John K

Corvettes since maybe the C4 (mid 1990's) have been incredible performers for the money when compared to "cost is no object" overpriced European super cars - often out doing them in lateral G force tests. I guess the Japanese are now going to show the Italians how to make an extremely quick (relatively) cheap car.

Thanks for the replies. Since I posted I've had maybe 1 crash - can't really remember, so it seems to have become a bit of a non issue. One thing - I wish I opted for the remote with illuminated keypad. It's a bit tricky working the keypad in the dark!

I thought that the blue plug behind the fuse panel is for phone connection - it comes up as "media" when in use. The white plug is the aux input and comes up as "aux" when in use. BTW, stereo means just 2 channels - left and right. Front and rear speakers are just the left and right channels split to front and rear. Nothing to do with 4 channel surround. So on the input side, there are only 2 inputs - left and right. On the power amp output side, there are 4 outputs - 2 for the left channel (front and rear) and 2 for the right channel (front and rear). the twin outputs per channel are because of the fader controls allowing the sound to be adjusted between front and rear.

Don't be too down on Ford USA - AFAIK the Aussie 2V closed chamber Cleveland head was an Aussie only model designed in Oz for the 302 Cleveland (another Aussie only I think). Occasionally, some of the weird things we do - like the 4lt turbo donk - are good! BTW, I loved my fortnight in Lake City - bass fish'n, BBQ'n, boat rac'n, and plenty of drink'n. IMO the purple sparkle flake bass boats with matching purple sparkle flake F150 tow car were the ultimate ride I saw there - and quite a few! Fastest ever boat ride on the Suwannee River ~70mph - jeeze that was scary. It felt like I was doing 150!

The same engine is in the Ford Territory - see the Territory forum here. It would be neat to do it. About 15 years ago I was visiting friends in Lake City - not too far from you. It was a real Good Ole Boy town and everybody was into stock car racing. When I got back to Oz I ended up shipping a few sets of Aussie closed chamber Cleveland heads to the Lake City guys. They had heard about them (pre-internet) and wanted them pretty bad. They reckoned those heads gave them the winning edge. I got quite a buzz out of helping them out.

Here - from an old post - Old Post with pdf file I've tried this in my BF and the info is all good and it works exactly as described, but is was just too quiet with my Palm mp3 player to be acceptable. I need the amped box from Ford.

I'm going to be there - working as well - Alemite Lubrequip - lubrication and vehicle servicing equipment.

How many kms on it Rudiger? Mine has just turned over 6,000 and I really noticed it loosen up at about 5,000. I've found gears and timing pretty critical to get the best performance from my T in street traffic. I have the ZF like you. When I get it right and I'm in the right gear when the boost comes on, some drivers behind me must wonder where the rocket booster is hidden

Those were the days. I remember a mate with a '64 Riviera that he wound up to close to terminal velocity on General Holmes Drive (under the runways at Sydney Airport). In the distance he saw a traffic light change. He tried his best to stop. He rolled through the lights at 50mph, brakes smoking The sound of a V8 rumbling under the bonnet is still special and I can't tell you the number of faces the Impala put a big smile on when it kicked down to low gear at about 45mph. But the XR6T kills it in every way except for boot space and of course, the chick factor.

Back when I owned my Impala a guy called Peter Hopwood was racing a 64 Bel Air in Appendix J - he managed to get a full tilt 400ci sb in it and it went like a train - but he still had 4 x drums. Nasty, especially on small tracks like Amaroo - 2 laps and he was racing on zero brakes! I remember pushing my Impala along the old Pacific Highway up to Gosford. The drums were diabolical - I'm sure you remember it - touching the brakes to settle the car into a corner and you had no idea which way it was going to pull. Keeping the drums properly adjusted was a necessity if you wanted to try cornering. Moi - back in the old days! I also has a Buick Riviera for a while with the legendary alloy cooling fins on the drums - it still stopped like sh@t. That car has a 401ci nailhead with bags of torque. Weighed 2,300kg. Once it was rolling, it was a unit! I never got a ride in a beast like a Cobra - from what I heard they were frightening - like you say, perfect for a 1 hour weekend blast to clear your sinuses

The closest I had to an old school "muscle car" was a 1965 Chev Impala with a 327 and powerglide. Pretty much stock, but it went pretty good, flogging most of the pollution controlled V8's of the era. One thing that shocked me was the weight of new cars - They used to call them "yank tanks", but believe it or not, the BFII XR6T weighs about 50kg MORE than my Impala did!

From not sparing the whip when brand new? Many car salesmen I've spoken to agree that demonstrators (that generally cop a bit of wellie early on) often end up performing better than babied one driver cars?

Mine says Feb 08 on the ID sticker. Makes me maybe "second last". Almost certainly the second last in silk All going well right now too - just over 5K on the odo now and it's loosening up noticeably - and the fuel economy is sitting around 15 in the city which is a massive improvement on 20+ which is where it was for the fist 2 weeks

More than a poked and stroked Morrie 1,100 under there you reckon :~)

I passed up an A30 Woodie like that one when I was about 22. It would have been a giant killer with Morris Minor running gear in it

Thanks for that! I have a friend involved in marketing Case excavators - he never saw it before.

Something weird just happened to my fuel consumption. The car is just a couple of months old and I was getting used to average city consumption of mid 16s to low 17s. Over the last couple of days it's suddenly started plummeting. Today it dropped down to 14.9 while average speed is only 31kmh Is this a Ford tuning thing that at around 4,500km they start leaning the mixture out a little ?

I got a new Dell Inspiron 1520 a few months ago. 15" screen, dual layer DVD burner, wi-fi, bluetooth, web cam, SD card reader, fire wire, yada yada yada. T7250 2Ghz duo core, 3gb ram, 250mb hard drive. At that time I was still able to order it with XP-pro. $1,800 It it pretty damn good - better than I thought a Dell would be. You might have to buy Vista now - if that's the case, go for the fastest duo core processor and the most ram you can buy. You should get change out of $2,500

I put one in wifeys '95 (or something) Laser. red wire +ve black wire -ve blue wire - ign yellow wire - stereo mute if you have it - Wifey's Laser didn't. No facility to put sound thru the stereo. I had to cable tie the Nokia speaker to the steering column.

My mistake - It does say 98. I ran on memory re the 100 octane. It must have been their mention of "racing fuel" that made me think that way. So OK, they are more or less back to real world figures.

There was a bit of honesty too. The week before they wrote that the FG XR6T did 0-100 in 5.1 sec, easy peasy. In this weekends article they said that that time was done on 100 octane - I.e. not achievable in the real world unless tweaked.

Thanks all, I've got a few PDR shops in my area - Brookvale - I'll see what they can do in the next week or two when I get an hour spare to let them have a look. Hopefully one of them has a sucker tool!

The car is only a couple of months old and this dent really sh#ts me - it's right at eye level. It has a tiny vertical crease about 10mm long. Anyone reckon there is a chance of getting it out without repainting?

Found it this arvo on the rear passengers window frame. Some oafs elbow in the carpark. Bl##dy Crøp! Bl##dy Crøp!

I have the latest Sensis R14 map in my VDO satnav. Is that what you mean? Let me know what you want to find and I'll have a look.