rob323

Suspension, suspension, suspension, suspension......

Echo's respond very well to slightly lowered springs with good quality shocks, and when partnered with light weight 15" wheels and grippy tyres, will out handle a lot of other cars.

Apart from reducing the weight of the car, there is not a lot that can be done to the motor that will provide decent gains.

Interior, exterior and audio changes are a personal choice.

What sort of mods?

Performance, suspension, cosmetic etc?

The echo fascia is a piece of cake to take out. I think there is even a diy on Ozecho for it.

From memory, remove the three fan and heater control knobs, remove the screws beneath them, remove a single screw which is hiding on the passenger side up the top of the fascia and then yank the fascia out.

Hey guys,

When doing a hard launch off the lights with some wheel spin, I get a huge amout smacking/banging in the front end, what causes this?

Branno.

**** shocks combined with soft engine mounts.

Connect the rear rca cables to the front RCA's on the head unit. If the whine is gone, then it is the head unit. Make sure the grounds on the head unit all ground at the one location and the contact is good.

Also try a set of rca cables where the shielding is disconnected at one end.

What box did you end up getting? C150? C154? etc.

Very, very weird for the pivot ball to be ripped out of the casing. I can't even imagine what could have caused that.

Probably too late, but I wouldn't spend more than $200 on a second hand box (hell I bought a 1NZFE and a gearbox for $500), and there is no way you can recondition one and sell it for $500 and make a profit. The main bearings and a couple of synchros alone in mine cost $500 and my labour was free.

Yes, being able to plug a hose into it and drain it while it is running is a good way, but hardly ever done that way.

For what it is worth, you could just put the hose into the top of the radiator and do it that way.

But I'm scared of hot water so I just warm it up to temp, drain it, let it cool, then refill. then let it idle up to normal temp and check the usual like thermostat opens properly and crack the bleed on the back of the block.

The pcv valve is screwed into the rocker cover, the hose is attached to that and goes to the intake. that's the hose that I cut and put the clear fuel filter in.

If you want to flush the system the way you described, and can't find the two rubber hoses that go to the firewall for the heater, and can't work out which one is which, then maybe just attack the radiator flush the normal way by draining it and refilling it.

Before you drain it, make sure the car is up to temp and that the heater is turned onto "hot" so that the coolant in the heater system will also drain.

Also, once you have refilled the cooling system, and let the car idle up to normal running temp (and checked that the thermostat has opened), then get underneath and look up under the exhaust manifold and crack the bleed on the back of the block to release any trapped air in the water galleries.

As long as the diameter of the pipe is the same,and the penetration of the maf into the pipe is the same, and that the maf is no closer than about 100mm to the throttle body, it won't cause any problems.

Yes, you need to keep the maf in the same diameter tube as it was from the factory otherwise the airflow calcs are out.

Most of the readily available Sika range is too soft. I used polyurethane windscreen sealant instead on the mounts on my rally as it sets quickly and is alot harder than Sika Pro etc. Still good 18 months of rallying down the track.

Mine used to sit around 3000 rpm when doing 100km/hr, that's normal for most 4 cylinder manual cars. But after a little tinkering, mine now sits on 4300 rpm at 100 km/hr.

Unifilter used to make a pod kit which allowed the maf to be relocated.

If the plastic part of the key is grey, then that is the valet key. You need a key with the black plastic to be able to recode other keys from it. Or, buy another ecu and get the correct key for it. (there is an ecu on ebay atm but the seller doesn't have the key, nor do they care that it is useless without it.)

Finally finished my carbon fibre light pod after working on it for over 8 months. 

What Mick said.

I put it there so I can quickly and visually monitor the engine condition, and to help the motor perform to it's optimum.

The oil mist going back into the intake effectively reduces the octane rating of the fuel and increases the risk of detonation. Seeing as my engine is used for competition purposes and spends a lot of time at redline, the filter helps remove the oil mist from the air and help reduces the contamination of the incoming air.

That is normal. That hose will always have some amount of oil in it. It is by no means an indication of worn engine rings though.

Best bet is to get a proper compression test done. How did the so called mechanics determine that you had blow by? What test did they do to determine it?

Remove the plastic cover on top of the engine.

You can see the fuel filter and the hose on the right hand side of the red rag sitting on the motor.

lol, that is by no means a test of "blowby". You will be feeling the pulses of air coming out but not the pulses of air going in.

A proper compression and leak down test will tell you how good your piston rings are.

Or, cut the hose going from the right hand side of the rocker cover back to the intake and insert a cheap clear plastic fuel filter from supercheap and see how much oil collects in there. I doubt it would be very much at all. My motor spends most of it's life at redline and under full load and have yet to collect anything but a very small pool of oil in the filter I installed in that spot, specifically so I can keep an eye on the inner health of the motor.

How do you know that you are getting blowby?

I'll check tonight, but I have a sneaky suspicion that you have to disassemble the gearbox to change the input shaft seal. Hopefully I'm wrong.