LCR Build Thread (Kennard)

[Ash-Kennard]

She is mine again

Day 20

Came in yesterday morning to find this in the garage.



Front engined, rear gear boxed porsche. A first for me to see!











My turn on the ramp.



Tim took the Leon home the night before just as a final check before hand over to me. He had a boot pipe come off at 6 PSI, so we decided to prevent this from happening again.

Pipes removed, cleaned up



Weld flange added





With the shitty old bumper with the failed vinyl wrap, I decided to fit the one I had bought ready to refurb. Some cuts had to be made for the Intercooler pipes, but it went on. And looks So much better IMO. Oh and new number plates fitted, these went on pre MOT, but I forgot a photo.









Had lunch, said my good byes and went for the first 100 miles after the first oil change.





Loved it. Country lanes, same running in method as for the first 20 miles.

Parked it up at home, ready for the rest of run in over the weekend with a trip to Cardiff and back for a stag do!









Love it. It is so refreshing to have the car back.

Monday evening after work, the car should have cover the 500-650 miles of run in and oil can be changed again. But from then on, it can be driven properly. Mapping will commence early September.

EXCITING TIMES!

A massive Thank you to The Phirm (especially Tim) for all of the hard work, patience and great working environment. I have spent a small fortune, but I have learnt so much, found some really cool guys, enjoyed the build and now have (nearly) exactly what I wanted from the car.

The initial budget was £5K for the build of my parts, but this was before an entire engine rebuild and the head build was planned. I think coming out at more like £8K is pretty good!

Couldn't be happier.

Right, now off to Cardiff to run this baby in on back roads.

Cheers, Ash

 

[rainbird]

Just caught up on this after chatting about it at the stag do. Looks to be in such good shape now mate, really pleased for you.

Exhaust looks really tidy - what make did you go for in the end? (Sorry if I missed it)

I had a similar issue with a bent leaky rad on mine:
http://www.seatcupra.net/forums/showpost.php?p=4584829&postcount=83

Hope the trip home from Cardiff went well - final oil change imminent!

 

[Ash-Kennard]

On the Road

So, the trip to Cardiff went well!

Went up all the on back roads, unfortunately the M3 was shut, so many others had the same plan..., short shifting into each gear, loading up the engine and pulling through to 4K. Who knew that 4K in 4th is 100mph?

All good, no problems to report. Win.

Arrived at the hostel and this was my view from the window...



Sketchy ******* parking...







Rained in the night.



Checking the AFR as I was worried about the std injectors failing.





Doesn't really tell me a lot. So I stopped worrying about it.

Parked at work for the first time in many, many months.



and again...



Different day, different space and with a car friend!



Another day, another space, nice and sunny.





Really need to sort out a jacking cover. And the front R from the hub centre.

Back at the Phirm ready for mapping!

Came across this bad boy! Massive wheels!



First, the N249 system needed adding. New Oil filter, Oil and all fluids checked as well. All looked good!

Before


After


What a mess! Will need to tidy this up later. Maybe relocate it? Not sure where yet though.

Mapping.

So, Matt arrives and wants to leave the std injectors in place as he had little confidence with the hybrid turbos. He flashed the car with a map he had pre-prepared for my spec.

We went out, first pull, BANG I **** my pants! Thought it was a big one again. Fortunately a boost pipe had popped off. Matt laughed as he recognised the sound and saw the panic in my face, it was clearly very funny.

Limped back, on the ramp, all boost hoses re-positioned and torqued up tight. We then went out for another try with this map.

We went out, put the foot down and then he started screaming STOPPP as we almost immediately top out the injectors.

Went back to the Phirm, still not convinced by the turbo, we then check the fuel delivery from the fuel pump to the injectors. By taping a massive gauge to the screen and driving!



Fuel pump was confirmed to be delivering 7bar. Standard is 4bar, so that's pretty sweet! I guess that's what you get when you add an R8 Fuel pump!

Finally, Matt accepted that the turbo was outdoing the injectors. We swap the 380cc injectors out and replaced them with 550cc's, also changing the fuel pressure regulator from a 3bar to a 4 bar. Made some adjustments, reflashed and went out for another run.

Much better! Matt was very impressed with the turbo performance, it was making good power and was not pushed to the max. We then spent the rest of the day working on the fuel delivery timing and had to work around the 15PSI actuator. Could have adjusted it back to ~10PSI, but Matt could work around it regardless, so we didn't bother.

It's now getting to about 8.30pm and Matt and Tim are feeling that the car is now safe to be driven reasonably and re-booked in for another mapping session on the last day of August.

The only thing Matt said was to warm the car up (duh) and keep below 5K.

I then drove it home, on wet roads, and took some photos. Tried to get the angel eyes, but struggled.







Car feels pretty transformed by this point. But not quite finished yet.

Over the next couple of days, I did develop some fault codes, expected mid map I suppose.



Cleared them and I guess we will see what returns.

Cheers, Ash

 

[rainbird]

Thank god you started talking about the mapping, was starting to think your entire post was going to be excessive photos of parking!

Fault codes look to be along the lines of:
- Camshaft adjuster (VVT?)
- Cat efficiency low (you're on a sports cat from memory - that'd do it)
- Max charge pressure exceeded (Could be N249/actuator related, see what returns)

 

[bangerstox10]

Superb write up keep it going!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Ash-Kennard]

Thank god you started talking about the mapping, was starting to think your entire post was going to be excessive photos of parking!

Fault codes look to be along the lines of:
- Camshaft adjuster (VVT?)
- Cat efficiency low (you're on a sports cat from memory - that'd do it)
- Max charge pressure exceeded (Could be N249/actuator related, see what returns)

No, just excited to have it back!

Yeah I know the codes.

The Cam related one has not returned so far. This is the most worrying as it is mechanical. The tensioner is in the region of 4-500 quid, so fingers crossed I dont see that again!
The Cat efficiency doesn't matter and should not return now.
Charge pressure was probably related to all the additional air flow and the ecu not understanding why or how to deal with that. Shouldn't see it again if it is map related.

Superb write up keep it going!

I am glad you are enjoying it! I intend to.

 

[rainbird]

No, just excited to have it back!

Yeah I know the codes.

The Cam related one has not returned so far. This is the most worrying as it is mechanical. The tensioner is in the region of 4-500 quid, so fingers crossed I dont see that again!
The Cat efficiency doesn't matter and should not return now.
Charge pressure was probably related to all the additional air flow and the ecu not understanding why or how to deal with that. Shouldn't see it again if it is map related.

Sounds about right - other than the cam code I wouldn't be concerned by the others at all really. Keep an eye on them if anything pops back up, but I'd be fairly happy they were a minor, temporary issue

 

[Ash-Kennard]

Mapping done

Since my last update, I have been running on a relatively low power, but well fuelled map. Had a couple of fault codes return, but nothing serious.

I also decided to change my rear light (finally) the car came to me with some weird after market ones and they were filled with spiders some how. I also took to opportunity to clean behind the lights.

I forgot to take a before photo at the start, so here is a before and after in one photo haha





I was pleased that it was possible to replace these without having to remove all the trim. However, it is a bit of a tricky bugger to do with the trim in the way.

Old shite on the floor



Here is the new rear view (I know I need a clean )



The went back to meet Matt at the Phirm for some more mapping fun.

Found this monster on the lift!





Very cool, 295 rear tyres

Time for some power runs.

Took a few more flashes and adjustments, but happy with the results, we returned to the Phirm.

We then started talking about other tricks that could be added. Decided not to go No Lift Shift or Launch Control in the end, but did allow left foot braking. Also decided to leave the rev limiter at around 7.2K as the torque was decreasing before this point. If the turbo size increases and manifold, DP and injectors change in the future, this will be increased. We also changed all the clocks as my MPG etc has been lying for the last week.

So, an estimated 10 hours of mapping with Matt and we have lift off, proper boost from 3K onwards.

Matt had a final calculated bhp of 364 at the flywheel, nice. This is at the edge of what the 550cc injectors can deliver, so we didn't push any harder, but Matt reckons the turbo could keep going up to 2bar, however I have heard that they have a choke point at about 1.5-1.6bar so we settled on about 1.45bar, starting at 3K. So assuming 10-15% for losses, somewhere about 328-309 whp I presume. Should jump on a dyno at some point, but tbh, I am not that fussed.

With a few more little jobs to do, I will be returning to the Phirm the next week to investigate a steering knock, service the DV and maybe change the Cam tensioner, should the fault code return.

Next day, went to fill up with fuel and got an early morning photo at the local Shell.



and the proceeded to boost to work.



Couldn't get past 321bhp on the liquid gauge though, no idea why. Where has this 40 bhp gone? would it be temperature/humidity etc dependant? It should be the same calculation Matt was making. Ill talk to him about this once I have a vague understanding of this.



Found this parked next to me at the end of the day, clearly really well looked after.



Really happy!

Cheers, Ash