mickq

I drove my first XR8 a few weeks back when I was deciding about getting a Mk2 XR6T or something different (XR8) to replace my current XR6T, The one I drove was slightly lowered and had a cold air intake kit. (Unusual..it was at a Ford dealer as their test car!) The bonet bulge is a bit annoying. But would get used to it. The sound is unreal. Even at 2000 revs when you floor it you hear this grumble coming from somewhere in front of the firewall (sounds like the core of the engine!) which builds and then becomes quite loud. Not a bad sound at all - the best part of the car. The problem is, it really felt slow compared the the XR6T. It doesnt fly like a jack rabbit which XR6T's do. I expected more from lower revs, even though I was aware 3400-4000 is more of its starting point. Flooring it at 2000 revs left me thinking...come on power....come on power....where is the power?! It felt like minutes later that it arrived! Even at higher revs (where I spend most of my time driving), it just doesnt have the startling effect the XR6T does. Its not just the turbo that causes that feeling either as I have driven other non turbo cars with the same effect. I got back a bit disappointed. Wishing I had an XR6T with some of the XR8 sounds. Aside from the sound, I couldnt think of a reason to buy the XR8 - simply put it was a huge performance and handling downgrade. There is no way around it. (Have to admit though, adding a coule of turbos would be awesome...if you coudl find where to fit them!). I was amazed when I jumped back in my T and ran through some of the same tests, and they had me and the passenger flung back in the seat anywhere from 2000 rpm to redline. It really sunk in just how good the T is in handling and acceleration. An amazing mix. The XR8 would have been great....if I hadnt driven the T for the last 2 years.... Next day I put my order in for a 6 speed XR6T Mk2 - with not a single doubt that I was doing the right thing.

Thanks, will do.

I pick up my Mk 2 manual in April. Im interested in hearing from any guys who have owned a Mk1 Manual XR6T for a while, and then owned a Mk2 XR6T manual. In particular how the feel the 6 speed is in comparison to the 5 speed (shift quality, shift speed, accuracy etc)? Also is the clutch and different? Also, any tuning house people reading care to comment on their opinion of the 6 speed for slightly modded T's? We all know the 5 speed is a bit of a handgrenade...but is the 6 speed any better/stronger and cope with mild mods without starting to fail? (By mild I mean max 300-310kw at the crank, no other mods).

I agree. It was silly to have taken him on in 4th. 3rd is good up to about 160 (in the T5 manual), and from 100kmh its THE perfect gear to be in for max acceleration. He was, after all, engaging in an acceleration test. So he should accelerate as best he can - or not take part. If he had been whipped instead of won, he would have looked like a dick as he didnt make his car give its best, and dirtied the name of XR6T's giving some Expensive Daewoo guy a story to brag about merely because the T was in the wrong gear due to the drivers error of judgement... Imagine pulling up after getting whipped "sorry mate, you only beat me because I was in 4th instead of 3rd. Ford XR6T rules.". Lame. Next time, if you are defending the blue oval, GIVE IT YOUR BEST. I hope that Phase 2 isnt making you lazy. If it is, hand it over to me...I wont suffer the same affliction! You were lucky this time....

In general its common sense. Some rules for early days: - dont let the engine overheat. Let it idle to cool down if it needs it. Especially if the turbo has been active. - Do not miss or delay the first oil change. No excuses on this one. It can be like silver glitter in some cars and will do damage quickly if left in. Also the oil tends to be a different grade from the norm, so dont expect it to act like the normal oil. - No Mobil 1 or similar fully synthetic thin oil until you have done 5000-1000km with normal oil. 0-100km: For the first 100km or so, avoid high revs and avoid loading the engine up. Id say something like keep it below 3000 revs and dont press the accelerator more than 1/2 way. Be sure that you dont load the engine. You can put massive load on the engine at 10km by simply putting it in 3rd or 4th and accelerating. The engine isnt made to put out much power at low revs so it struggles. It produces a certain noise when this is occurring. Avoid it. The reason is simple: dont stress anything out for an hour or two of operation, just in case. Ensure the engine gets to a good operating temp and that oil will be will distributed everywhere. A nice freeway cruise will do this well. Do NOT hold any certain rev range. If you are doing freeway driving like someone suggested, vary the gear you are in every couple of minutes so that the engine speed doesnt sit at one point too much early on. Use all the gears - gearboxes can do well with running them in too. (Im assuming a manual here). 100-500km: Raise the upper rev limit slowly. Say to 4500 revs. Still dont use much more than 1/2 throttle. Dont load the engine too much, although some loading is ok. Accelerate between 3000-4500 revs *slowly* the first few times. Not much throttle. After that do it using up to 1/2 throttle. 1000km: Run the revs up to redline. Initially you should increase the revs in waves, ie do a slow 3000-4000run, then a 3000-4300 run and so on. After a few spurts you will be up high. But in the upper reaches (say above 4000) dont load the engine up too much (ie dont floor it to do those runs...geeeeently!). 1500km, go for it. High revs, high loads. The tradeoff with engines is simple. As anyone with a lot of racing experience can tell you, if you run it in too hard at the start, the engine's life will not be as long. Its fact. However it will make great power until it starts to prematurely leak oil and show other bad signs. This is only suitable if you are not planning on owning the car long before you sell it off to someone else. If you run it in too much like a wuss, the car will tend to rev sluggishly and not put out a very high peak power. It will also tend to have resistance moving past the rev range (or two) that they tended to sit at. What you want is to go somewhere in between. Start off pretty meek and mild. Gradually increase load and peak revs over the first 1000kms. Do not ever load the engine up at low revs, say driving up a hill at 20kmh in 3rd or 4th. It is not good, even with a fully run in engine! Understand that except for very early on it is LOAD that causes the problems not revs. If you are careful you can rev it to near redline after only a couple of hundred km's (or sooner if you do things really carefully), but you must do so whilst barely pressing the accelerator much. The degree to which you press the accelerator to get to the high revs should be built up over 500-1000km. I wouldnt engage in "drive it like you stole it" right from the start unless you plan on keeping the car less than 2-3 years. I have the Expensive Daewoo run in route map somewhere on my PC at home from memory. Its the route they take to run in their new engines, including prototypes and also race engines (put in stock looking cars). I will try to dig it up. Its useful for those who live in Melbourne area as it covers all conditions in all gears and different revs.

Only time I have it is the occasional time when I go to start the car, and it fails to start. When I next start the car, it runs like crap. I think its do do with the sensors or ECU getting out of whack and things not quite running in sync. I find that if you give it 20 seconds and a gentle rev, things quickly settle in fine and run perfectly. You can then drive as normally. I havent tried immediately turning the car off, waiting a few secs and starting again. It could very well work as it would reset the ECU to start mode. However from my old carby-car days, if its running like crap I dont turn it off...I get paranoid it wont start again!

Jeez, Id be happy with that. I normally get around 260km per tank of Mobil 8000. All city driving. And hard. Although lately I reckon Its closer to 230. Pretty big drop off a week or two ago. Coming due for its 30k service so maybe that will improve things a little. Thankfully I dont pay any extra if I use lots of fuel! One thing I have noticed since new is the excellent highway economy if you want it to. I often see 8l/100km when driving sedately. (Which isnt exactly very often...)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}> Scotty, Ian's comments are perfectly reasonable. Im not sure what his "being cut off" remarks are about. (Nor do I care). There is nothing wrong with someone pointing out there are various alternatives. Quite simply, if Marshman follows Ian's reasonable advice and does his homework...then if APS is indeed the best for him, not only will he be making a much more informed decision, he will be getting what suits him best and what has proven to be the best. Of course Marshman could, if he so chooses, completely ignore Ian's fair advice and focus only on APS. But that's not for YOU to decide either. Ian obvisouly isnt the only one potentially being one-eyed here. Aftermarket tuning houses all have their advantages and disadvantages, and we as consumers should all be encouraging everyone to do their research to find what best suits their needs.

Scotty, Ian's comments are perfectly reasonable. Im not sure what his "being cut off" remarks are about. (Nor do I care). There is nothing wrong with someone pointing out there are various alternatives. Quite simply, if Marshman follows Ian's reasonable advice and does his homework...then if APS is indeed the best for him, not only will he be making a much more informed decision, he will be getting what suits him best and what has proven to be the best. Of course Marshman could, if he so chooses, completely ignore Ian's fair advice and focus only on APS. But that's not for YOU to decide either. Ian obvisouly isnt the only one potentially being one-eyed here.

Watch the gear box oil change trick. If they are dodgy they will use thicker oil - it tends to reduce the perception of problems by making noises disappear, yet doesnt fix the underlying problem. (People often pull this trick just prior to selling their car). Cant see why a dealer would do that though, unless Ford had told them to initially try thicker oil to see if it helps prior to a gearbox swap under warrantee. I wonder if there is some truth to what people say re 5th to 3rd swaps being a contributing factor. I thrash the crap out of my car, but I also know how to use a gearbox properly. I havent had a problem except every blue moon it crunches into 2nd or jumps out of 2nd. (I use second a hell of a lot under full accelleration). Otherwise its as quiet and reliable as day one. I certainly dont understand how people could go through multiple gearboxes in short succession. Im not aware of any trend of dodgy boxes. Bad luck or bad driving. Id love to watch them drive and see if I can point out something they are doing that's contributing. People shouldnt do 5th --> 3rd gear changes. Sure you can, but you shouldnt. You will notice even race car drivers wont generally do it either, or it they do its with perfect double-clutching. If you have to go 5th to 3rd, I recommend people go: Clutch in Move gear stick into 4th. Keep clutch in. Move gearstick into 3rd. Let clutch out. Its much better than a direct change. Ideally they should double clutch into 4th then into 3rd. You can do that just about as quick as a 5th-->3rd direct change anyway. Going direct from 5th to 3rd will often place the syncromesh under an unusually high load as the speed differential it needs to cope with is significantly higher as you are jumping a gear. The result is the syncro wearing out faster.

I doubt it very much. 3rd gear in a big engine like the 6T will kick ass as it inherently has tons of grunt. Not sure about the auto, but 3rd gear in my car doesnt let up. It will go from walking speed to 160kmh with ease. And damn quickly too. In fact the orirignal Wheels or motor mag said that the 3rd gear overtaking time for the XR6T was the fastest of ANY CAR THEY HAVE TESTED. Including the Supra and Skyline, which from memory they made a point of highlighting in the article. There is no way that an EVO would get kicked in 2nd yet miraculously do better in 3rd. Small capacity ars like that tend to drop off, not increase. 2nd gear is usually their killer gear, not 3rd. I probably have that article floating around if needed. ALthough Im sure it would have been posted at this site in the early days of the XR6T.

that's based on the ASSUMPTION that we took off in 1st gear. I didnt state that, so either you were there or are just foaming at the mouth trying to make a point that is irrelevant... Well, he said:- On the way back from the supermarket tonight, I had the chance to take on an EVO VI in second gear, in the rain. Up to about 100kmh from about 40kmh. We were both in second, after both taking off carefully from the lights. Now, assuming both cars started carefully in 1st when they left the lights, and they both changed gears before 40 kph, it's probably a fair conclusion that unless someone missed a cog the very next gear after 1st is 2nd. :smilielol: <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Easy - when I pulled up next to him at the lights I wound my window down. His car was 3ft from me and his engine about 4ft away. I was hoping he might take off fast and I would hear what it sounded like. He did a slow 1st gear to about 40kmh (with me matching him). Went into second, and 2 secs later floored it....and then I did to. Except for that first 1m he pulled ahead (fast I might ad-thought I was toasted) the grunt of the T when it came online easily kept up and eliminated his intial jump. His blowoff valve was too loud though. Sounded like rice flying everywhere.

Phase 3? Do what a mate of mine with a hi-powered rotary in a small car used to do: start in 2nd gear! Works a treat.

Rear wheel drive in the wet is fun, and can make for even better control as you have excellent throttle steering available. If you arent used to high-po cars in the rain, that's not the same as it being so dangerous it shouldnt be done. Just means you need more practice or else need to sit at home when the rain starts. Everyone knows the STi is a great car. But its also nowhere near as driveable as the XR6T. Not to mention if we put as much boost through an XR6T as your STi has stock standard, YOU would be the one left behind.... Turning up a turbo is easy....

Manual, standard. But runs very well. FYI it was an EVO6 not a 7. Finger slipped. Straight line in the rain is not much different than in the dry. Little more care to put the power down but that's all. Around corners is a different matter - much more care. I practice driving hard in the wet - I go out of my way to do it. that's why I dont crash into people when its wet - as Im in wet mode. F1 drivers drive >300kmh in the wet and do it just fine. No reason road drivers cant do the same...at slightly lower speeds. Rain isnt something to be afraid of. Its simply something you need to adjust to and be aware of what the cars new traction limits are. How do you do that? Practice finding those limits on empty roads so you know where they are. BRAVO BRAVO. Vik king of the poets. :lol: Mickq - is your T an auto or manual? modded or stock? Either way that's a pretty good effort, except of course the in the rain part, but hey. Dazza. <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Agree. I have never had trouble keeping up with an Auto going flat chat from the start line. I believe that a good launch in a manual (Im the first to admit there is a fine line between a great launch and wheelspin!) will kick an auto any day - except maybe if they are keeping their foot hard on the brake, running up the revs and then laucnhing - not a common thing to see on the road. On the track or typical twisty roads, manual wins hands down. The flecibility and prdictability means you can do things that you simply can not do in an auto - even using sports shift. Look at a car like an M3 with an excellent semi auto gearbox way in advance of any aussie ones - despite this they still sell lots of proper manuals.

There are heaps of them. Search on google for words like open anonymous proxies Some sites have lists of hundreds that are open and available to use. Be aware that some proxies pass on your info in certain fields to websites whilst others do not. The same sites often have test pages where you can test if the proxy is anonymous: the page will display everything that the webserver could get from your PC, so if you see your real IP address or similar there, you know you arent surfing anonymously.

I have found it to be fantastic. Havent found anything on it I would consider a bug. Very polished. I played Halo 2 last weekend: its as advanced as a PC game was 5 years ago. Quake 1 or maybe Quake2 level. Pretty average. I have been playing HalfLife2 at 1920x1440 resolution with 4x AA turned on and still get over 70 frames per second. Much more efficient code than Doom3. It looks AMAZING. P4 3.6GHz 1 gig Kingston HyperX RAM GeForce 6800GT

What....accelerating to 100kmh in the wet is dangerous? I didnt know. Hell, no-one knew. Quick, shut all the freeways! I dont have issues in the rain because I am well used to driving at speed in the wet. You want fun, try riding my 170kg 180hp bike on a wet road, with only two contact patches the size of a postage stamp! 4 nice big car tyres....that's luxury even in a highly modded XR6T.

On the way back from the supermarket tonight, I had the chance to take on an EVO VI in second gear, in the rain. Up to about 100kmh from about 40kmh. We were both in second, after both taking off carefully from the lights. He was right next to my drivers window, and when I heard him floor it in 2nd, I was also in 2nd so floored it too. Keep in mind, there was heavy rain, so he definitely should have had a big advantage from the traction point of view as I need to be a bit careful flooring it in 2nd as it can break loose easily. He quickly moved ahead by about a metre - his turbo seemed to respond faster, but by then my turbo had spooled up and he didnt pull ahead one bit, in fact his lead was very slowly disappearing. It surprised me. In fact if I had been ready for it and we floored it at the same time, I wouldnt be surprised if I started to pull ahead. Their 2nd gear isnt that flash - not what I expected it to be. I am sure 1st gear with a good launch does a great job of putting the power down and would kill a standard T, but the load of grunt from the XR6T easily makes up for it in 2nd gear. Not what I expected!

Thanks for all the great help guys. One thing I dont understand: why on earth doesnt the Ford site seem to let you click and view each option, so you can see what they look like?! There seems to be a hodge podge of photos here and there - same with their Mk1 brochures. I would have thought it common sense: You can buy the Sports Leather seats : here is a photo of the sports leather seats.... A question for you: is the photo attached below a photo of the premium interior command/premium stereo/climate control/analogue clock I can expect? And what on earth is "High Series Instrument Panel"?! At the moment I have: XR6T Manual 5 speed Side impact airbags Premium brakes (including alloy spare wheel) Premium stereo For the next car - being ordered in next couple of days, I am looking at one of the following: 1) XR6T Manual 6 speed Side impact airbags Premium brakes (including alloy spare wheel) Premium stereo (if dont get Luxury Pack) Alloy spare wheel Either limited edition luxury pack, or Leather seats Sports steering wheel or 2) XR8 Manual 6 speed Side impact airbags 18" wheels (standard) Premium brakes (including alloy spare wheel) Premium stereo (if dont get Luxury Pack) Either limited edition luxury pack, or Leather seats Sports steering wheel

Hey all, My current T has standard seats and premium stereo. In looking at the car Im about to order, one option is the "Limited Edition Luxury Pack". it contains: High Series Instrument Panel XR Finishes and blue illumination Premium Interior command Premium Audio Climate Control Outside Temp Analogue clock XR Sports Leather seats Anyone have any comments on what these things are like? Aside from the Premium stereo I havent seen any of it. Also, what are the XR Sports Leather seats like in real life? Do they suck, or are they lots better than the standard ones? And another question: Leather seats: are they any good compared to standard seats? And how do they compare to the Sports Leather seats? Ive read past posts on the leather seats, but interested to get answers to my specific questions above. Also some idea of things like what the hell is Premmium Interior Command, XR finishes and blue illumination, and High Series Instrument Panel? And last question: Sports Steering wheel...any details on it/photo of it, and is it any good compared to the standard one? I have no idea! Any help appreciated. (Still havent decided on trying something different and getting an XR8 or a second XR6 Turbo quite yet).

That is exactly my thought. I know the T backwards now, and the car I get I will keep for another 2 years - and more of the same would be great BUT....more of the same. The 8 would be new sounds, new handling, close to same performance. Not as good low down torque I imagine, but I drive high in the rev range so that doesnt bother me too much really. Im leaning towards the 8 I must say. Have until Monday next week to decide. Im pretty annoyed that I cant find an XR8 to test drive.....Ford should do better when they release a new model, and know lots of people will want to test before they drive. Nothing wrong with big dealers keeping a couple of demo cars for the first month. A bit lame.

Hey all, I have been driving my manual XR6T for nearly 2 years now, and know it backwards, having made it do just about everything you can make it do. And some things you cant. Its time to send it back where it came from and get a replacement. (Hotting it up isnt a cost effective option due to the deal my company gives me). The replacement must be manual. I am considering either the Mk2 XR6T or the Mk2 XR8. Comments? I know strictly speaking the XR6T is faster (not by much though, when you cut the crap) and better handling (the Mk2 XR8 makes some improvements in that area which is good, but still not as good as the XR6T. And it still weighs more). Id be interested to hear what anyone has to say about the XR8, particularly those who know the XR6T's well and have spent a bit of time driving the XR8 as well. I have to say the pure noise the XR8 makes is appealing. Could do without the bonnet bulge though. But Im half tempted to get it as it would be something different and more to learn. (And conquer...). Soo....its a choice between more of the same for another 2 years (except for the 6 speed box) vs similar but with quite a different engine, a great sound, and not quite as good handling. Test driving is proving hard. None of the 4 dealers I have been to have any XR8's (Mk1 or 2) available in manual to drive as of yet. Love any feedback on XR8 experiences people might have - in comparison with the XR6T. Things like where the engine starts making good torque would be handy, and also what it revs to before it drops off or cuts out. (Im waaaay spoilt with the XR6T making unreal torque at just 2000 revs!)