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Lowe's Team Grey

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It mostly just looks black. The wing mirrors have carbon covers and the front wing canards are carbon too. It's enough of a difference to look intentional. :)

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Few bits and bobs happened this weekend. First off, the spoiler. @Mark-in-Stoke was kind enough to offer a hand, so between the pair of us we got the old one off. It's a nice and simple job, just 4 bolts, and a couple of locking locator pins. I was expecting it to put up a fight but it came off in less than 5 mins. Fitting the new one was just a case of cleaning up the crap on the boot lid, covering the holes with some electricians tape, and then 3M'ing it in situ. It was easy with two people, and we got a perfect fit.

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The car's in at RRG this week for a 50k service. With me having the Grimmspeed intake, RRG won't be changing my air filter so I took it out for a clean/re-oil. Given how long it's been on it wasn't actually too bad, but the side facing the snorkel was considerably dirtier than the other side.

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I gave it a good rinse from the inside out, soaked it in cleaner and then left it to dwell for 10 mins. Rinsed it off, gave it a brush and it came up far better:

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It didn't take long to dry in the current weather, and to be double sure I blasted it out with an air cleaner. One quick, light re-oil later and it's time to let it soak in and refit:

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Whilst that was soaking in I swapped out my windscreen sticker. @Dessss hooked me up with one of his lovely black glitter Antidote stickers, which I'm loving since it's near invisible until the light catches it. Very stealth, so gets my approval. :D

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Finally, gave the car a wash since it was looking crap after the weekend storms.

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Really pleased with the overall look now. Just need to sort the indicators and repeaters for smoked and I think I'll be happy. :)

 

 

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29 minutes ago, Chris Bailey said:

She’s a beauty! Where did you get the carbon spoiler? 

As per the other carbon stuff, Aliexpress. Yes it's a copy, but it's a bloody good one. In fact, having looked at an original it actually is a tiny bit bigger and ends up being a better fit! :D 

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2 hours ago, Lowe said:

As per the other carbon stuff, Aliexpress. Yes it's a copy, but it's a bloody good one. In fact, having looked at an original it actually is a tiny bit bigger and ends up being a better fit! :D 

Wowsers! Have you got a link mate? 

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57 minutes ago, Chris Bailey said:

Wowsers! Have you got a link mate? 

Just search for GT86 spoilers on the site, there’s tonnes. 

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It's been on the cards for a while, but I was keeping an eye out for a second hand UEL manifold. I've gone for UEL since the midrange torque will be more useful for me given I do a lot of motorway miles. Also, because burble. ;) One came along at the right price, so I went and picked it up yesterday.

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It's an RCM manifold, basically made in the same factory as Tomei/Gruppe S. I've also picked up a secondhand Miltek overpipe. I need to look in to getting some heat wrap and some gaskets now. Throwing that out to the community, anything of specific note that's good or is generic stuff fine? Can I re-use any of the standard bolts or is it likely they'll be crap and so best I get some new ones lined up?

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Haven't done anything to the car really recently other than drive and clean it. That was until this morning, where I figured I'd spend the time that I normally sit about in the office waiting for the working day to begin to be productive and swap out the side markers for smoked ones. Shouldn't take more than a couple of minutes right?

Wrong!

Whoever designed the fitting mechanism for these needs putting up a wall and shooting. Then setting on fire and putting back out again with a spade. Twice, just to be sure! :lol:

 

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Having watched a couple of videos on how to do it, it didn't take long to pop off the first one. I put my LED in, checked it worked, reattached the marker and pushed it in. It clicked in to place, put the liner and screw back in and job done. However, I'm not happy with the way the liner had gone back in, so I went and checked on the other side.

 

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On the OEM side you can see where the liner sits behind the clip of the side marker. I'd not quite got that right, so went back to the drivers side to undo it all. I take out the liner screw, apply the *slightest* bit of pressure on the new side marker and it literally pops out in my hand! :o A gnat could fart with more force. This was obviously a bit of a worry, but then to my horror I realise that the A clip ( see below) had come off the marker and was sitting in the frame on the car. 

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Very carefully I managed to get it out, pushed it back into the marker and refitted everything. Curiosity got the better of me so I lightly touched the marker.

BOING! It literally pops out into my hand again, and even worse the A clip was hanging by the frame about to fall into the inner liner... Somewhat exasperated I removed it all again, carefully recovered the A clip and then refitted it all. I've got no confidence that they're going to stay in place, so before driving home this evening I think I'll tape them in place just to be sure and look at an alternative way of holding them in - probably glue all around the A Clip itself. What a joke!

On the other hand, they look 100% better. :)

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Side markers look good but its a shocker to hear they're a pain to fit

Are the clips any different from the OEM ones?

Only other thing I can think of is that the tiny brackets that hold them might need cleaning up as they seem quite prone to rust?

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1 hour ago, nerdstrike said:

One question w.r.t. the window sticker... What's an APtidote? Do you like Pi?

Ask @Dessss:P

Yes I know it's a symbol that doesn't actually sound the way it should. It's just artistic licence...

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1 hour ago, Samwise said:

Side markers look good but its a shocker to hear they're a pain to fit

Are the clips any different from the OEM ones?

Only other thing I can think of is that the tiny brackets that hold them might need cleaning up as they seem quite prone to rust?

Just one of those things. The clips are the same as the OEM ones, they just aren't very well attached to the marker itself. A good blob of glue inside the A clip and then some 3M tape on the inside of the frame will probably be enough to hold them in place as a 'just in case'. I just hope they stay on long enough to get home! :P 

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They'll be fine. Think everyone who has changed them has had them fitted loose like that. Only time mine have worked loose was hitting a corner marker on a track day, and even then they were only slightly hanging out. The cable and plastic they're attached to do a good enough job of holding them on to the car 

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Perhaps but my concern is more the A clip itself. Since that keeps coming off it’s likely to fall into the liner and then there’s no way to fix them back. I think I’m going to glue the A clip, then push them in place. 

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Update. I took them out again to glue the clip to the marker. One side went without issue, the other side was a nightmare. The A clip pinged off and fell into the inner liner. I peeled back the liner to see inside and the clip was nowhere to be seen, absolute Houdini! So, I got a load of 3M tape and glue and hopefully that'll hold it. Hasn't fallen off yet...

In other news, manifold, overpipe and remap is hopefully being sorted next week. :) 

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Yesterday I took a drive up to Tuning Developments. Mike and the team fitted my RCM manifold, Miltek overpipe and then remapped everything to suit. Came out with a respectable 201.2bhp which I'm happy with. Funny that the car is now producing what it's supposed to produce from factory... :lol:

So the overall set up is:

Grimmspeed Intake > Engine (lol) > RCM (unbadged Tomei) UEL manifold > Miltek overpipe > OEM 2nd Cat >Cobrasport Resonated Catback.

 

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The car feels great, far more eager to get going and it pulls smoothly across the whole rev range with no dips or hesitations. Cold start fast idle is also now gone (YAY!)

But the best bit by far is the noise. It's loud, but just about on the right side of being obnoxious... just. By like a hairs width if you're lucky. Keeping it to about 2k RPM with small throttle usage and it's actually quieter than it was before. But if you start to use the accelerator pedal it really lets the boxer rumble rip, it literally is a loud pedal. Downshift blips are addictive, there's some lovely crackle on the over run but it doesn't sound a bit 'forced' like the Audi's do.

I took a quick static video earlier on:

Really pleased. :) 

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A good tune works wonders with a decent manifold, doesn't it? Touring Belgium at the moment, I know what you mean about loudness. Mine sounds great on country roads, is very quiet at speed on motorways but I feel a little guilty around town at times.

Also, it might be just mine but I'm sure it gets louder after a long hot run.

Sent from my LG-Q6 using Tapatalk

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On 11/08/2018 at 4:28 PM, MartinT said:

A good tune works wonders with a decent manifold, doesn't it? Touring Belgium at the moment, I know what you mean about loudness. Mine sounds great on country roads, is very quiet at speed on motorways but I feel a little guilty around town at times.

Also, it might be just mine but I'm sure it gets louder after a long hot run.

Sent from my LG-Q6 using Tapatalk
 

Yeah, there's a couple of really tight corners on my commute where like it or not you end up stuck low down in the revs and you'd really feel the torque dip whilst you're winding it back up again. Not an issue any more, you just get going straight away. Huge improvement on overall drivability, and to be honest I should have done it a lot sooner.

Haven't noticed a difference in volume when hot, but have noticed a tendency to be more 'parpy' when warm, probably due to it being more eager to rev.

 

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