admS15

After getting the car to Melbourne and getting a rwc and registering it, I went through the service history. There is no mention anywhere of a transmission service. It has a ZFHP8 in it. Audi says it's lifetime fill but ZF says 80-120k service intervals. My car had 150k on it, if it had never been done that's quite overdue. The shifts where still good but sometimes not as smooth as one would expect. The hunt for service items begins. Apparently only ZFLG8 fluid can be used but at $60 a litre I searched for alternatives. There is quite a few compatible ois available but most are fully synthetic whereas the ZF oil is a semi synth. Eventually I came across liqui Moly top tec atf1800 which is semi synth and a German product(probably make the lg8 for ZF anyway, maybe). Quite a few people have used it with success. I got a great deal on it from automotive superstore in Sydney, almost a 1/4 of the price of ZF fluid. Ordered 8 litres from them and a filter kit from eBay. The tranny holds around 9 litres but you can't get it all out in 1 go as lot of it stays in the torque converter. Around 4 litres comes out when you drain and remove the pan, 3.6ish in my case. All cleaned up with new filter VCDS scan cable, I've used this for years for my Q7, it's a very old version but is compatible and has been able to read and code things in the SQ5. Win. You then have to follow the refill procedure of filling it from the fill port on the side until it starts overflowing. Refit the bung and then start the car, select drive and reverse and let the wheels spin for a bit, one of the guides I was reading was saying to go through the gears, it wasn't possible on my car as the abs was cracking the sads and doing weird stuff. You also need to use a scan tool (VCDS or other) and monitor the trans temp. Once it's between 35-45° you need to get underneath again with the car running and top up until it overflows again. It's now full. In total I used 4 litres. A 2nd dump and fill now needs to be done. I've decided to drive it for a week or 2 and let the oil dilute itself properly before I do it again. Even with just 4 litres of fresh fluid it has made a big difference. The shifts feel a lot smoother and faster too. Next week I'll do the 2nd part. If the fluid that had originally come out was really bad I would have considered a 3rd fill but it looked ok to me. I did also use the VCDS to check the injector deviation which shows you how much correction the ecu needs to make to get the fueling right. As the injectors wear, the deviation becomes bigger and once it's too much the engine won't run right, hit limp mode or not run at all. Sure enough, no. 4 which was the one the euro specialist said was approaching the limits did stand out, it wasn't too bad and I decided to keep an eye on it while I try to source a replacement for non drug money. The deviations for all 6 injectors are the first 6 lines. The following 6 are calibration figures that I'm not too sure what the mean. There are 3 for each injector. I could only log 12 channels at a time, so I chose injector 1 (best performing) and injector 4 (worse) to compare.

Boost will remain standard for sure. It's more than enough. I'm too scared to even get this thing tuned, don't want to push my luck. I still might later on but leave boost as is and only increase rail pressure. The Garrett turbos interestingly are Italian made as are a lot of the other parts on the car.

Interesting factoid for you @Dose Pipe Sutututu I know you'll like this one. These things run 2.2 bar relative boost pressure stock. Yep 32psi. This part you may not like, Twins in compound arrangement. A GT30 feeds air into a GT17 used for quick spool up, various valves are used until full boost, then the 17 is bypassed and the 30 works solo. Check out the OEM heat management materials, looks the goods. I hope I never have to pull that crap out. Fingers crossed 🤞.

I mentioned earlier that the previous owner spent 10k in repairs. So in the last 12 months the car has had A new alternator, belt and pulley due to failed alternator. New coolant valve fitted in valley of engine, water pump, t/stat, new oil filter housing, all gaskets, seals, hoses for cooling system and in valley of V6 due to leak from coolant valve. This was done a month after the alternator replacement. Judging by the coolant stains on the new alternator, this is probably what took the original one out. There was a heap of labour in this. I think it was 10 hours +. New exhaust temp sensor below 2nd turbo. 3 new Bosch diesel CDI injectors. 1 initially, followed by another 2 a couple of months later. It was noted a fourth was approaching the allowable tolerance but customer chose to only replace 2. These things are like dominos. Anyway, I knew in future I would need to replace 1 injector quite soon and possibly 2 more down the track. There was also a couple of oil changes during this time. I think for most of us guys here, doing the work ourselves and using our internet parts sourcing skills, we could have done all the above for 3k or less. Even less by fixing the coolant leak before it damaged the alternator. When you rely on Euro specialists, they don't believe in using lube.

There's a bit of a story behind this particular SQ5. So after looking at a couple in Melbourne that didn't check out, I cast the net wider and found this one in Canberra. A text is sent, the reply was the car was still available but was sent to the auctions, if I was serious he could get it out. I made an offer that he was happy with. Seller sounded honest and told me of all the issues and repairs in his ownership. Over 10k in repairs over the last 12 months at euro specialist with receipts. At first I was concerned but after thinking about it, that's money I wouldn't have to spend on maintenance/repairs. So I proceeded. Auction place was closed for Christmas holidays, had to wait a week till 3/1. Then it turns out the car could not be released as bids had already been made. Owner says I can bid on Auction or wait till auction finishes. Auction has 12.5% buyers fee, no thanks. I say I'll wait till after. If it doesn't work out, then it just wasn't the car for me. Seller tells me has fairly high reserve and that he doesn't believe it will get there. In that case I can have the car for price we'd agreed on. Auction day comes and auction stops 1500 below my offer, auctioneer makes vendor bid matching my offer but there where no takers and it's passed in as didn't reach reserve. I contact seller and he says cool, arrange your flight. Next morning, I'm at the airport waiting to board and on the phone to the bank to increase transfer limits to pay. Seller's preferred method is payid. The bank tells me that large transactions like this are not instant and there is no way to instantly transfer large amounts for security reasons. I call the seller and he says he needs the money in his account for him to hand over keys, his tone sounds different to before too. I tell him that the only way is going to be cash. So, now I need to arrange for a CommBank branch in Canberra to allow me to take out that amount of $. For over 10k you need to make previous arrangements. At this point, I can't get through to the correct dept and there is 45 min wait. I almost didn't get on the plane but thought stuff it, I'm getting on and one way or the other I'm going to make this happen. While waiting to take off I used CommBank's chat function, they sent me direct contact details for a Canberra branch. Great but plane is about to take off. I replied and asked them to please reach out to the branch and arrange it for me. Lost reception straight after. To my surprise, on arrival to Canberra. I get a message that the branch in Canberra has agreed to my request and will be waiting for me. Kudos to CommBank's customer service for once. Seller meets me and picks me up from airport. We drive to the bank, I give the car a quick inspection before we go inside. Car is as described. The transaction is finally done. Seller tells me that the auction house had called him earlier that morning and said they had talked to the highest bidder and talked them into making a higher offer, this new offer was 1k higher than mine (with the 12.5% buyers fee, they would have paid around 4k more than me). I think this is why his tone had changed earlier. Anyway, he told them that he had already made a deal and the car was sold to me. So my assumption that he was honest and a man of his word was confirmed. I thanked him and drove him back to his car and went on my merry way. It was a largely uneventful drive home. Was a 38° day but the car drove beautifully and I made it back in one piece. What a mission, just to buy a car. Over the last few years I've tried to buy an sq5 a couple of times but it didn't work out as the owners have been a bit special, this one seemed the most unlikely of all but somehow happened.

The Megane was a great all round car, comfortable enough to daily, quick enough to keep me content, on rail like handling and nice enough interior. Really not too much to complain about, other than being wrong wheel drive. Ultimately, what it came down to was that no matter how good it was, it didn't compare to the grin on my face everytime I drove my R33, rwd ftw. The other thing going against it was only 2 doors, not very pick up the kids from school friendly. Kind of got a bit bored of it too, variety is the spice of life they say. So with that in mind, after 20 months of Renaulting, the decision is made to get something more family friendly. The prerequisites where, it needed to be fast, comfortable and family friendly to do the school pick up in when required. Bye Bye Megane And hellow Owdy, this is in Fyshwick, Canberra. Just filled up with Diesel at the Shell servo and about to make it's maiden voyage with me to Melbourne.

So under my ownership some light mods where made, consisting of an RS tuner fastchip flash tune, bov delete, hf filter, some DBA rotors to replace the well worn originals, Remsa or trw brake pads and penrite 10 tenths fluid. The idea behind buying the Megane is that it could be a good daily and also do track days. Obviously skyline values has skyrocketed and I thought if this could do the track work the skyline could be preserved. I did take it out to Sandown where it did quite well for what it was. I believe it was a low 1:29. Not bad at all for a largely standard car on cheap brake pads and the cheapest zestino 07 tyres, 280 treadwear ones. With more seat time, it had an easy 1:28 in it. Also did a haunted hills Sau day in it. It went quite well there too. Definitely more suited to that track than a skyline.

Yep, Faux Nissan. No mine didn't have the scoop thing but seemed ok and made it to 210k km under my ownership without issue. It is common though and some models have the scoop and others don't. The French are weirdos.

So where were we. After driving the blue mini around for a while, I got a bit bored with it all. I had made plenty of money from the whole Mini Cooper experience as a part time wrecker. Effectively the Mini was a free car and plenty of profits on top. It was decided that a Megane RS MK3 would be a nice step forward. A 2013 RS 265 CUP+ was procured from Gumtree. Was a little rough body wise but mechanically solid. The Mini was then returned to stock and promptly sold in under 24hrs, people where actually lining up for it. The Megane was now also effectively a free car and there was still some change. There's good $ to be made wrecking cars. Some of the Mini specialist wreckers where not too happy about the competition. I also got sick of dealing with Gumtree and marketplace people, so it was a good time to get out. Enter the Megane RS

Shh, you got me😉 but that's how I know BMW's are crap, lol. For a bloke who bags euros so much, particularly vag products I don't know how I've owned so many and currently own 2 Audi's. I think I'm broken..

A trip down memory lane. If we go back a few years, this was the backup family hauler. JDM yo. Was a good thing. Was then replaced with this Audi Q7, somehow I don't have a proper pic. Background will have to do. Thanks google photos. FYI the Q7 is still in the family and is much loved by everyone. So comfortable and versatile. It's like driving your couch around. At this point, the 33 was still a daily driver. One Saturday evening while having a few drinks and scrolling through Gumtree I come across a cheap Mini Cooper S. The Mrs always had a thing for them, so we bought it and she was meant to learn manual. Ermm, that never happened, gave up after 1 drive. This then became my daily. Shortly after I found a stacked Mini with a heap of go fast fruit on it, so I bought that and started swapping bits over and parting it out. The parting out turned out to be quite lucrative. A 2nd mini to be parted out was also purchased, my wife kept finding them and I kept buying them. Sorry no pics of these, I deleted them. The grey one after some swaparoos. Ended up with ATI harmonic balancer, 4 into 1 headers, 2.25 inch JCW exhaust, 16 X 7.5 genuine bbs rims with ad08r, JCW grill, larger JCW GP intercooler, smaller charger pulley running 16psi, larger injectors and a tuned ECU. I estimate around 140 fwkw, wasn't bad at all. A little while down the track the Mrs finds yet another bargain Mini. This one wasn't running but all it needed was a new harmonic balancer, common failure on these. I contacted the seller straight away but didn't hear anything till the next day. There was some difficulty in finding a suitable time to pick it up and he started talking about someone else who had contacted him. To avoid this I offered to buy it sight unseen as it looked so good in the pics. After thinking about it for a bit he accepted. I rocked up the following day with a trailer and the trusty q7 and towed it away. The car looked even better in person than it did in pics which never happens but did on this occasion. Only bad thing about it was there was a stench inside coming from the boot area. I think owners dog took a pee in there. Said Mini, a little ghey just like previous owner. It also had a 50cm radius white circle sticker on the doors with number 44 on it. Too ghey, first things removed. This Mini had 240k km on it, the grey 1 had 140k on it but the blue 1 was in much better knick and much better specced. I did the unthinkable and decide to keep it and get rid of the grey 1. So the process of swapping everything over to the blue 1 and returning the grey to stock began. Blue mini after Blue 1 also had a closer ratio gearbox so was even more zippy. At some point it needed a clutch and the old, while we're here phenomenon occured. Ended up doing clutch, sump reseal, found broken timing chain guides, replaced them only to find some Kent already replaced them but left the broken bits in the sump as that was too hard to remove (kunts), then supercharger service, water pump etc. FML, looked like this. To be continued...

Interestingly, I was cruising with the family in Mornington Peninsula, coming the other way was 2 R32 GTR's followed by an M3 and an M4. Good to see the bmers knew their place🤣

Not much been happening with this, a few trips to work and back and a couple of runs along my test to sort the wastegate arm adjustment to get back to 1.3 bar. Car will be going back to Trent for a couple of pulls on the dyno just to make sure all is as it should early to mid March. Since there's not much happening with this, may as well post about my new daily and maybe cover the daily's of the past few years. The new current daily has been mentioned in other threads but here it is for this one. Me the day I drove it back from Canberra in 38 degree heat.

Looks OEMish. Approved 👍

No need for an M3 anymore then... Did you chop the Evo?

That bloke has balls of steel the size of a planet. 1170rwhp and no holding back. https://youtu.be/a-eYQlkMXrc

This is a skyline forum, I can't talk you out of it. Just do it

I just let them come along for the ride. Drove mine yesterday for the first time in about 3 weeks yesterday. There was evidence of webs inside... Didn't get bitten thankfully.

If that's the case and you read what Greg (kinkstah) wrote. You may as well go full retard and put a gearbox worth spending $ on, slap a zf8hp in it.

That looks freaking hot.

Don't know about that bar man. Chinese parts on an otherwise unmolested Audi. I wonder what the fit would be like. Low km examples do command a decent price still.

Add Samsonas to that list brah.

Have been looking at kufatek but my wife is wrestling me for the car, lol. How's your experience been, any issues come up and how many KMs are on it?

A bit of both. Happy to have sold it quickly but sad to see it go. Was a fun car to drive, reasonably quick and surprisingly comfortable.

Bye bye, you served well for the 20 odd months I had you. Aurevoir