The end of the begining

Is this really the end of the beginning? I hope it is, rather than the beginning of the end.
Ok enough metaphysical claptrap.

First drive since the clean up today. Noticed a decent spot of rust bubbling around what appears to be a crossmember bolt midway down the enginebay, its not come through the paint yet, but she is a cruncher. So I think Ill hack it open and douse it in anti rust/corrosion treatment. Hopefully its not gone right through and its just a surface issue.

With that in mind I booked the 'Orange Pig' (Tiger Gold R8) into Before-n-After in Newbury about 1hr west of here. He is fully booked till late December though. Basically coats the inside and outside of the whole car in a protective coating of Waxoyl and gives a 5 year anti corrosion guarantee. Not bad.

So back to the main theme which is performance modifications and analysis.
I managed some good times today, 5.82, 6.08 and 6.20, quite an improvement on last time.
I have to put most of this down to cleaning the air filter which previously was pretty much like having the engine breathe through a cow-pat.

Also the cold air intake has a large diameter pipe from the airbox going to the shielding which sits over the radiator this was disconnected and basically performing no function. I hooked this back up as well so I guess this will now let quite a bit more cold air into the engine.

EFILIVE was nice enough to replace the parcel which NZ Post now says they have no trace of being posted. A replacement was sent via DHL yesterday and I got a call today to say it was here and the nice VAT man wants £100 off me! Aside from that little pain I am now able to commence tuning from this weekend. Ive done all the free mods I can, its onto the costly stuff now. By all accounts I should expect up to 50KW/65BHP from a tune. Though Im sure it will have to be pretty good to get me that much. Ill be taking it in steps.

Stage one tuning will be to do a lot of scanning and see what is going on, see if I have any knock and take a look at whats going on with the sensors etc. So far the Check engine light hasnt resurfaced so maybe a few long runs has sorted that out. Next will be the VE table and to get rid of all trace of 'Abuse Mode' or 'Torque Management' as it is euphamistically known.