Didn't put up the photos from prepping the boost gauge installation. First the scuttle cover had to come off, which exposed that the car appeared to have been stored under an oak tree for a significant amount of time:
So unlike some, who might hoover out the inside of their recent purchase, I vacuumed out the scuttle:
During all this I was checking out the boost hoses and routing etc. Most of it looks sound, which is nice.
So, just to confirm what we're looking at below.
Circular hole by the gloves - airflow meter
Dusty looking thing in the middle - N75 valve, which regulates the boost. It is a solenoid actuated valve, which uses vacuum from the hose on the bottom right to actuate the valve (which are the bigger hoses attached to it). It vents to the airbox.
The other piece of the snakes of hose that's significant is the hose shown at the top of this picture:
You can see it curling around from the silver casting in the top middle of the picture. It goes directly to the ECU and shows the ECU what boost the motor is making, so it knows when to bleed off all that nice boost.
Now we have looked through how this thingamy is working, what's the first step in pikey tuning?
We're going to fit the ugly valve wotsit into the line to the ECU, after the boost gauge, which will show us the actual boost the engine is making. By turning the valve we will vary the amount of boost that is bled off, until we start either stalling the turbo due to a lack of back pressure from the motor (turbo's run out of puff) or the ECU goes into limp-home because it's seen too much boost.
But before we start upsetting the engine, it's important to know the motor's in a reasonable shape to be force-fed more than it's been used to.
Cover off and cambelt checked - been changed relatively recently
Air filter changed
Oil changed
Oil filter changed
Oil temperature sender fitted
Wiring for oil temp sender fitted
Powersteering belt changed (it was screeching on each lock - not subtle)
No photos to show yet, as I ran out of time, so the centre console is in bits and I have a bunch of wires, solder, heat shrink etc to get these gauges sorted. Once they're in and I'm happy they're showing correct info (the boost already is and we're happy about the readings) then we can (finally) begin.
Oh - as there was a POSaxo immobilised on the ramp today I jacked the car up on the front jacking points. Looks out we've found the first significant corrosion, as the jacking point will need cutting out and plating over. Bloody thing.
