It's been a busy month
My local supplier for Powerflex products is Peter Lloyd Rallying in Brynmenyn near Bridgend. I phoned them and ordered a couple of EXH005 and they arrived direct from Powerflex in just two days. These hangers are made from Polyurethane so should last a lot longer than the rubber type.
I decided to fit an oil catch can to remove the oil from the blow-by gasses going from the cam cover to the intake plenum via the positive crankcase ventilation system. But which catch can to buy? There are a few out there but because of the lack of space I wanted to be able to get my hands on one so that I could try it for size and location. Local dealers had nothing in stock for me to try and would have to order in specially for me. So I went to Merlin Motorsport at Castle Combe where they had the Mocal unit in stock. I've found the staff there are always helpful and they let me take the can out to the car to check it out. It would do the job so I ended up taking the Mocal catch tank in brushed alloy, Mocal stainless steel braided hoses and Aeroquip Pro Clamp hose finishers.
The biggest problem was finding the best place to locate the tank and route the hoses. After several false starts I decided to put it alongside the main fuse box. I had to mount it on a plate as
there isn't enough flat surface to get it properly bolted down. The plate is made from 3mm aluminium alloy and is bent in 3 dimensions to get a bolt in the top of the
gearbox mount and the inner wing. The tank in bolted to the plate so that it is easily removed when it needs to be drained. The hoses are routed under the strut brace and held in place with cable ties - not elegant but it works well.
With the intercooler shifted to behind the front bumper
I had a lot of space in which to fit the Mocal oil
cooler in front of the radiator - the only decision was where was the best
place to locate it. I bought an Quick Fit kit from www.thinkauto.co.uk and used
it to fix the cooler directly to the coolant radiator. The cooler is fixed
with thin stiff-ish plastic rods that go through the fins of both the cooler and
the rad - with small foam pads between the two to prevent rubbing. On one
end of the rod is a large (2p coin) sized flat plastic plate and the other end
is secured with a same sized push-on plate. This locks in place and the
excess is trimmed off. A picture speaks a thousand words
Why are these things never straightforward. The day after re-fitting the cooler there is a pool of oil under the car - one of the joints is not a good fit. The whole lot had to come back off and I remade all the joints - taking the opportunity to change the hose layout while I was at it. With the hoses altered it went back on much more easily and hasn't dropped any oil yet.
I'll be taking the car back to Owen Developments to get the Unichip remapped. With this in mind I decided to ensure that the injectors were working properly and did some web research. I found www.injectorcleaning.co.uk who provide a postal service for cleaning injectors. Kevin let me have a spare set of injectors that I could send off so these could be cleaned without having my Corolla of the road. I posted them at 1.00pm on the Monday and they were returned to me before 9.00am on the following Wednesday -less than 48 hours - great service. The injectors are tested before and after treatment so you can see what changes there have been.
Not too good before but pretty good after - just
what I needed. I bought new 'O' rings and
rubber
seals from the local Toyota dealer and took the car back to Kevin.
He removed the old injectors and installed the new ones - took about 30 minutes.
It might be my imagination but I reckon the engine runs more smoothly and maybe
it picks up a little better too. I'll have to wait till I take it back to
Owens to see what difference it has actually made.
Injector Update.
Well with the cleaned injectors fitted I began to have
problems starting the car (with the engine hot or
cold). Had to turn it over for maybe 5 seconds every time before it would
start - but it did always start. I reckoned that maybe the cleaned
injectors were not flowing so much fuel as the originals so decided to have the
originals cleaned and replaced. As you can see from the sheet the original injectors were flowing more fuel before cleaning than the others
did after - so it looks like I'd made a good call. Kevin took the others
out and replaced the originals for me.
I found that with the Fensport -30mm +30% springs on the rear of the car the suspension was too hard and felt it was jarring my back over rough surfaces - much too harsh a ride for me. I made the decision to get the Eibach -20mm +20% springs put back on. While I was at Kev's having the injectors done, he also reinstated the Eibach springs for me and adjusted the Konis to their softest setting. Much better all round and perhaps with the back 10mm higher from the ground it won't be so easy to scrape the exhaust going over speed bumps. The car also looks better with this height spring - the front and rear look better balanced somehow.