Re: The life of... SharkyUK's Trophy [& Fred's V6]
July 2014 - Home at Last!
Friday 26-Jul-2014 and my beloved pink shed is finally back home.
After a year-and-a-half of trials and tribulations, ups and downs, blood, sweat and tears... (that''s just Fred!) I'm happy to say that my Trophy is finally home. This update will just attempt to pull together the last few days and also show the pictures that everyone REALLY wants to see. Yep, the dyno plot. I'm sure it will raise some debate. Boosted boys/girls... you can just move along! LOL!
So yes, jumping back a couple of days to the 24th and Paul at RS Tuning had time to turn his attention to my car. Fred popped up as well (for moral support?) and the car was run-in and mapping completed. An image showing that this car of mine did actually exist was also released on a popular social media site...
More importantly, the car was shown on the rollers and in one piece; with a pleasant lack of flames and debris. This, I was assured, was a good sign. I was sat at my workstation in work when I got the call that day to say that it hadn't gone bang and that it was ready for collecting. I won't lie, I was pretty excited. I wasn't expecting the call for a while so being ready so quickly was a pleasant surprise and very much a bonus. Now, my long-suffering boss has pretty much ridden the ups-and-downs of the last 18 months with me so I think this call also came as a relief to him. Before I'd put the phone down he had already nodded his agreement insofar that I could take the next day (Friday) off to collect it! He's a good boss like that
Arriving home Thursday evening I excitedly got a few bits together (including tax disc) ready for an early start on the Friday morning.
Friday 25th rolled around and I was up bright and early and off to catch the train. I wasn't looking forward to the journey in all truth as I'd had a bad night due to an upset stomach.
But nothing was going to stop me collecting the damn thing!
Naturally, things didn't go so well. Whilst it was a day of excitement there's also a not so pleasant side due to said stomach upset. But I won't dwell on that too much! Suffice to say, a late train caused my first missed connection of the day and I had to get off the next train twice to find toilets. I hadn't even made it out of Wales by this point. In the end my timetable and train journey was out the window so I made it up as I went along. F**k it, the ticket had cost me £130 so I was going to make the most of it! Ultimately this meant I arrived in Leeds around 2pm instead of midday as I had hoped. After getting the keys from Paul and settling the bill I (admittedly nervously) got into the car and made my way home. Only 200 yards down the road I had to join the main road traffic and it was BUSY! After a few minutes waiting for a gap I finally spied one and went for it. As I had a certain amount of lock on and had to give it a few beans to get out it was immediately brought to my attention that I had indeed had a diff installed. LOL! It took me by surprise.
The rest is pretty boring so I'll spare the details. Basically I hit the M1 and it was a 7 hour journey before I finally rolled into my driveway. The Friday traffic was an absolute nightmare. On a couple of occasions I did have to lane-hop a bit to keep airflow over the rad as it got hot after a while in standing M1 traffic jams. Overall though, she did fine. No word of a lie, I probably didn't get above 50mph until after I passed Nottingham. It was that bad. The M42 wasn't great either but I hopped off to pop into Fred's to drop some bits off and to let him have a nosey. I know he's grown to love it and can't get enough of it... After a chat, a handshake and thanks for his efforts and I was on my way. Traffic was still sh!te.
Thankfully, things did get much better once I got onto the M50 and roads closer to home. That bit of the journey was good. Very good. Special even
Especially the tunnels! It drove beautifully and - even with damper settings all over the place - I loved it. That alone made it all worthwhile.
So... we then roll into today (Saturday 26th). The car needed a clean as it was filthy. But it also needs miles put on the engine. No brainer. I called my mate @
JON13S down in Weston-Super-Mare and agreed to pop over to see him. In hindsight, it might have been a mistake...
I hadn't even made it to the M4 and I got pulled by the police! No, I wasn't speeding and I hadn't given any reason for being pulled. I was quite literally pootling along and waiting for the engine to get up to temperature. Still, I got pulled over and the first line from the Officer was along the lines of, "...interesting sounding car you have here..." To be fair, I think he was expecting someone a bit younger than me and I think my advanced years probably threw him somewhat! LOL! I did think about playing the Damon Hill card but thought better of it...
There followed a check of the lights, tyres, tread, and so forth. I jokingly said to the officer that I hope I wasn't going to get nicked as I'd only just got the car back! The only problem was the tax disc. It had the old tax disc on that expired a looong time ago. However, I did have the new tax disc in the glovebox with my licence but it wasn't on display. I hadn't put it in the tax disc holder as yet because I couldn't find a small enough Allen key. I was warned that it should be on display and to get it on display as soon as possible. And I was then on my way.
Hitting the M5 I realised that it was a stupid idea to head to Weston on a Saturday when the weather is good. The stop / start traffic was a pain (again) and I popped off early at the Nailsea junction just to go around the roundabout a few times to keep the car cool!
It took a while but I eventually made it to my mate's place. He was sat waiting along with @
marc1330 and his awesome ITB's 172 Cup. It was a tidy little Clio meet, the only difference being that we actually talked to each other and had a few laughs...
As said above, I was more interested in driving than cleaning it... but jon13s was disgusted and got his cleaning gear out! I didn't have to lift a finger whilst he snow-foamed and shampoo'd it for me. What an absolute star. He's now my official cleaning b!tch. Thanks mate!
I also cheekily made use of his trolley jack and set the dampers back to sensible settings. It just wasn't working having one set soft and the other quite firm! A drive later on confirmed that things were again set up nicely.
Ok, I think you've probably read enough waffle by now so let's get the dyno graph up. I don't have many other pics yet but they will be coming in a future update when I've put some miles on the car. Hopefully better quality pics, too! A smidgeon more torque would have been nice but, judging by the way it drives, it's not too shabby!
Someone asked what it was like at idle once warmed up... but I can't remember who?!?! All I have so far is this video of my exhaust that I took just before going out earlier. It's a crap vid but it's all I've got for now; runs quite nicely I think (but the video doesn't do it justice).
It sounds quite purposeful on the move.
I have a list of things to get for the car now, and things to do, and this will be happening over the next month or so. Happy days! Over the moon!
