It’s been a while, but after 11 months of walking past my coupe and climbing into the Alfa, I just couldn't take it anymore.
My coupe has never been right since I bought it. Bought it off ebay for starters, but got a clean, one owner 20VT sprinty and was happy. Travelled over from Ireland to collect it in November 08, had to fit new clutch within a couple of weeks,then a few months later my cat collapsed (poor mister tiddles
), always had boost issue, found some leaks but it never managed to maintain high boost over 4500rpm, dropping to .4 bar at redline.
Also despite fitting LE discs, new standard pads, replacing brake fluid and fitting new front rubber hoses, brakes were still sh*t.
Still put a smile on my face everytime I drove it or even saw it, and never regretted buying it for a second (my family have always driven Fiats, Alfas and Lancias so I knew what I was getting myself into!)
Then to top things off, just as I was planning a trip to the UK to get belts done and full health check by a specialist(we have none in Ireland!) , my cam phase sensor failed. That was last September!
So anyway, finally sorted out the finances and made contact with Joe @ FCSS and Leighton @ FCPerformance, and planned my trip. Rented trailer, paid for ferry and dropped car off with Joe last Sunday evening. The plan was for him to get car running. Then try to sort boost issue and brakes and a number of other items that needed attention.
I disappeared into the Brecon Beacons for a spot of hill walking for a couple of days.
By Wednesday morning all was well. Joe had called me every day to give me an update as to progress. And I was delighted when he let me know that the car was running, boosting and stopping as it should be. WOOOHOOOO.
So I collected the car Wednesday evening and took the longest possible route to Bristol, enjoying driving the car with full power for the first time since I had it. Some nice B roads got a pasting. Nice to have brakes that would bite too!
Dropped car off with Leighton on Thursday morning @ 10am and got a call at 3 pm to come and collect it. He was very happy with the results and so was I. I just wanted the car to drive as well as it could, but had to get it Dyno’d too. 271bhp and 271ft/lbs torque, very nice!! Have to be happy with that.
Roads were too busy that evening to test it properly so after trying for an hour gave up and went for beer and food. Although first impressions were that it was runnng very sweetly off boost and pulling way better than before when on boost. Plan was to give her a good run on the way back to Joe to collect the trailer and towing car.
Next morning, had a nice buffet breakfast in hotel and got on my way. Headed accross the Severn bridge and gave it a good blast up the motorway, niiiiiiiice, really noticing the difference now.
Was just going to pull off the motorway to take the B-roads the rest of the way and noticed the injector light had come on. UH OH!! A million thoughts passed through my head at once, and primary conclusion was to pull in as soon as I got off the motorway and pop the bonnet before I turn off the engine off but as I came down the off ramp to a big junction just outside Newport the engine cut out. Tried to re-start her but no use. Jumped out and popped bonnet and water water everywhere but nare a drop to drink, collant tank empty! Oh shit, jumped back into car and turned on ignition, and watched temp guage go all the way to the top,
, why didn’t I check the
temperature guage at five minute intervals instead of ten!!
Called Joe, and he immediately said he would be down in the transporter. Joe asked me to describe which collant hose had blown, it was one of the ones that comes out of the front of the head on the right hand side and disapears behind the engine somewhere. He told me it was for the heater matrix.
Some friendly police men then told me I had to move my car. I told them that they would have to move my car and after a bit of tooing and froing I won and they pushed me back up the hill and back down one of the filter lanes.
A short while later Joe arrived down. The engine had fully cooled by then and he asked me to turn over the engine, no audible signs of damage so he cut away the damaged end of the hose and re-fitted it. Filled coolant and then we ran the engine for a while. Seemed fine despite my paranoia at every little sound!
We started to make our way backto Joes. Glad I was able to drive her back instead of her being on the back of his truck. Took it easy for the first mile or two, then gave it a blast (makes sense to push her when your being followed by a tow truck driven by a coupe specialist). Pulled in after a couple of miles and popped the bonnet again. Everything seemed fine so pushed her a bit the rest of the way back to Joes. No problemo.
Joe then stuck her on the ramp and did some testing, including compression test. All appeared to be fine. So he replaced the matrix hose and gave her a full coolant flush. We decided even though the oil seemed fine that he should change it anyway. Then we gave her a quick test, Happy Days, all is well.
We then loaded her back onto the trailer and I headed off into the sunset to make the 3am ferry back to Dublin.
So in summary I’m sooooo happy to have my baby back on the road and to have that silly coupe grin back on my face.
@ Joe – many many thanks for going above and beyond the call of duty. Genuinely a really nice guy, replaced bits of my coupe that I didn’t even know I was missing and just did these little things as he was going along. Really passionate about coupes and it shows. Also very reasonably priced. He could have pretty much charged me through the roof for picking me up and repairing the coupe on that last day but I am still stunned by how little he charged me. I would highly recommend Joe aka countrycruising to anybody who wishes to have work done on their coupe and have no doubt that I will be making the trip from Ireland again, hopefully without a trailer next time.
Also a big shout out to Jake (Joe's young lad) thanks or all the tea and also very impressed at how quickly he stripped the tan interior I bought out of a coupe.
@ Leighton – thanks again mate for making a good coupe better. She drives like a dream now, pulls strongly in any gear and drives so sweet both on and off boost. Also got 380 miles (combined) out of my first full tank when I got back which is far more than I had ever gotten before (usually anywhere between 300 – 350 at a push) so thats an added bonus. Also there is a rumour circulating that a sprinty was seen doing 156mph somewhere in the midlands recently but thats ridiculous, isn’t it!! Bang for buck the best results and safest modification you can make to your coupe, highly recommended.
So anywho, thanks for reading and looking forward to the next irish meet when no doubt my coupe will be getting plenty of attention, and rightly so!! (not sure, but she might be the first Irish coupe to be fleamapped)
Safe motoring everybody.
Ronan
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Somebody got a lovely coupé for small change.
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