Introducing WHEEE

[wheee]

Hi all, new to the forum so thought I'd introduce me (Damian) and my girl (WHEEE) - 2006 BF XR8 Ego w/Orange Stripes. Living in the SE suburbs in Victoria, had the car about 5 years now:

ZF 6 Speed Auto
Leather Interior
Premium Sound Color ICC (Manual Climate)
Cold Air Intake, Pod Filter
Twin Throttle Body
Yella Terra Plenum
25% Underdrive Pulleys
Oil Pump Gears
Herrod Cams
DPE Extractors, Cats, Big Boy 3" Exhaust
3.9 Diff Gears & Nolathane Bushes
Kuhmo KU36 on Stock 18" Rims
Custom Tune

Shes a pretty clean fun car- racked up a large bill over the years keeping her regularly serviced by Ford. However after the cams, diff and exhaust shes no longer the daily driver (ignoring the fuel consumption- which is now well over 18L/100, she wakes the dead every time you crank her up and her lumpy cams can get a bit draining on both your brake foot and your nerves sitting in peak hour traffic jams or trying to park in tight spaces- she tends to want to launch the second you release pressure off the brake).

Next mods are probably a Varex muffler to try and quieten her down a bit before the neighbors dob me in to the EPA, and a 3000 stall converter and transmission cooler. Anyway, I'll shut up now and let the car talk for herself- heres a few photos. Anyone know of any meets/cruises taking place around the SE burbs?

[Bob Lablaw]

Nice, pretty much a sleeper for a XR8 then? any power figures or 1/4 times? Be fun alright

[wheee]

It's a sleeper until your crank the engine over. As soon as its running there's no way you can mistake it for a stock XR8- the engines shakes the car so much it's like sitting in a vibrating massage chair, my friend sitting in the car behind me always complains it makes all his mirrors shake.

The last dyno figure I got was a rather uninspiring 224rwkw which was with some very sticky tyres on it (they estimate it skewed the dyno reading by about 25kw, and in road testing they said it definitely felt more powerful than other BF's they'd driven with higher dyno readings). It's had a bit of work since that reading so it's possibly a bit higher now- but either way the only thing that has beaten me from the lights recently was a Lamborghini Gallardo (as if I stood a chance).

Trying to get a few mates to join me down at the drag strip to get a 1/4 time which is probably a much better indicator of its performance than the kw reading, so will keep you posted.

[SnipeZ]

Welcome mate. Every Tuesday at 7.30 we generally get together at the fountain gate Krispy Kreme for a chat.
Should pop on down for a chat


Cheers

[wheee]

Sounds good, what's the turnout normally like?

[GIFFO97]

Sounds good, what's the turnout normally like?

Pretty good from what I hear. The next ones on March 5th. Nice ride too

[wheee]

Forgot her nude photo.

[SnipeZ]

Bit exposed. The turnout last time I went were 15 cars


Cheers

[GIFFO97]

What POD are you running? Its worth noting they actually make you lose about 4kw per 100kw you make, in your instance you'd be losing about 10kw, even the most expensive pods lose power. And that's in a box too. The only aftermarket filter that has an increase in power is the K&N Panel filter, but its about 0.8kw per 100kw and you can't even feel it. My suggestion would be stick with the stock airbox. I garuntee you will make more power.
Cheers Mitch.

[XHfalcon]

Where about a did you get those figures I'm sure in some instances pods can increase power???

[GIFFO97]

Where about a did you get those figures I'm sure in some instances pods can increase power???

Cheek out the Mighty Car Mods videos, they tested a range of aftermarket filters on a range of cars fitted in a range of ways. and found none improve power (except K&N Panel Filter) even if you knock the headlight out. To my suprise a $20 Supercheap Pod made more than a $140 Pod, but both were less than a stock airbox. The only way they had managed to get the Pod to produce more power was to plumb it 3 metres infront of a car with a fan directly infront pumping air into it. Ill post the video links later.
Cheers Mitch.

[wheee]

She's running a K&N pod in one of these boxes.

http://www.herrodmotorsport.com.au/Herr ... fault.aspx

[wheee]

Think this is the video hes talking about: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAIxeQUSg-Q

"You'd actually be better off to lose some weight, and if you did a poo before you drove your car, that would give you more of a performance gain than putting on the most expensive pod filter you can buy."

[Bob Lablaw]

Where about a did you get those figures I'm sure in some instances pods can increase power???

Cheek out the Mighty Car Mods videos, they tested a range of aftermarket filters on a range of cars fitted in a range of ways. and found none improve power (except K&N Panel Filter) even if you knock the headlight out. To my suprise a $20 Supercheap Pod made more than a $140 Pod, but both were less than a stock airbox. The only way they had managed to get the Pod to produce more power was to plumb it 3 metres infront of a car with a fan directly infront pumping air into it. Ill post the video links later.
Cheers Mitch.

I've seen that one, they dyno'd a stock car or was it near stock only requiring near stock levels of air. There is heaps of other dyno results showing proven gains with air filters such as BMC and K & N on cars that have had mods done, SS inductions have got dyno results too. I'm sure WHEE's car is in need of a pod set up the factory one would not cut it

[XHfalcon]

Yeah that's what I was thinking why would companies like ss inductions do kits with pod filters if they cause power losses

[wheee]

Well before this turns into another thread about the pros and cons of pod filters, look forward to meeting some of you down at KK on the 5th.

[wombi90]

Bay looks mint! Has a factory look about it, wouldn't guess it from the outside

[superhuS!]

Well before this turns into another thread about the pros and cons of pod filters, look forward to meeting some of you down at KK on the 5th.

This x 11ty.

Bitchin' XR8 mate, can't wait to see it on the 5th!

[ford_racing_8]

Nice car, good color combo to.

[EBOOST]

Nice car mate.

Who fitted the cams and tuned it?
Ive heard of others going over 300rwkw with similar mods thats all.

[wheee]

It was installed and tuned at HP-F. They did say they were surprised at the reading, and couldn't find anything engine related that would have caused it, and there were no issues with compression. The only thing they could find to comment on was after replacing the O2 sensors that one bank reading slightly different than the other, but said with the age of the vehicle they'd see that on 9/10 cars they look and it was most likely due to a slight leak, and wouldnt have caused the kind of low reading the car was giving. In any case there is an engine rebuild on the cards in the next 12 months, so I'll sort that out sooner or later.

300rwkw NA is my first target for the car, but it'll be a few more paydays yet... Dont suppose anybody wants out there needs websites/software written so I can afford it quicker. Or maybe when my 3d printer arrives I'll start selling custom plastic trim pieces.

[BLKPHN]

Nice car mate.

Who fitted the cams and tuned it?
Ive heard of others going over 300rwkw with similar mods thats all.

300rwkw ones are usually the Boss 290 motors, the 260's with lower compression don't really make it to 300.

It was installed and tuned at HP-F. They did say they were surprised at the reading, and couldn't find anything engine related that would have caused it, and there were no issues with compression. The only thing they could find to comment on was after replacing the O2 sensors that one bank reading slightly different than the other, but said with the age of the vehicle they'd see that on 9/10 cars they look and it was most likely due to a slight leak, and wouldnt have caused the kind of low reading the car was giving. In any case there is an engine rebuild on the cards in the next 12 months, so I'll sort that out sooner or later.

300rwkw NA is my first target for the car, but it'll be a few more paydays yet... Dont suppose anybody wants out there needs websites/software written so I can afford it quicker. Or maybe when my 3d printer arrives I'll start selling custom plastic trim pieces.

Nice car mate love the mods and the look of your car! the DiFillipo systems are quite loud especially with a big set of cams in there.

I've had some terrible dealings with HP-F and very poor tuning of my previous car they made low power and very generic tune slightly tweaked, My current car was tuned by Bluepower and has exhaust and there airbox only and made 270rwkw although it is a Boss 290.

If you go all out N/A why not just put a non cooled KB on it and you make way more power and still retain you stock motor and probably cost about the same.

Might try and make it done on the 5th and check out your car..

[BROCKYB8]

Where about a did you get those figures I'm sure in some instances pods can increase power???

Cheek out the Mighty Car Mods videos, they tested a range of aftermarket filters on a range of cars fitted in a range of ways. and found none improve power (except K&N Panel Filter) even if you knock the headlight out. To my suprise a $20 Supercheap Pod made more than a $140 Pod, but both were less than a stock airbox. The only way they had managed to get the Pod to produce more power was to plumb it 3 metres infront of a car with a fan directly infront pumping air into it. Ill post the video links later.
Cheers Mitch.

Have a look at the cars they did it on .
its obvious with what they did it on that it doesnt work

V8s and sixes actually love them as they breath alot better through them . .
MY stock wagon went up 9kw just buy adding one of them with a airbox .
That was back to back dyno runs .

[BROCKYB8]

Great car by the way mate looks good

[wheee]

Thanks to all for the compliments, sadly shes only the 260, so I realise 300rwkw will be a expensive pain in the ass to achieve without a blower- but I'm stubborn/stupid enough to waste my money getting there. I'm just determined to keep this particular car looking as close to factory as possible- gotta hate having an emotional attachment to a car.

I might change my mind and want to go down the blown path later on, but if I do that it'll most likley be when i can afford to pick up a reasonably priced 2nd hand FG and pimp that.

[BLKPHN]

Thanks to all for the compliments, sadly shes only the 260, so I realise 300rwkw will be a expensive pain in the ass to achieve without a blower- but I'm stubborn/stupid enough to waste my money getting there. I'm just determined to keep this particular car looking as close to factory as possible- gotta hate having an emotional attachment to a car.

I might change my mind and want to go down the blown path later on, but if I do that it'll most likley be when i can afford to pick up a reasonably priced 2nd hand FG and pimp that.

Nothing beats the sound of a blown V8, you could just buy my FG and be done with it..

[wheee]

Don't tempt me, I wasn't even looking to purchase a car when I got the BF. A mate working at Subaru rang me on a very boring day in the office- "come check out this car I just traded in", 15 minutes later I owned an XR8.

[wheee]

Just found the cars dyno graph in my iPads camera roll for anyone interested.

[NUT347]

People read into dyno figures too much.

The gain isn't thaaaat bad. I would say the original figure is pretty low for a 260, but a 40rwkw gain is alright.

[Bob Lablaw]

nice to see a before and after showing the actual improvement, almost 50rwkw looks good

[wheee]

Look, I wont lie- i would have loved a higher dyno reading purely for the bragging rights, but in terms of how the car feels it has been an amazing transformation from stock. It never felt like I was driving a Mitsubishi Nimbus (and yes, I have driven one- god help you going up a hill with the A/C turned on), but the XR8 definitely used to feel a bit sluggish off the line. The 3.9 gears fixed that problem overnight, and the intake/exhaust/cams make it feel like power will just keep coming indefinitely.

Oh well, enough car talk. Gotta get ready to go out- woohoo Garbage playing @ The Forum!

[SLO4LT]

Sounded tuff as when you cranked her over at the meet tonight! Sounds awesome!

[wheee]

Lol, thanks. I was actually trying to make a quiet getaway- guess thats no longer possible