I need to do this again tonight using a higher RPM than idle to double check the figures are okay.

My neighbour came over and wondered what the hell I was up to. The car looked like some crazy science experiment with a laptop, oscilloscope and digital timing light connected up to it. Cables everywhere and the ECU and multiplexer spread out in the passenger footwell.

It's very easy to check timing against the single TDC mark on the cambelt cover than try and place additional marks on the timing wheel at various angles.

It's on the road now

Double checked the timing at 2000 rpm and 3000 rpm. It was rock steady and spot on. I finished putting it all back together at midnight. I then gave it a quick wash as it was thick with dust. Drove it to local petrol station because I was almost out of fuel and needed the tyre air pressure checking. Then I spent 1.5 hours cruising around calgary. It's 2:30am now and I have work in the morning but I'm not tired.

Very happy that it's all working and there are no problems.

John

Fantastic news,it must be a great relief to have the car back on the road, well done

congrats mate!!

brilliant hjob you have done! enjoy your hard work!

Congratulations John,

Excellent news.. I bet the drive around was a pleasant one

Nick

Yay! When are you taking it back for mapping John?

Well done John, great to hear its back on the road

I changed the oil after 30 mins. I then change the oil again after 500km, again at 1500km and switch to synthetic at 3000km. For 3000 km I need to keep the engine speed under 3000 rpm and run with no boost. Pretty boring driving except the pops/bangs on overrun Then I can take it for a tune.

John

Well done John, best of luck with the running in !!

Coupe is running very well. Drove it to Canmore on Friday, Banff on Saturday and Golden on Sunday. Almost ready for the third oil change. Attended a show and shine in Golden at the Kicking Horse ski hill. I'm usually biking or snowboarding there. It was only a small show with about 40 vehicles - a mixture of trucks, muscle, hot rods and tuners.

Some pictures here for you. These were taken after the other cars in the area I parked had left. You'll notice I've swapped my Cadamaro front grill for the standard Fiat honeycomb version which I now prefer.

Excellent - great to see your car back on the road again

time for more chrome, like that strut brace I think.

John, awesome work pal

and, yes a chrome strut brace is a MUST

Hope you enjoyed Golden - my Sister just moved from there, so I have visited often, and skiied Kicking Horse quite a bit.

I've boarded there a lot and love it. The runs down off the ridges are steep but great fun if there is plenty of snow.

I've also biked there a lot. Even though it's hard on the bike and hands it's a great DH bike destination. I'm going there next weekend now I've fitted some new brake pads!

Sounds like you have been well and truly converted to Canada, not unusual!

When you have the Rocky Mountains on your doorstep it's difficult to resist.

Click here for the video section of the Kicking Horse web site then click on the "Bike Park - Advanced" video. Gives you a good idea of the quality of the bike parks here.

John

I've been spotted again on the roads of Alberta!!

I think the car looks 100% better with the plus grill.

Love the look and the colour of the car. How much longer are you allowed to keep it over in Canada ?

blimey, them roads are

The roads are lovely out of town. Hardly any traffic and mostly straight until you get to the mountains! In town the roads aren't so good, lots of sunken manholes and joints. I'm amazed the car still has circular wheels and hasn't been shaken apart.

Outside of Calgary though there is nothing in the way so the roads go North, South, East or West. There are huge straight sections, many many miles long, sometimes down a slight hill. Maximum speed is 90 km/hr through the parks, 100 km/hr on normal roads and 110 km/hr on highways. Most people drive 120 km/hr.

It would be very tempting to wind it up to 160 km/hr. At 3000 rpm I would be dong 125 km/hr which would be a very comfortable cruising speed and would return excellent fuel economy.

Canadian drivers are very polite, however their driving standards leave a little to be desired. Most use cruise control so you end up getting stuck behind someone doing 1 km/hr faster than the car they are trying to overtake. They also don't move over as much as you'd like. It's also not illegal to use a phone whilst driving.

The scenary when driving through the Rocky Mountains is pretty impressive. I'll try and upload some pictures for you.

John

Yeah John, this appears from the photos. Nice roads and environment. Will be waiting for the photos.

Waiting for the mapping and power results

Well the shoulder surgery went well and the surgeon was very pleased with the job he did. Reattached one ligament, tightened another and removed two bits of bone that were floating around in the joint. My nurse was hot as hell which helped. Extremely cute and looked like Britney Spears in her early years

This does mean that I haven't driven the Coupe for 3 weeks in the middle of a fabulous summer. Only one more week to go in my sling then I start physiotherapy. No contact sports like biking, snowboarding or football until February. What was I thinking having this done in July!

There is a big meet this weekend for euro cars. Originally I was going to make it but the surgery got delayed by a month. However my friend DJ is taking me in his Audi S4. This runs a 12.3 1/4 mile with all season tyres, full leather interior and 19" wheels. It soon silenced the laughs in this video:

DJ's Video

He fluffed a gear change in this run and hit the brakes by mistake and was accused of sandbagging to avoid going into the 11 second car category.

I'm looking forward to a ride.

John

As promised here are some more pictures of the roads through the Rocky Mountains in July.



At the top of Roger's Pass where the road is at 1382m


John

them pics are amazing

why doesn't everybody live in Canada ? Wish I could !

I've had a car filled weekend. On Saturday I went to a big car meet in Radium, 3hrs drive into the Rocky Mountains. It was a 20th Show and Shine held on the golf course. There were about 1000 cars there. Some amazing examples of custom rods, classics and muscle cars. I'll try and get some pictures posted up for you. Incredible to see all the cars and the streets leaving were filled with people watching the cars leave to go on a cruise down to Invermere.

On Sunday morning I went for breakfast in Canmore, about 80 miles into the Rocky Mountains. A group of us met at Starbucks and left at 8am for a windy back road to the town. 15 cars in total and a great bunch of enthusiasts. There was a Dodge Viper (owner said it was a pig in the wet with 345 profile rear tyres), an Aston Martin Vantage, a Lotus Exige, a Ferrari 360, a new BMW M3, various Audis including an RS4 and A5 and a bunch of Porches including a Cayman S with turbo conversion. This is only using 5psi of boost but ups the power from 295 to 480! There was a Porsche 996 Turbo running 680 bhp.

I've finally finished running in my car. After 3000 km switched to Mobil 1 15W50 whilst I wait to collect some Motul oil. Hot oil pressure is a lot better now between 1.5 and 2 bar. It's so nice to drive the car over 3000 rpm. Even at 3500 the drone is gone and she sounds lovely. I need to get a conservative map set up until the winter when the exhaust work is planned. At the moment I'm using my right foot and limiting boost to 0.5 bar.

John

Here are some pictures from the Radium Show and Shine.

Facebook Pictures

We had our first snow of the season today - 4th October 2009



Looks like I've got a fun week ahead:

Hello,

My car had been put away for the winter since the beginning of October. This last week has seen the temperature climb above zero and the roads are clear of snow and the grit that was put down has moved to the sides of the roads.

The battery had died during the winter but i got it exchanged under warrenty. I diagnosed a missfire I'd been having at tickover and between 4k and 5k as two blown coils. I ordered a set of 8 (so I have some spares) from MSD and they arrived today. i fitted the two replacements tonight, topped up oil, inflated tyres, fitted battery back in boot and went for a drive! Attended the first meeting of the year for a club called EuroDrivers (mostly Audi and VW). This is unheard of in March!

Car went well. No missfire. Only running 0.5 bar of boost until I get her map checked. Was lovely to sit down low and use a gearlever for a change.

John

Good stuff John

good to hear its back out after being rugged up over winter

Latest news...

I wanted to be absolutely certain that I wasn't going to destroy my new engine with detonation like the old one. I've been driving around with minimal boost - about 0.5 bar and not thrashing the engine. I bought a knock sensor called KS-4 from a company called Phormula in the UK. I fitted it the other day using one of the standard knock sensor mounts. The Autronic ECU doesn't have any knock detection. The KS-4 was showing detonation at high revs.

I took the car up to Lightspeed today and we checked over the map. We ran a very simple test on the timing. Set all timing points to 20 degrees and put a timing light on the engine. It was rock solid at 2000 rpm and 3000 rpm which is how I'd set it up after the rebuild. However when revved the engine would show an additional 5 degrees of advance. Cam at Lightspeed said this was why they stopped using Autronic - timing scatter. The ECU can't respond quick enough. This doesn't show up on a rolling road as you are holding steady rpms whilst adjusting the load or performing a smooth slow rpm sweep. During real world driving though the problem will show up.

We checked the pistons and they were fine. No signs of any damage which is a big relief. There is some oil getting into the combustion chamber as it's leaving despoits on the piston surface. I'm going to disconnect the breather from the air intake to see if this is the cause.

A new ECU called a V88 from a company called ViPEC has been ordered and should be arriving in 2 - 3 weeks from Oz. This is state of the art and has twin knock detection as well as other nice features such as closed loop wide band at WOT.

ViPEC

VIPEC installed...

Two weeks ago the VIPEC finally showed up. Last weekend I worked out how to wire it into the FIAT loom. I made a patch cable with a 55 pin FIAT socket on one end and two pairs of 34 pin VIPEC plugs on the other.

It took a whole day to work out the wiring diagram, checking which pin did what and whether they needed to be grounded or supply power (+12V or +5V) etc. It then took another day to solder all the wires together.

Over the next couple of days I configured the software in the VIPEC. I've got it to control the fuel pump, rev counter, two stage fans, variable valve timing, cols start solenoids, fuel injectors and ignition. It takes input from an external MAP sensor, Wideband O2 sensor, crank and cam position sensors, TPS, coolant and air temperature as well as the speed sensor.

The software is very easy to use and extremely configurable, you can specify everything and assign most things to whichever input/output was used. Lots of nice and advanced features such as flat shift, anti lag, boost control, gear detection, variable rev limit depending on coolant temperature, rev counter sweep on start.

The logic controlling things like the variable valve timing is good, up to three AND/OR conditions with variables and values such as when revs are over 3800 and coolant is over 70 degrees.

I've managed to get the engine started and running which was very exciting. Calibrated the TPS and MAP sensors. Synchronised the ECU and engine timing.

The good news is that it doesn't appear to have timing scatter issues like the Autronic had. The timing is rock solid at steady rpm. Rev the engine and the timing retards briefly by probably 5 degrees then settles back down. It doesn't advance the timing like the Autronic did.

Now I have to wait to get a slot on the rolling road at Lightspeed to map the timing and fueling.

John

Well done John, i hope everything goes well for you this time.

Cool, well done for setting it up yourself.

Wow, what stunning scenery. Almost as stunning as the car John!

*Goes off to look into emigrating to Canada*

It's 3am and just got home from Lightspeed! Car fully mapped with VIPEC. Running well, no detonation and timing spot on. The .86 housing on the turbo is generating less heat than the old .64. Unfortunately I'm still suffering from poor quality fuel. The best option is to run meth injection using Aquamist which can be plugged into the VIPEC such that it switches between two maps.

302 bhp at the wheels and 326 lbs/ft of torque at the wheels.

I took some angled polished aluminium tubing with me and cut it up then got Cam to weld it together for me. Finally I can fit my HKS blowoff valve (VIPEC uses MAP sensor) instead of the Forge recirculating valve which was hanging down underneath. See pictures below of before and after. The HKS is very loud and sounds great. I love it. The car pulls strong and is once again puts a big smile on my face.

Before:



After:

Tipoboy i have been reading the whole thread on your car and its fantastic, you certainly get stuck in!!

But i must say im surprised at the rr results id have expected a hell of a lot more than that, are you only running incredibly low boost due to the poor fuel there?

Davie

I'm running 1.2 bar now. I'll try and get a copy of the RR results.

The results are a lot lower than I'd expect given what I see other 2.5 turbo cars making. I'm not sure why this combination is posing such problems.

John

But you're quoting power at the wheels, presume you mean RWHP whereas most people on here seem to quote FWHP hence why it may look low.

Would still expect to see a bit more power though, guessing it's down to the crap fuel then?

Yes the dynapack gives you wheel bhp and torque figures not flywheel figures.

Also we're about 1100m or 3700 feet above sea level. However the figures are adjusted for standard temperature and pressure.

Well nonetheless its a corking little car, and is very unique, now its time for you to enjoy it!!

Cheers

Davie

Oh I intend to! I'm leaving for a 6000 km road trip on Wednesday morning. I've spent the last couple of months preparing the car, the mapping was part of it. I'll keep you updated on my travels but for now it's a secret .

I'm very excited about the route and if all goes to plan it's going to be an incredible experience.

John

Sounds epic mate, take loads of pics, been accross Canada a couple of times and its fantastic, the Canadian people are really nice aswell i found.

I loved Banff and found Victoria Island really homely, could easily relocate there!

Cheers

Davie

I reckon its a cryptic clue to a trip back home and an appearance at Stanford Hall

I've just realized why the car is down on power compared to the last time it was tuned. We were in such a hurry to try and get it mapped before my road trip we forgot with switch off the variable valve timing at 3800 rpm. Last time we played with this we got a 20 - 25 bhp increase in power.

When I get back from the road trip I'm going to get the latest (HFS-6) Aquamist system installed. This should help a lot with the det problems.

John

Nice one mate!! Very interested in your results....

Davie

Hello from Idaho!

I drove 700 miles today on the first day of my 6000km trip. Started at 7:30am and finished at 7:30pm. There are two groups of cars, the first group left yesterday and there are 11 cars in our group. We traveled South through Alberta, Montana and Idaho. We are currently spending the night in Idaho Falls. No questions asked about driving the car across the border, I just had to fill in the usual visa waiver card and have my finger prints and photograph taken. The group have named me “Captain Slow” as I always seem to be at the back of the group catching up. However despite this myself and one other guy are the only ones to have been given speeding tickets! We got pulled over doing 86 in a 75mph zone. The patrol car came tearing up behind us with all lights flashing. The trooper didn’t like it when I got out of the car to search for my driving license. As I opened my wallet and handed him my license, he said “Back off and get back in the car”. I guess watching more episodes of COPS would have helped. He had his hand hovering over his gun the whole time. It cost us a $40 fine each and we then had to stick to the speed limit for the rest of the time in Montana. A second ticket in the same day would have been very bad. About an hour later I was followed by two patrol cars who stayed about 300m behind, making it difficult to identify them. I was doing between 75 and 80 mph. I think they were waiting for me to go over 80 mph. At one point one of them pulled along side me to take a good look then slowed back down again. After about 15 minutes they sped up to 80 mph and slowly pulled away.

Should have some good pictures from the other members of the group as they have cameras mounted on the cars or they race ahead and film from bridges.





John

Cool, do you think there's a Market for coupes out there?

Hello from Las Vegas!

Drove another 650 miles today. Left at 7:30am and drove until 5:30pm. Damn Nevada is hot in June with no A/C! I'm here with a big group for a European car show called WusteFest:

WusteFest 2010

The drive today was pretty uneventfull. The old girl held together in the heat which was great. Lots of radar traps in Nevada. I did most of the drive by myself because after only about 50 miles most of the group got stopped for doing 91 in a 65 and got told to slow down!

I spend the evening at a wedding at Cesar's Palace. Wow that place is massive.

John

Great reading all this TipoBoy Drive safe

Visited Hoover Dam this morning:



Then drove from Las Vegas to San Luis Obispo (just North of Los Angeles), 400 miles, left Las Vegas at 5pm and arrived at 1am. Stunning sunset in the desert. Great road down to the coast even if it was at night. Nice to feel the temperature cooler than the 42 degrees it was in Las Vegas.

Hey John, thats one heck of a road trip. Hope the coupe is running trouble free.

Don't eat at the Denny's in St Luis Obispo. Its a Mormon place and the only beer you can get is Root Beer

Wonderful trip John,

I did that last year but not in anything as nice as the Coupe!

what a great trip!!

wish i could do that in my coupe!!

So when are we going to Ship our Coupés over and participate in a USA - Canada Roadtrip?

Bit further than Spa but I am sure it would be a fantastic trip

Imagine all those coupes parked on a ship in salty air.

Do you think any would actually deign to start at the other end?

There are four cars on this long route back to Calgary, a Stage 3 Audi S4, a Mk3 Golf with a turbo VR6 engine and a supercharged BMW E36 Dinnan M3 and mine

John

I'm back in Calgary now. The FIAT survived a 6000 km trip through 8 US states with nothing more than a blown HID ballast.

She sure feels sluggish though at this altitude compared to sea level.

Came back via San Francisco and Seattle. The coastline has some amazing driving. At one point we went through 22 miles of continuous bends.

John

i envy you!!

sounds like a killer trip!!!

John, I did the same trip (ending at Ralston, nr Med Hat) in an Olds Delta 88 Royale in the 80s . Some spectacular scenery, great roads . I'd certainly rather have done it in a Coupe

i was just thinking, theres coupes in japan, and the usa or canada aint too far from there so couldnt they be exported easier?

I think importing a Coupé to the US would be difficult due to the regs. I looked into taking mine when we moved there years ago, but concluded it would be too much hassle and expense. Better to do what John has done and get it into Canada and then drive down.

John, great trip, though I didn't realise the speed limit in Montana was 75 now - it was 80 a few years ago, I guess that's why they are policing it, to make a load of cash. Parts of Montana used to be 'derestricted' IIRC.

@Bob: talk to John Snijders at Spa. We've discussed this option once and it is possible to get such a thing organised you know

Would this be of any help?
500 on sale in Canada

Today I put my Coupe into storage for several years

During the trip to Las Vegas my car consumed a lot of oil. Probably about 8 litres over the 6800 km drive. I don't have an exact figure as I lost track of how much I had to buy! I knew it at an oil burning issue but hoped that was all.

After the rebuild last year when the oil was cold I saw 3 bar at idle which would drop to 1.5 bar when the oil was hot. When revved the oil pressure would rise nicely.

However since then I'd noticed the hot idle oil pressure slowly dropping until it had got to 0.5 bar. When revved the oil pressure would rise still nicely. That was until August when the oil pressure at hot idle dropped to 0 and would sometimes cause the oil pressure warning light to come on. Revving the engine has less of an effect, 2000 rpm would only see about 0.5 bar, 3000 rpm about 1 bar. I knew the engine was dying so left it unused in the garage.

When cold the engine would also take about 6 seconds of cranking before it would fire up. No spluttering just cranking then it would fire and run perfectly. You could then switch it off and it would restart on the first cycle.

This is very frustrating as we actually had a lovely long summer and I could have driven it right up until today. I wish I could find someone who could build me an engine that lasts more than a season.

At the end of August I was told that Schlumberger are closing the Calgary office. All staff who had mobile status were given an offer to move to Houston. The rest were out of a job at the end of the year. I accepted the Houston transfer and are in the middle of arranging to move to Houston. The aim is to complete this by 1st January. I'll be there for at least a year. Usually you work in one place for 3 years then move on. Moving back to Canada with Schlumberger isn't an option as there won't be an office here.

I've thoroughly enjoyed my 5 years here. Love the people and the environment. I even bought a house here last December. The plan is to rent it out but the rent I'll get is only 3/4 of the mortgage and that's before any management fees and property taxes are subtracted. I'll have to see how that goes as I'll be subsidising the rent from my USA wages.

Even if the FIAT engine was running perfectly I don't think I could have imported it into the USA. To be honest I'm sick of having the engine rebuilt. Sure I get a lot of enjoyment driving it around but the cost and limited time the engine lasts is getting to me. If the car was worth anything here I'd seriously consider breaking it. However there is very little on it that is worth anything to the Canadian market (Tyres, Radio, ECU, gauges, Apexi, Alarm). If/when I return to Canada I can strip the engine down and see what's wrong. My biggest concern is that if it needs another rebore, which it probably will, I'm looking at having to import a new block.

I limped the car to the storage facility today and said goodbye. It's going to cost $1000 a year but it's heated, clinically clean and in very good company.

I still love driving so whilst in Houston I intend to replace the Coupe with a certain German car I've always dreamed of owning since I was a child.

John

Sad news. So you're going to buy an Isetta? Good on you!

Really sad to read that last post John

Maybe it's a time to just cut your losses.

Good luck with the move to Houston and with the new car

Sorry to hear that there won't be a Coupe driving around Canada any longer

Sounds terminal John, shame there's no coop scene in Canada as I'm sure you'd recoup a fair amount from breaking her.

As has been said, could be time to cut your losses and sounds like you've already got a replacement lined up that you've had in mind for a while?

Would be sad as that car is up there on a pedestal in conversations I've had over here

Always love following your progress threads, massive shame to hear you are having more problems.

Yeah sad news indeed. That's got to be one of the best looking coops ever. The mods were/are a bit mindblowing and you must be the most patient & persevering owner on the planet (with prtetty deep pockets too ) I think we should just ship you a good 20vt engine over then you can bring it back to blighty

Really sorry to hear this TipoBoy

Incedibly sad news. That is probably the best looking coupe on the planet. I'm glad to hear atleast it is being stored and not broken. Hopefully it will see the light of day again in a few years.

Argh life's a b*tch sometimes. Really sorry to hear this John; I've enjoyed reading your tales right from the start of your adventure.

Get in touch with Scooby - they're in Canada and might be interested...

Hi John,
Incredibly disappointed for you. I bet you are devastated. It was a very sad post to read. Having seen this car in flesh I can vouch it is one of the best coops on the forum.

Have you any idea why the engine has failed once again ?

Rgds.
Sean.

If I may be blunt.

do the people in the us know what car you were driving or?

@Tipoboy: have you tried to get in contact with this USA FIAT and Lancia club ?

I've seen barchetta's turn up at their annual meet

Sorry to hear this John, I've been following your post since I got mine 5 years ago.
Hoping it'll get back on the road again !!

Sorry to hear this John

Some friends of my GF are in Banff (just went to their wedding in Mexico) and I was speculating about how far away that was from you - supposed to be visiting them next year.

I think I remember you mentioning that one of the clauses in importing your car to Canada was that you weren't allowed to sell it on - is that correct?

Some people have suggested:

1) It's just a faulty sensor but that wouldn't explain the cold start problems or the puff of smoke on boost.

2) The oil pump. However this was replaced with a new item during this rebuild just in case the previous engine failure was caused by the pump.

3) Non round crank.

I'll wait until I come back to Canada and pull the engine. Tear it down and find out what's wrong. I'll use a different engine builder this time. As said previously it'll probably need a new block which I'll have to source from UK or maybe Brazil.

It's frustrating as the engine wasn't even that powerful and wasn't exactly pushing the envelope.

The $1000 a year storage is cheap compared to what I spend keeping it on the road so it'll be nice not to have to think about the expense for a while.

I'm very excited about the new car I'll be getting. Don't want to say anymore until I'm in a position to buy it.

Banff is 140 km from Calgary heading West into the mountains. About 1.5 hours drive. The mountains are covered in snow at the moment and look beautiful. I'll miss them.

John

darn about the Job john, shame about the coupe, I think if you bother again I'd cut the unknowns and get guy to build it and ship it, hell you could even get it mapped by G+G prior to shipping on the engine dyno. Failing that do what many would do you side and put a V8 chevvy in it!!

Holy S**t Texas...

Can I just add to that that you must be the most level headed coop owner too kudos

Oh men! This used to be my most favourite topic to follow, so sad to see her being cocooned!

The chapter is finally over. Hopefully you will win the national lottery and get a shiny new 20vt engine and slot in there one day.

I can almost imagine a century from now, your grand son will get a call from the storage facility to re-claim the vintage coupe from them.

Barn find coupe in Alberta!

I had to get my FIAT appraised before it went into storage as it was 5 years since the last appraisal. Now insured for a guarenteed value of $55k.

I'm glad it's safely in storage now as we had our first snow dump of the season, 10cm last night and another 10cm expected on Wednesday. We're having a cold spell for a few days, On friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday we're going to have a high of -12 and a low of -20. Brrr

The guy appraising it found this information and included it in the comprehensive 12 page document. I don't know where he got it from and if it's been found before but thought it might be interesting:

March 1990. Leonardo Fioravanti was head of Fiat Centro Stile. Pininfarina receives a call for some design work, starting from an idea by Chris Bangle who was, at the time, working with the Fiat.

January 1991. First proposals using the Fiat Tipo floorpan as a base saw the management choose for the Pininfarina designs. These were a bit more common (read: elegant), as opposed to Bangle's more daunting drawings. Luckily the Fiat designers didn't stop their work and went on. As new management directors found their way to Fiat, these favored the results of the in-house design center. It was Paolo Cantarella who wanted to break away from the classical design and offer a new, innovative product. As for the interior, it was Pininfarina's proposal who received approval by everybody. It was May 1991 and final development was started. It is not just the interior that make the Coupe have the Pininfarina text on the sides and on the dashboard. It was constructed (by hand) at the Pininfarina factory alongside the Peugeot 406 Coupe, 306 Cabrios and the odd Ferrari here and there. Fiat Coupe was Introduced in late 1993, at the Brussels car show. Initially it was available with a venerable 2.0 16V Lancia engines, a base model was normally aspirated and top-of-the-line model had a turbocharger. Using platform of the ageing Fiat Tipo platform, Fiat engineers worked miracles to create such a fine-handling car as this. Turbocharged models were equipped with LSD to handle the extra power.

1995 brought new engines and a facelifted interior. The range started with a 1.8 16v and ending up with a pair of brand-new five-cylinder 2.0 units. Again, one was NA and other turbocharged.

Late 1990s saw various special editions but the basic line-up remained unchanged until production was to stop at the end of June 2000.

Official Fiat figures put the total production at around 53,000. Pininfarina have stated that the 50,000th model rolled off the production line in July 1997, and in March 2000 they stated that over 70,000 had been produced. Conflicting Italian car production figures are nothing new,
however!

Some of it can be found on

http://www.fiatcoupe.net/history.php?ID=3
http://www.fiatcoupe.net/history.php?ID=3&chapter=7
http://www.fiatcoupe.net/therange.php (and further)

Looking forward to Houston given the current weather here. It's over 50 degrees warmer in Houston



My joy might be short lived though. That 23 in Houston feels like 34 though due to the humidity, that's in November!

Holy crap! I bet no matter what you do the coupe handbrake would freeze at that temperature...

I arrived in Houston on 6th January. Weather at this time of year is a hell of a lot warmer than Calgary, about 40 degrees difference. Ask me again in the summer whether I'm still enjoying it!

Since I was told I was moving here I'm been looking for another car. I've wanted a 911 since I was a child and raided the Porsche fund piggy bank to buy the Tipo 16V and then again for the Coupe.

I've been searching AutoTrader and the Porsche web site for cars and finally one came up which I liked in Los Angeles. A 2007 Carrera 4S in black with full black leather interior. One previous owner and certified pre owned by Porsche so comes with full 2 year Porsche warranty and has been bought up to almost new condition.

The front bumper had been resprayed but only to get rid of the rock chips. The bonnet and wings were original. The first thing I’ll do is get the bonnet and bumper covered in Venture film (similar to 3m protective clear wrap but Venture is supposed to be better for dark cars). The paint is perfect and it would be nice to try and keep it that way. They had done a top job of detailing it. The paint had a mirror finish. No dents or scratches anywhere.

The only wear on the interior was a couple of light scuffs on the drivers seat bolster which they had touched up and were hardly noticeable. The steering wheel was like new as were all other controls.

During it's last service they had replaced the leaking rear main seal and whilst the gearbox was off fitted a new clutch.

I'd been talking to the dealer for a week. I flew over to LA for the weekend. Wow, why don't we have an office in Santa Monica! Would be a beautiful place to live although not cheap. I turned up at the dealership and the salesman handed me the keys and said take her out for a few hours, go grab some lunch or something. Take as long as you want :-)

I struck a deal with them which included enclosed shipping back to Houston. He then asked if I wanted to take a new turbo for a spin. I may regret this but I said no. The roads were busy and the thought of testing out someone elses $160k car scared me.

Trying to sort out all the paperwork, insurance, finance, tax, payment etc.

I've already ordered a bunch of Porsche accessories. Little things to finish it off.

I'm looking at an aftermarket exhaust. Lots of options and combinations of manifolds, cats and silencers but may go with a Tubi with switchable straight through flaps.

So, you left the Coupe in a dark garage somewhere in Calgary?

Yes I'm sure it's sulking but it's in very good company.

Congratulations on your new purchase John,
i hope you've kept a few dollars aside to get the beastie back on the road again?

Yes don't worry. I really enjoy working on the car, it's my pride and joy and unique.

At some point in the future I'll probably move back to Canada. When I do I'll take her out of storage and rebuild the engine. The problem being that I'll then need a 3 car garage!

Glad to hear it mate.

Enjoy the Porsche in the meantime though you might get a little bored with its reliability, not having to constantly check the oil and not turning as many heads as the coop does

The Porsche arrived on 18th February. Initially I was going to pay cash but the credit union where I work were offering 2.24% for up to 3 years if I put 20% down. Couldn't say no to an offer like that. No penalty for early repayment either.

Since the car has arrived I've washed it every week. I'm using it as my DD. I have a Jeep Grand Cherokee V8 as back up but it's a horrible thing to drive. I've wanted a Porsche 911 since I was a teenager, now 41, so it's a dream come true. Some would call it a mid life crisis. I've decided I don't care about resale value, I'm going to enjoy it for myself and to hell with it.

The first week I would sneak down to the garage and look at it. It's fantastic to know it's MINE and it's sat in MY garage. Can't really believe it. Loving the ownership experience so far. Like the Coupe I keep turning around as I walk away from parking it to get one more look.

I've fitted clear side markers, 5mm spacers, leather stitched console cover with creste, clear bra, 50% 3M tint, aluminium foot rest and the leather bit that fits infront of the gear lever.

Very nice indeed


I'm off to buy a lottery ticket.

John, you won't really want to return to the coupe now you have got this 911 would you ?
All the time and effort getting the coupe to run properly, endless sweat and tears etc.

Sean

Beautiful Porsche

Post some interior fotos.

Good luck with the car.

Cheers.

Very nice John. But I prefer the coupe

Nice buy john but im missing the pics of the coupe in the out of town shots.

very nice looking 997! Go easy on the RR in the beginning, they do behave very differently to the FF Coupe on the limit.

I'm still trying to find somewhere scenic around here to take pictures! I drove 60 miles to Galveston yesterday and all I saw were oil refineries!

I intend on attending some DE events to get a better feel for how she handles. It's nice having instant power and not having to hang onto the steering wheel. I think the Coupe was probably faster in a straight line in gear but the flat 6 does sound lovely from 5000 rpm upwards.

Some interior pictures for you and one of the 305mm rear tyres! Smells lovely with the leather dashboard, doors, seats and centre console.

inter is beautiful

still prefer and love the coupe,,,,i think your the only one with an coupe in Canada/America

I still love my Coupe. I enjoyed working on it, it wasn't just a car it was my hobby.

The Coupe is old though and the handling is a decade behind the Porsche.

305mm N series tyre, heehee.......wait until replacement time, even just the thought of getting quotation HURT!

By the way, in my case the center worn out much faster than the edge, so don't trust the side wear indicator, check the rubber center for signs of wear. It almost cost me a BIG one during a spirited drive.

Yes, Porsche approved N rated Michelin Pilot Sport tyres.

The rears are $598 each from tirerack.com.

I've heard the rears last about 10,000 miles and the fronts about double that.

I know I didn't buy it for fuel economy but the best I've got out of her so far is 14mpg. Most of the time it's 10 - 12 mpg. I fill up the 17 gallon tank and it then informs me my new range is typically between 185 and 220 miles!

Not such an expensive problem in the US though

You must be quoting US gallon, right? Otherwise it sounds excessive.

10,000 mile sounds about right. My rear set S-03 N series lasted around 25,000km and the center pattern has almost worn out, while the outer edge was still looking okay, I didn't realise that and it caught me with my pants down! The tyre shop told me it is a common issue for Porsche.

those tire give good grip but dont last long even on a 1.9 diesel without driving sporty..