Socks... blown off

Greetings readers.

High time for an update, especially since it's been about a month and I'm nearing completion with the MoT fail list.

To refresh your memory, the following was picked up when I took the car for its first MoT:

1. Play in steering rack (excessive)
2. Nuts too short for nyloc x 6
3. handbrake cable fouls on spring n/s only
4. parking brake (low efficiency @8%, excess travel)
5. steel braided brake hoses chafing on cycle wings
6. Emissions 

In order of tackling them, easiest first...

Nuts were easy enough to sort. two I replaced with longer ones, two I removed washers (not needed arguably), the remaining two I replaced the nyloc nut with a plain nut and used threadlock to secure.

Handbrake cable was re-routed, and the steel braided hoses had a rubber sleeve put on where they secure to the cycle wing bracket.

Now the harder ones...

Steering rack I took out and there was definitely some play inside somewhere (manufacturing fault?) , but Peter was a star and exchanged it for me without any fuss. That took 2 evenings to swap out, but not overly complicated.

Emissions... where to start? Well a good place is to get some OBD software or else you're just stabbing around in the dark. So I purchased a set via eBay from BMcables.com - having spent about 4 hours trying to persevere with a downloaded copy, a 60-page instruction manual "auf Deutsch" and a VW cable that was never going to work... this was like a breath of fresh air. Completely works 100% out of the box and one-click installation. Brilliant.

And the INPA software is very comprehensive:

Car-ception - car within a car

Sowing some of the live analogue data displayed whilst the car was running.

So what did it tell me? A great deal as it turns out. Many error messages at first, but once you whittle down through and clear the obvious ones ( e.g. Your electric windows aren't working, the rear seat is missing etc) I learned that the MAF and Crank Postion Sensors were giving error codes, both transient and long term. So I replaced both of them, fairly easy tasks, and hey presto - all fixed :-)

It now starts, runs, and idles much much better. It's the most significant improvement I think I've ever seen on an engine, and in some respects it was a miracle it would even run before. The MAF readings were off the scale and I think it was running using the cam position sensor to get a basic reading of engine position. Clever really, in that the whole system can adapt to live with the failure of two main sensors, and had defaulted to a basic fuelling map so you could get home in the event of an emergency.

Difficult to say with any certainty, as of course I'm relying on my own sense of smell, but there seems to be a lot less un burnt fuel coming through the exhaust as well. So hopefully, that's all mended too. 

Finally, the handbrake needed some attention. I'm still not 100% happy with it, but I managed to reduce the amount of travel by fitting some spacers on the handbrake cable which helped with the adjustment. Although now, if adjusted for a positive handbrake, the callipers are still grabbing at the discs when the handbrake is off. Cure this and you get about 9 clicks of travel on the lever. Sort of tinkering with the adjustment, the only thing I can think of is that the pads needs to bed in, after all the discs are so new they have still got their machining marks on. Might need to bed them in with some gentle application of the handbrake to rough them up a bit. 

So I decided on another quick trip to the MoT station (sic) for a test drive. Straight away you can feel the difference. Before it was flat and down on power. Now it is completely electric!! Definitely found the "blow your socks off" vibe this time. It accelerates insanely fast, wheel spinning in 1st 2nd and nearly 3rd... Incredible. It's going to be entertaining in the wet!!

So with that, a short video to entertain you all:

Video uploading to YouTube... Update this with the link in a minute.

Think we're ready to start the process of getting it tested now.

In other news, just purchased the bare bones of an M3 3.2 Evo engine - exciting things ahead with phase 2 of the project!!,

Thanks for reading