Nostalgia attack, can buy back my favourite car I sold

[chunky79]

Just don't trash it at the first bend!

[gingertoss]

Or sell it 5mins after you are finished modding it.

[Shoppinit]

Or let madam crash it.

[Mr Footlong]

Or sell it 5mins after you are finished modding it.

No fear of that as I would take an utter bath on it! Anodizer called up today to say that the HDI FMIC had been anodized without issue, picked it up today. Might fit it myself but not entirely sure I cba as with all the things I have found missing or broken so far, not sure I want to see what has been chopped out of the front....

Take this ugly POS frontend:



Stick new headlights covers on and black out the lens housings (when I get a chance), remove that stupid chav hook, stick on the much smaller custom front plate and then add this in, which along with looking sooo much nicer, is about 35-40% better than the FMIC coming out:

[Mr Footlong]

All rust removed from the floor sieve-like leaking boot (there was lots.....). Kurusted for the hell of it and hammerited/ filled in the various huge chunks of missing bitumen-like floor pads with seam sealer that I will sand flat and spray in the morning. Leaks located and new boot seal arriving tomorrow. After I repair whatever other rust damage I find under the old seal I will apply Carafax IDL 99 to the inside of the seal and I have the rear clusters coming off for the same treatment as well as figuring out why one side isn't fitting as well as the other, will bodge accordingly to get a spot on fit.

Dynamat xtreme kit will be here tomorrow with enough to totally deaden the whole boot and will take up the floor again and fit whatever is left under there. If noise persists I will deck out the boot at least with Dodo Pro Barrier MLV on top of the dynamat xtreme but have to watch the weight. Chopping up the roof to fit the DAB aerial this weekend in theory since I have installed the other DAB bits. Almost bought another head unit for the hell of it tonight but resisted...

Looks like I have managed to source another mint headlight so will be cooking all 4 of them at some point to swap the covers and blackout the lens surrounds at the same time. Man, I hope to god the end performance makes all this worth it.

[Mr Footlong]

Waffle time again. Under the bootseal was a Pandora's box of horrors. Multiple perforations and rusted through holes in the turned up metal that the seal grips to, surface rust throughout the layers between the top metal under the rear parcel shelf and the main boot roof layer. The seal metal was fairly mangled in places where the metal looked like it had been randomly attacked with pliers and twisted in various directions. Straightened this all out and the places where the seal metal obviously wasn't following the best directions to follow the bootlid as it closed.

Found 3 small gaps (sub 1mm gaps but gaps none the less) between the bodywork panels where they were spot welded together by the seals where water ran past/could build up, were enough to let water in. I dremeled every single bit of rust on the seal metal, holes/damage, then kurusted it all and painted when ready. For the panel gaps I soaked kurust through them then once cured, sunk super glue in to make a waterproof seal of sorts before painting over to complete the seal. After heat drying the glue the seams look flawless, painted over perfectly and totally sealed.

These sound like bodges but there wasn't anything better I have used in the past for minute jobs like this and the end result looks factory. For the seal metal where it has been perforated/rotted (the metal is 1mm thick if that), I have sealed over those with some special aluminium tape I have, again, sealed with superglue to ensure a permanant fit and painted around the edges. Adds virtually no extra thickness to the seal metal and does the job perfectly, will ensure that the carafax sealant doesn't have to work too hard to keep a waterproof seal for the rest of the life of the car.

Bought another pair of headlights in the end so I am spoiled for choice and at least if I bollocks up the first pair I swap/black out (lens housings, not the actual lights), I have spares... replacement rear parcel shelf bought to replace the tatty, drill-holed for no reason rattly one that is in there and managed to source the rear wash spindle cover too. Again, this car had better be worth it.

If this was the 6 then of course I would be doing things differently but being the 4th one of these bacofoil buckets I have owned, I know what works and what is overkill. The bodges above will work perfectly and nobody but me would ever know. I do really wonder what the hell was going though the heads of the previous owners though when they did the various things they did to this car.....

[bam_bam]

TL;DR.

In Oz, scooby's aren't known as rust buckets, I'm pretty sure they have a decent rust warranty. I wonder how they're treated differently.

[Mr Footlong]

The boot area has always been a nightmare on them, be it leaks from around the light clusters, holes in the bootlid where the spoiler bolts through and sometimes under the bootseal, as I have.
I think that the fact that it got crashed damaged at the back didn't help it but somebody sure as hell didn't know what they were doing with it. If you park on a slope facing downwards at all, the water pools up at the 2 front boot corners quite badly and this was where the majority of the damage was.

JDM cars aren't usually undersealed either in my experience, at least this one got done when it was brought over but there is still quite a bit of surface rust underneath her so I am contemplating having it redone or doing it myself if I can borrow a lift.

[Mr Footlong]

Last update from me for a couple of weeks as the Pooperu goes off to the tuners again tomorrow morning for:

Ripping off the new Hayward & Scott system and fitting a new full Milltek system with downpipe
Fixing compu-diff system they broke when changing the clutch
Fitting that bootiful HDI black intercooler
Remap number 2, factoring in all the lovely new things the upgraded ECU can do

Anyway, apart from pesky clients calling me and having to take work breaks, this has been the last 2 days of my life, including carafaxing the new boot seal, leak testing:

I started off with nine sheets of Dynamat xtreme to try to dull/kill off some of the fecking exhaust noise/other noise. Far more than I should have needed for a boot but due to all the nooks and crannies, I ended up using 7.5 sheets of this heavy stuff and that was with very accurate placement/overlaps. All inside the wings etc done.

I decided that this car would always be a fat bird unlike Fluffy so I have given up on trying to keep the weight down, I will just offset it with more power. I was sick of the saggy balsa-tastic wheel well cover so I got a 2mm sheet of Alu and made up a toughened version so that you can actually put more than a potato in the back without the thing buckling:

After all the flaff with making up the double skinned, toughened interior boot panels, the anal dynamatting, the toughened cover, putting the mats back in and cutting them to factor in the different trim panels, I can't tell any difference in noise levels inside this biscuit tin. However, that was just sitting on the drive.

When I refitted the upgraded ECU I did a load more soldering/cable tidying and as an end result, the anti-lag is working far better when I enable it, quite amusing in a very chavvy way.....

[Shoppinit]

After all the flaff with making up the double skinned, toughened interior boot panels, the anal dynamatting, the toughened cover, putting the mats back in and cutting them to factor in the different trim panels, I can't tell any difference in noise levels inside this biscuit tin.

Lol. Well worth it then.

That is one freakily psychedelic boot lining.

[Mr Footlong]

I can't tell the sodding difference other than less rattles. I still got all the clunks and thuds throughout the trip this morning. The tuners think that the Milltek is going to be louder, I hope to god not.

Have told them to borrow the car for a day or two and actually drive it around to see what I am getting about regarding the clonks etc, who knows if they will listen but I am hopeful.

If the car comes back and I am still not happy with it, I will just accept the bath that I am going to take on it and sell it on. Getting out of that car I was just angry and tired, got in to the Seat for the drive back and it was a fecking joy. If that was 4WD I would be in heaven tbh, feels so much nicer than the S3.

[Mr Footlong]

Grrrrr, getting twitchy after a few days with no cars to work on/sell/mod!

Tuners told me that in their opinion, the far more expensive HDI intercooler I went to the trouble of anodizing blackwould be a step backwards in performance to the cheaper silver POS slapped on the front of the car. Agreed to disagree but am going with their judgement. I told them that one way or another that car wasn't coming back to me with a silver intercooler so they were to take the front off anyway, tidy up the bumper pipework cutting and sort colouring the silver monstrosity for me as I had done my part....

The previous owner/tuner has done such a fecking butchering job cutting out the front bumper to fit the FMIC as I suspected from checking it myself, that the fog light hole covers that never stay in place properly, never will of their own volition. I have told the guys that as long as they have done a bang up job with the FMIC seals, there should be no reason to have to remove them so just bond the bastards in place as long as the bodge can't be seen. As the front is held on by hardly anything, if I ever need to alter something I can have the front yanked in no time at all.

The adjustable diff system that had been on the fritz since last picking her up from them, magically fixed itself on my drive over to them and they cannot break it either, hmm, that can't be an electrical gremlin at all methinks lol. I will have to wait and see if I can track it down when it next comes up.

Regarding the clonks from the back, after a 30 min test drive with two of them, one with his head parked inside the boot, they are of the opinion that it is the common newage rear diff clonk, a mildly common thing they say and not worth trying to do anything about. I am going to park my head in there myself when I get the car back as I don't feel it as any sort of drivetrain feedback, sounds more bootlid-related.

Th guys ate humble pie and told me that I was dead on the money with putting the new Milltek system/decat on to replace the Hayward & Scott system/decat I had fitted as it was a LOT quieter, just as I told them it would be.

Since selling the Cupra, I have told them to slap some more Whiteline goodies on her while she is in as I am nice and flush.

New bootlid is FINALLY ready, picking that up on Monday, car is fully on track for remap on Thursday so may take the afternoon of so I can pick the turd up and see if this has all been worth it...

[daytonamart]

Good work Footers, things are certainly coming together.

[bam_bam]

Torture = locked in your boot with a disco light and force-fed 3 tabs of acid.

[RIV]

Torture = locked in your boot with a disco light and force-fed 3 tabs of acid.

+1 that boot is trippin!!!