Hi, Guest
03-21-2013, 12:04 PM
Well, the car passed it's safety inspection with flying colours...guess that $22.90 headlight from Kenny-U pull was all it needed afterall (though the driver side one is starting to fog up now...bloody hell).
Crappy part is, I found out the car has been in at least 1 frontal collision, as there are segments of another car welded into the front clip (they are green, likely off an EX), but the mechanic said that it was all welded properly, and shouldn't cause me any grief. He also commented that it's too bad to see that, as from the firewall back, this car is in awesome shape for it's age, and he's not seen many that are like mine.
I did go to Princess Auto and got a 3.5mm to 3.5mm stereo cable to try my Sandisk Fuze+ into the apparently useless Xplod deck that's in the car. At least THAT works on the front aux-in, and I can play the radio or mp3's and wma's from my fuze, and I know that all of the speakers still work (it's got 6.5" woofers in the doors, and 1" tweeters by the inside of the mirror body by the A-pillars, and 6x9's in the rear deck, and factory cassette player in the console...lol!). I'm trying to find a used Sony deck to replace the one I've got with (though Sony wouldn't be my first choice) so that I don't have to change much, if any wiring in the dash. Besides changing the deck, I might change the stock 6x9's and replace the 6.5" woofers in the doors and leave the stock tweeters (they sound good actually) and run larger gauge wires to them all from the deck, unless I decide to get a 4 channel amp to drive the fronts and rears.
I have had the car out on the highway a few times to put the spurs to it, and it pulls pretty good for such a small motor (I think it's actually quicker than my ZX3 was when it was stock), and I'm impressed that it will do around 150-155km/hr in 4th, and still pulls in 5th.
I am going to switch it over to at least Castrol Syntec Edge Full-Synthetic engine oil with a new filter before this weekend, it's got a fresh air filter already, as well as new wires, plugs, and distributor cap and rotor that were done back in October. I wanna see how reliable the engine runs after taking it on a drive to Brantford next week, with both of my daughters in the back seat.
The CEL came on yesterday afternoon, and want to get the codes checked soon to make sure it's nothing bad (I read that often the CEL will come on after putting concentrated fuel system cleaner in the gas, and that dislodges gunk from the motor at high speed and gets the O2 sensors dirty, or there is a couple of vaccum control valves that will throw a code. Just hope it's not something pricey like the vtec switchover mechanism (think it's a solenoid actuated setup) that's not working right (though I think it is, because the car makes little torque below 4000rpm, and it pulls harder above 5000 and beyond).
Anyways, having fun learning about another little car and all it's quirks, and how easy you can modify them (resisting that really hard...just with a clean-ish slate for the stereo alone is hard).
L8tz
Crappy part is, I found out the car has been in at least 1 frontal collision, as there are segments of another car welded into the front clip (they are green, likely off an EX), but the mechanic said that it was all welded properly, and shouldn't cause me any grief. He also commented that it's too bad to see that, as from the firewall back, this car is in awesome shape for it's age, and he's not seen many that are like mine.
I did go to Princess Auto and got a 3.5mm to 3.5mm stereo cable to try my Sandisk Fuze+ into the apparently useless Xplod deck that's in the car. At least THAT works on the front aux-in, and I can play the radio or mp3's and wma's from my fuze, and I know that all of the speakers still work (it's got 6.5" woofers in the doors, and 1" tweeters by the inside of the mirror body by the A-pillars, and 6x9's in the rear deck, and factory cassette player in the console...lol!). I'm trying to find a used Sony deck to replace the one I've got with (though Sony wouldn't be my first choice) so that I don't have to change much, if any wiring in the dash. Besides changing the deck, I might change the stock 6x9's and replace the 6.5" woofers in the doors and leave the stock tweeters (they sound good actually) and run larger gauge wires to them all from the deck, unless I decide to get a 4 channel amp to drive the fronts and rears.
I have had the car out on the highway a few times to put the spurs to it, and it pulls pretty good for such a small motor (I think it's actually quicker than my ZX3 was when it was stock), and I'm impressed that it will do around 150-155km/hr in 4th, and still pulls in 5th.
I am going to switch it over to at least Castrol Syntec Edge Full-Synthetic engine oil with a new filter before this weekend, it's got a fresh air filter already, as well as new wires, plugs, and distributor cap and rotor that were done back in October. I wanna see how reliable the engine runs after taking it on a drive to Brantford next week, with both of my daughters in the back seat.
The CEL came on yesterday afternoon, and want to get the codes checked soon to make sure it's nothing bad (I read that often the CEL will come on after putting concentrated fuel system cleaner in the gas, and that dislodges gunk from the motor at high speed and gets the O2 sensors dirty, or there is a couple of vaccum control valves that will throw a code. Just hope it's not something pricey like the vtec switchover mechanism (think it's a solenoid actuated setup) that's not working right (though I think it is, because the car makes little torque below 4000rpm, and it pulls harder above 5000 and beyond).
Anyways, having fun learning about another little car and all it's quirks, and how easy you can modify them (resisting that really hard...just with a clean-ish slate for the stereo alone is hard).
L8tz
Bleeding Ford Blue again...