Karter16

Pretty sure I've finally found a source for the male MAF sensor connector that allows for MOQ of 1 (and it's cheap to boot). This is what I'm talking about: I've ordered a couple to check and confirm, but if it is then this is the missing piece for people to be able to build their own harness extensions (and IAT relocation extensions I guess, not that I think they're good idea) without having to pay Turner mark-up. It also means anyone wanting to do what I did (keep the MAF connector and wire up for MAP sensor) doesn't have to buy a Turner extension just to then hack it up to add on the Bosch MAP sensor connector, etc. I'll wait til these arrive and I've confirmed and then put up a post with all the various part numbers needed to do this.

Whole family (including myself) are sick this weekend so took the opportunity to try out doing a VE table tuning run with the MAP sensor turned off. I've been wanting to do this for a while as theoretically it's another variable that can be removed from the process. With the MAP sensor taken out of the RF calculation path the car is essentially running in "Alpha-N Mode". My theory behind this is that depending on point in time conditions the MAP sensor is adjusting the final RF either up or down from what's calculated from the VE table. While this is desirable in day to day use, for the VE tuning process it's an unwelcome additional variable. Unfortunately I can't really think of an objective way to measure the impact of it to the VE tuning process, so it's really just a subjective assessment I guess. The difference with the MAP sensor disabled is immediately noticeable in the part-throttle conditions the MAP sensor targets. The car is less responsive and throttle input is jerkier and less consistent. I found a couple of RO/RPM conditions which I hadn't previously been able to flush out. I intend to do another tuning run tomorrow or Monday on a day when I can get further out and up the RPM range more to get a more complete test. It would need more people to try this out and get their subjective feedback as well as to whether disabling the MAP sensor positively influences the VE tuning process (I think it will mostly be about the speed at which one arrives at the end result), but I am pleased to have finally proven out that changing the configuration byte from 0x12 to 0x02 does behave as expected. Oh and also gave the nylon MAP sensor adapter a couple of good heat cycles and then took it off and inspected it - appears to be unaffected by the heat so far, so off to a good start.

The MAP sensor adapter printed in CF-reinforced Nylon arrived today. Minimum order value applied so I'm now the proud owner of 12 of these. I'll try to install in the next couple of days. HDT is significantly higher than the CF-PETG I used previously.

Well yesterday and today I tackled a job I've long been putting off. Yesterday I took the headlining out of the car, and dropped it (along with the sunroof cover, etc) plus the BM-134 fabric off to a professional headliner upholsterer. The dude was a legend and had it ready for me to pick up this morning (think he was grateful that I'd done the hard work of taking it out of the car!). He was very complementary of the BM-134 fabric - he said it's a quality fabric with quality foam and was lovely to work with. I'll tackle pretty much any job on the car, but this is one of those few things I'm very happy to leave to a professional - the work is flawless and it looks incredible. For those wondering about the fabric match - I took some photos of the re-wrapped headliner against one of the interior trim pieces which has the original BMW fabric on it (non-foam-backed): It's a very close match and certainly once it's in the car you can't tell at all - the slight difference really only shows up in photos. Likewise it matches well against the new A/B/C pillar trim I bought (which fortunately all match each other as well - as that was a problem for a while): While the headliner was out I took the opportunity to pull out the wiring a PO had put in for a radar scanner - I removed the T-Tap connectors, insulated the wires and wrapped in Tessa tape: In order to remove the sunroof cover to retrim it I also had to remove the sunroof glass - I took the opportunity while it was out to give the frame a good clean and re-lubricate with graphite lubricant: I reinstalled the headliner and then got on to installing the new pillar trim - shiny new B-pillar covers: Then the C-pillars, along with the foam insulated clips: And lastly the A-pillar trims and inserts with the airbag logo on them. Notably the A pillar inserts are a significantly different shade to everything else. (which is hilarious given this is all new OE parts). If it annoys me too much I might order replacements and hope for a better match. I'm very happy to have this done - it's not a particularly fun job but very satisfying to have everything refreshed and like new. You can see the huge difference in shade between the new a-pillar and the insert 🙄.

Well 2 days of driving an excavator, 4 months of weekends, 300m of rebar, 14 tonnes of concrete, 232 CMU blocks, and a lot of manual labour my retaining wall is complete - finished backfilling it today. Starting to get a bit wet here for the winter so great timing. Bit of a general update on the car. The latest version of the SMG reservoir bracket is in use, I've got some more tweaks to make to it so will do that and print the latest iteration. The MAP sensor adapter in CF-PETG shows some evidence of softening. It seems, under the clamping force of the bolts, it's not quite up to the ~100 degree C temperature that the rail hits. Plan is to get this printed in GF-Nylon which should be able to handle beyond 150 degree C temps. I'm doing some preliminary work on the reinstallation of the trunk interior with the RACP brace in place. Working through a few things to get to a lightweight, high-quality solution that meets my need to make it look as OE as possible. The version of the CSL tune I've been running the last while seems super stable. Even as it's got colder here it's remained super smooth. Seems I've got the warm-up maps pretty much spot on. I still want to do some more fine-tuning, and in particular am keen to try out running the fuel tuning process with the MAP sensor integrator turned off, but it's not top of the priority list given what I'm currently running is so good. Planning to get the headliner out and off to the pros to redo with the BM-134 fabric that I have stashed. I've also got brand new A/B/C pillars to go in once it's reinstalled. Intend to make more progress with the 0401 disassembly as well - especially as the days get shorter and the weather gets worse. Lots of little bits and pieces on the go. I've also been enjoying driving the car. The refreshed diff bushes have eliminated any remaining clunk in the drivetrain. Combined with the smoothness of the CSL tune it makes for lots of enjoyable downshifts with no need for the manual throttle modulating that I'd previously gotten used to to minimize the thunk. Secondly the RACP brace has, in addition to providing top-side support to the RACP, made an enormous difference to the torsional rigidity of the rear of the car. It's a very significant improvement and I'm getting itchy to give the front of the car similar treatment 😛

pretty sure this breaks moderation rule #18...

Today I also finished up the repainting of the v brace and rear sway bar brackets project. I top coated them a week and a half ago and they've been resting while the enamel fully cured. Today I reinstalled them along with new hardware to match.

Another rainy day here so retaining wall is again on hold. I took the opportunity this morning to finally redo the matte screen overlay on the Xtrons head unit. I got the Xtrons about 16 months ago and have had a much better experience with it than I was expecting. I'm well decided that I'll be keeping it. one of the downsides of it, and many head units is the glossy screen. About a year ago I purchased a matte screen overlay to see if I liked it better. I did my best to line it up nicely but because I had to cut it to size the edges were visible and annoying to me. I've long intended to take the head unit out and disassemble it so that I could replace the overlay over the entire LCD screen so that the edges would be hidden by the bezel if that makes sense. Today was that day. Head unit out: Rear case off: Disconnect the two big ribbon cables between the chassis and the display and remove the 4x screws holding the display shield on. Then the display and shield pop out of the bezel: The screen with the old matte overlay on it: Old matte overlay removed: I didn't get any photos of applying the new overlay as both my wife and I were employed in getting it on and keeping the screen completely free of dust. We succeeded and the overlay went down perfectly: The new overlay with the protection layer removed: Then it was just a case of reinstalling back into the bezel: And reconnecting the ribbon cables and putting it all back together: I'm super happy with how this has turned out - we got the overlay to go down perfectly and it looks fantastic: While I had the unit out I took the opportunity to plug in the USB extension and install the latest firmware to address the issue with a greater than expected difference between volume levels 4 and 5. This was straightforward and did indeed fix the issue. Now that it's reinstalled I'll give the screen and the head unit a clean to get the fingerprints from install off. Good, quick rainy day project 🙂

Sill waiting for the ground to dry out a little bit before I progress the retaining wall so spent a couple of hours this afternoon taking the rear sway bar brackets and v brace off and cleaning them up. When Dad and I did the underbody refresh in 2017 we used an enamel black paint for most of the pieces, and 8 years on they still look amazing - wipe the road dust off and they look brand new still. There were a couple of pieces (the sway bar brackets and v brace) which we painted with exactly the same stuff, only silver instead of black. Unfortunately the silver kind of sucks in comparison to the black - presumably whatever they put in it to make it silver makes it more susceptible to surface rusting. So anyway - I took them off, stripped the enamel with acetone and then cleaned up the surfaces with some fine sandpaper before cleaning again with acetone and then undercoating. The pictures are a bit average because it's pretty late in the day here, but I'm sure you've all seen undercoated things before: Had something interesting happen when I was spraying the undercoat on. It went on beautifully and then I noticed along some of the edges that it looked like it was bubbling. *Cue confusion*. The surface was prepped well and was very clean so I wasn't sure what was going on - I've used this undercoat a bunch of times and it's always been lovely. Closer inspection revealed it was moisture beading on top of the paint. Actual paint surface is fine and the moisture evaporated again. I'm guessing that it must be close to dew point here right now and the propellant from the spray paint has cooled the surface of the metal just enough at the edges for moisture to condense. Anyway - the moisture evaporated after some minutes and the paint surface seems good. I'll double check it when it's set to make sure it has good adhesion.

I realised I never really updated on the bracket for the SMG reservoir. Since I installed the CSL airbox I've been running a prototype version of the bracket. Given it's a rainy Thursday here I thought since I'd proved the concept that I'd design up a more final version of the bracket. This is still a development version and you'll note there's a few things that need to be tidied up, but didn't want to go to too much effort until I've confirmed fitment of this latest version. I started by using my previous prototype to confirm the location of the bracket itself and mark where I wanted it with some blue masking tape. I then scanned the strut tower and loaded the (fairly untidy) mesh into Fusion to help with placing reference planes, etc. Because the tower is an irregular shape the bracket needs to account for this: Note that the final unit will have rubber stand offs on the back to help it sit well on the tower and not rub. The mounting point where it's attached to the stud on the strut tower also has a raised, angled boss as the stud is not perpendicular to the strut and this needs to be accounted for so that the nut clamps the mounting point properly. I'll get this version printed up and do another round of test fitting and any final adjustments before I tidy up the rough edges. Given my goal of not wanting to drill holes in my strut tower I think that this should be a pretty tidy end result.

Torrential rain yesterday and today so I can't do any work on my retaining wall at home. Got round to a little job I've been wanting to do for a while. The trim around the SMG shifter boot makes an annoying plastic on plastic creak sometimes when shifting, which isn't particularly pleasant from a driving experience point of view. Today I took the trim apart and used some tesa tape to insulate the clips and mating surfaces. I also gave everything a good clean while I had it apart. Put it back together and the squeaks are completely gone (unless I press very hard directly on the plastic trim), shifting is now a satisfying mechanical click, rather than the annoying creaking sound it could be before.

Had a great weekend working on the car. On Saturday morning Dad and I got the car up on stands and exhaust and driveshaft out. Unbolted the exhaust at the headers and dropped the whole thing, then the same with the driveshaft. So much faster than last time given we're just removing and reinstalling rather than taking it all apart to clean. I'm super happy with how everything under the car is holding up, it's 8 years since we did the underbody refresh and everything is looking really good under there. I did the new gear position sensor first, access is a bit of a mission but the mutilated allen key approach does work. The old sensor was extremely notchy and rough after 20 years of service. Worth noting that we ran the first part of the SMG adaption (up to the point it wants the car started) to make sure it was happy with the new GPS. After that we moved on to lowering the rear subframe to facilitate the installation of the Yurkan Cages 6 point brace. We took off the brake calipers and rear trailing arm pockets and lowered the entire thing about 100mm on a couple of jacks (to give us more control over forward/rearward weight distribution). That gave us enough access to unbolt the front RACP studs and get them out. We then jacked the subframe back into place and loosely bolted it, which gave us a better safety factor while working under it. At this point we drained the diff, swapped out the rear diff cover for a new one and reinstalled with new bolts and drain plugs. I've mentioned previously that I'd long experienced some clunkiness when shifting/loading/unloading the drivetrain. This was vastly improved by adapting the SMG. I wasn't sure whether what remained was the diff getting a bit tired or whether the rear bushes needed replacing but I was pleased on checking the diff that there is no detectable lash in the diff at all, likewise with the driveshaft. I was therefore pretty hopeful that it was just the rear diff bushes that were the culprit. The rest of the process was pretty straightforward, we unbolted one point at a time and using a threaded drill guide that dad turned on his lathe and an extra long 6mm drill bit we went up through each of the 4 points in turn. Then it was simply a case of come down from the top with a 10.5mm bit before running a tap on a long extension up from underneath to complete the thread the whole way through. With that done it was then a case of bolting in each of the 4 points and torquing to spec. The rest of the reassembly took a couple of hours and we had the car on the ground again. The install of the brace was super quick - fitment of the brace was absolutely perfect - Marin's fabrication is spot on. Then it was just a case of running the complete adaption on the SMG and going for a test drive. Today I drove the car on a route I'm very familiar with and I'm extremely pleased with the end result! The last of the clunkiness when shifting is now resolved. Even under heavy acceleration in S5/S6 all you get is the sound and surge of power. I'm super stoked. And the brace. Well, I know others have reported a big improvement, but I wasn't completely sure if I'd find the same. Suffice to say the improvement is not subtle! For me the rear has always felt slightly less co-ordinated than the front (not to say it's not objectively excellent to begin with, but it's always stood out to me that the car is just a little bit more put together in the front). Now with the brace it's the other way around! The change in stiffness is hugely noticeable even just driving around town. As soon as you get to a roundabout or uneven tarmac it becomes very apparent how much more rigidity there is. The car really feels glued together in the back now. I love it and am excited to go for a decent spirited drive.

Yeah it's working well for me - took me a little while to load in what stock I have on hand. I think I've still got the load files somewhere with all the different part numbers etc. if you like I can dig it out for you - help save you some time 🙂

I was back to work this week running v5 of my tune with 5 rounds of VE tuning on top of it. It's given me the opportunity to drive a familiar route and get some good comparisons, as most of my recent driving has been VE tuning runs. Firstly - low rpm, round town drivability is now, believe it or not, BETTER than it was for me with stock airbox and stock program/tune! (to be fair I also cleaned the TBs, ICV, etc. at the same time so need to consider the impact this will have had also). Needless to say I'm extremely happy with how this is turning out. Drivability concerns are what put me off doing the CSL airbox for so long, so I'm stoked that this approach has turned out so well. I'm not sure if it's that just my car wasn't completely happy with the standard 1901 tune my car came with or what, but I guess I'd got used to avoiding certain RPMs at certain loads and speeds and all that is gone. I can cleanly and smoothly run up and down the range in first gear in stop start traffic, I can stay in higher gears at lower speeds than I would have and it's smooth sailing. SMG shifts and downshifts are excellent and repeatable. On the euro software (both with and without the CSL255 parameters) I couldn't be completely confident that I wouldn't get a bit of a jolt sometimes downshifting from 2nd to 1st with my foot off the accelerator. Now all that is gone completely. Not to make out that there aren't still improvements I can make, there's a couple of rpm/load spots I need to smooth out some more, but there's not many of them left at this point. Another scenario I often encountered previously was the tendency for the car to jerk under anything more than mild acceleration for the first 30 seconds or so after startup when completely cold. That's gone as well and drivability is smooth from completely cold. When starting out with this I would have been stoked to have ended up with the drivability being no worse than it was on the Euro tune, to have ended up with something even better is magic. I'm looking forward to continuing to fine tune. Relatedly I've been making some good progress with disassembly and have started looking at options around pushing more useful values onto the CANBUS. Looking at the address tables, functions, etc there doesn't seem to be any particular reason why it wouldn't be possible to add a function for an additional ARBID to be inserted onto the bus. If given an appropriately low priority ARBID it shouldn't get in the way of more critical signals. The bit that would be most difficult to figure out (apart from the bit where you DON'T brick your DME) is the easiest way to inject the additional function call into the flow. Looking at the 10ms task it would probably be easiest to take an existing function, move that function and use it's original address to build out a new function that calls both it and the additional function for the new ARBID. Unless I can find some spare bytes somewhere to inject an additional JSR (no doubt there's others here with more skills than me at identifying injection points for patches, so sing out if you have any suggestions). Other pre-reqs to this include tracing the variables that would be useful to send (things like lambda integrators, rpm, relative opening) and following the program flow to confirm the actual internal refresh rates for those variables (some of these are defined in the funktionsrahmen, but some aren't so I'd like to confirm for peace of mind).

After a few days of Mr Three being in hospital we got him home yesterday morning. Yesterday evening and today I tested v3,4 and 5 of the tune. 3 and 4 were duds (in comparison to v2) in various ways (pushing the boundaries of the theory covered above too far, but on the plus side helping me get a feel for the various adjustments) but I’m very pleased with how v5 has turned out and am happy that I have a good base now to build on. To that end I ran the first round of logging for VE tuning this evening as the tune is currently rich across the board. After a few rounds of VE tuning I’ll then start making fine adjustments to the tune as needed once the larger adjustments are out of the way. I managed to force some pinging under heavy load from about 1100rpm, which is interesting as I’m entirely Euro tune in that range so would be interested to know if that happened on my original tune as well - I don’t recall having come across it before. But aside from that it’s feeling good.

Yes I’ve been following Bryson’s work closely - it was him proving it out that led to me getting started on this 🙂

Ok I think this approach is helping my brain. Here's another interesting view - this is the difference between the Euro M3 tune and CSL as it pertains to the crank degrees at which the intake valve is completely closed. And correspondingly for when the intake valve opens: Arguably the point at which the intake valve completely closes is the most important of the 4 (intake close, intake open, exhaust close, exhaust open), so I wanted to isolate that and examine the difference between the two maps. The intake open difference is directly related, plus an offset to account for the extra duration of the CSL cam. As could be expected we can see that at higher RPM the CSL is configured to to close the intake valve later (by between 5-10 crank degrees) than the Euro M3 tune which will drive more top end power. we can see at low load between 4300 and 6300 RPM that the CSL closes the intake valve earlier than the Euro M3 tune. I presume this is to keep drivability decent with the bigger cams, as presumably is the other island at low RPM thru mid and high load.

To Bry5on's point I need to make sure I understand the theory of cam timing well. I understand the individual concepts, but where I've been struggling is putting it all together and visualizing what it means in different scenarios. To this end I decided that some spreadsheets would help (spreadsheets always help). First up I took the interpolated AVAN and EVAN tables for both the Euro M3 and CSL tunes and calculated the cam overlap for each for each point on the tables: As you'd expect we have low overlap at idle, high overlap in the midrange, sloping down to high RPM. So how does that work out as a difference between the two? The CSL generally runs more overlap everywhere apart from high rpm low load, and particularly in a few different islands in the low and mid ranges. However - we need to remember that the CSL cams have somewhat greater duration than the standard M3 cams. For the purposes of comparison then we should account for this. That's cool and all, but what it still doesn't tell us is whether the Euro M3 tune and the CSL tune differ in where the centre of the overlap occurs (e.g. before or after TDC) which is also important information in understanding the differences between the two and why. So I calculated the centre of the overlap for each of the tunes And from there we can compare the difference in overlap centre between the two: Interesting stuff to look through anyway - I feel now with this view I can better visualize and understand the impact of the various tweaks etc. that I'll make. I've only just put these together and haven't worked through them in detail to look at various areas of interest but will update here as I do.

Well the initial couple of drives have been very successful. Couple of one time codes on first start up related to TPS and 1 misfire code, which I think was the engine being mad at the change of program plus blowing out the carbon from the throttle body cleaning. No repeats of any codes in the two 20 minute drives I've done since. First impressions: the base CSL tune was not as bad as I was expecting. The warm up was rubbish as expected and lots of idle hunting, etc. going on. Once the SAP turned off things settled down. Driving around at slow speed was much smoother than I was expecting. The up and go was a bit muted, but tip in with the SMG was exactly the same as before and there wasn't any jerkiness under light/moderate acceleration. I presume that the reason for this is that my car is a Euro car, which differs less from the CSL than a US spec car does. I know that the US and Euro tune vanos maps differ significantly in places, so that would explain why the standard tune is worse on a US spec car. The car was quite reasonable to drive in the various conditions I tested it in. Given this I wasn't entirely sure how much of a difference I would notice with v1 of my tune (which I must point out again is simply me making my own version of the approach which Bry5on has pioneered). I loaded it up and the improvement was immediately noticeable. The CSL tune wasn't rough driving around the neighborhood and it wasn't enormously noticeable that it lacks in peppiness under those conditions, but when you bring the peppiness of the standard M3 tune back at those low load, low speed conditions it is immediately noticeable as an improvement. I've logged the run in TestO and will go through it later. I need to adjust a couple of the timing maps in the 3300-3900 rpm range (I haven't quite got the crossover lined up right with the VANOS maps crossover and need to adjust slightly, but it's not off by much). Extremely happy with how this has all gone. No installation issues, no programming issues and a good success with v1 of the tune!

Yesterday morning I completed the install of the airbox. First up I took the wiring loom and laid it out in the engine bay to work out the best way to route everything (note the red ties temporarily holding it in place). Once I'd done that I then temporarily installed the TB half of the airbox to get the position and orientation of the IAT sensor just right. I made sure to mark on the loom the orientation of the loom to the connector so that it sat just right. Then I uninstalled the airbox, removed the loom and attached the connectors for the MAP sensor and IAT. The finished loom I then installed the loom for real, cable tying at appropriate points: And here's how the MAF connector end looks: With that done the only wiring left to do was to relocate Pin 1 of the X6003 connector to Pin 18 which was a quick job: Then it was back in with the first half of the airbox for reals this time. All of the hoses and connectors fitted perfectly - I didn't run into any of the issues heinzboehmer did - maybe Karbonius have refined since? The only annoying thing was installing the 10mm nut for the rear vibration isolator - there's not much room to get in there. I clamped up the throttle body boots and moved on to installing the MAP sensor. I'm super happy with how the MAP sensor adapter has turned out - it's worked out exactly how I envisioned it would (I've got more to say about this which I'll do as a separate post). Filter in place: Various top-side connections done: Then it was a quick job to install the front half of the airbox and the snorkel: And finally with the rest of the engine bay back together (you'll have to excuse the dirty car - I'm in the middle of significant landscaping and renovations at the moment at home and it simply isn't worth me spending much time cleaning anything up as the clay dust gets everywhere: Then in the evening I flashed the Terra 0401 program binary to the car (after taking read backups of the current prog and tune) and then the partial binary with what I'm calling the "base modifications" to make the 0401 work with non-CSL cams, code out the DTC for the flap, etc. This morning I started the car briefly to confirm it would start and there were no major issues. A bit later today Dad is coming round to (a) come along for the first test drive and (b) hold the data-logging laptop while I drive. The plan is to take it for a run on the "base modifications" binary, log and make sure things are working as they should be and for me to get a feel for what the base CSL tune is like (my exceptions are for it to be rubbish like everyone says). Then I'll flash V1 of my tune and do the same thing and cross my fingers that it's an improvement. We'll find out 🙂

Boxing Day today and did some bits and pieces in between lunch with friends and playing with the kids. First up - I cleaned the ICV and throttle bodies with CRC throttle body cleaner. I hate to think what's in it, but it works very well. The ICV wasn't as gunked up as I was expecting, and the throttle bodies were worse than I was expecting. Of note is that I decided to use reusable screw-type hose clamps on the ICV - I intend to make cleaning it a semi regular exercise so decided screw clamps made sense given they are hidden anyway. I swapped the oil dipstick tube out for the CSL one. Connected the CSL SMG reservoir (and annoyingly split some CHF-11s in the process - best laid plans...). The final design of the bracket is still to come, I'll get to that once the airbox is fitted and I can play around with it. And installed the CSL secondary air rail Mr 3 and I came back from lunch a bit earlier than my wife and Mr 7 as Mr 3 had expended his socialization fuel tank. So I spent some time getting a nice finish on the 3D printed adapter for the MAP sensor. The adapter is printed in PETG-CF which comes up beautifully with a wet sand and then polish with some cutting compound and the polishing disc on the Dremel. The key is to go slow and not heat up the surface of the plastic too much. It came up beautifully - the photo doesn't do it justice, it's a very nice finish indeed and matches the sensor well. I've epoxied the sensor to the bracket and will get some photos of the finished product when I install it tomorrow. Lastly I spent some time this afternoon getting the MAF connector end of my extension wiring loom done. Because I don't want to hack up my wiring loom, etc. and want to retain the ability to return to stock I'm taking the approach with the wiring for the MAP and IAT sensors of making an extension from the MAF sensor connector which splits out and runs to the IAT and MAP sensor respectively. I'll follow the trunk that goes from the distro box by the ECU box across to the distro box underneath the ICV, and from there to the sensor locations. In terms of the pinouts - all I need to do is to de-pin X6003 pin 1 (MAF signal) and re-pin it to X6003 pin 18 (MAP signal). I'll put a warning label in the ECU bay to note this so that I don't forget in the future and have an easy reference to return to using the MAF sensor if so desired. Tomorrow the plan is to do a mockup routing of the extension loom, a test fit of the airbox, determine the final lengths for the extension loom, remove it, attach the connectors at the sensor ends and then reinstall. From there it's then on to the actual installation of the airbox, and then flashing the DME.

Forgot to add as well that Dad made up a threaded guide for a long 5mm drill bit for drilling through the RACP mounts 🙂

This morning I removed the LHS radiator cowl. My objective with these modifications remember is that I retain the ability to return the car to stock. I therefore didn't want to cut-down or cut off the cowling. It was a quick job to detach the top radiator pipe and slide the cowling out. Then right on cue the CSL oil dipstick tube showed up (along with the silver-coloured hardware I was waiting on for the airbox as well). So I carried on going... I didn't have a turkey baster for removing the SMG fluid from the reservoir, but I do have an abundance of my son's old enteral syringes and feed pump tubing 🙂 All pretty straightforward - the little connector on the bottom at the back is a bit of a pain, but all done without too much fuss. Next up will be a quick general clean up, as well as cleaning the ICV and throttle bodies (might as well while I'm in there) 🙂

Yesterday afternoon I conditioned the intake boots and clamped them to the airbox. The tool for the Oetiker clamps works out at about $100NZD however you approach it so I saved $85 dollars by using the dremel to modify some standard $15 SuperCheapAuto clamp pliers. This worked very nicely - I'll paint the pliers so they don't rust and they can go in the toolbox for next time. I also installed 2x new rubber isolators - Being 20 years old the rubber in the current ones is probably soft and perishing. Plans for between now and whenever the dipstick tube turns up is to remove the LHS radiator cowl shield in preparation for installing the airbox. Yesterday I also took the car for a drive and logged the relevant variables with TestO to get a baseline capture before I go making any changes to the car. I want to make sure I'm as prepared as I can be for moving across to the 0401 program. To that end I will also be doing another full review of each change I've made to the partial as part of v1 of my tune. It's been long enough now since I did it that I should be able to do a good review of it and make sure I haven't made any mistakes.

Finally made it to my summer break! Did a quick fitment check of the airbox, filter and Haimus snorkel to make sure I don't get any surprises during install. I've noted others have found the hose attachments to be tight so am prepared that I might need to do some adjustments there like heinzboehmer did to get them to click in correctly. The CSL dipstick tube is finally with the local courier for delivery, more than 6 months after I ordered it, so should get it in the next few days. The only other thing I'm waiting on is the silver replacement screws for the two halves of the airbox, but they aren't a blocker given I can use the ones the airbox came with and swap out easily later.