Golly, has it been nearly 5 years since I last updated this thread
Well, long story short. Ended up separating from the missus which put a huge dent on my finances. James was happy to keep Rufus stored up at JDModified while I got myself sorted out. 18 months ago I managed to find a smaller place so downsized my house and got the finances back in order so we were go to get cracking with the build. Odds and sods were sorted but various delays put things back ever more, and other decisions were made which added more time to source and sort;
* New rear calipers - HiSpec Ultralite 2's to match the Ultralite 4's on the front. These were all re-anodized in black seeing as the wheels are now yellow. Custom brackets were needed for the rears which took some time but got sorted.
* Swap out Motec M4 Pro ecu and fit a new Haltech Elite 1500 with wideband module, along with the new stripped back engine loom. Lots of fiddling with that and a few little head scratching issues but sorted in the end.
* Due to age and storage various other odds and ends broke, such as one of the door handles and one of the braided brake lines (at the MOT centre no less!)
Still, after all that, I now have him back and we're doing some running in miles before a tweak on the mapping to get things properly sorted. As he stands he's putting out 365bhp at 1.4 bar but with loads of area under the torque curve, drives much more like a standard car off boost and picks up very nicely. One or two little niggles need sorting, charge cooler connecting hoses look to be leaking a little, might be a split somewhere and there's a small of fuel from the FPR so that'll need checking over. Also, the exhaust still hits the front subframe and makes a right old din so we need to do something with that. I'm also getting some coilovers from Betsy to freshen up the handling, the old Eibach springs and KYB shocks are nearly 13 years old now! I will also be sorting a new livery, though I managed a small update for JAE last weekend, which I only had a week to prepare for - 4 1/2 years in effectively a barn takes it toll on paintwork, even with a fully fitted car cover
The drive up to JAE and back was pleasant, ran very nicely and even managed 26.5mpg which is pretty good. Made sure I varied engine revs/speed/engine load etc. and not giving it too many beans while everything is settling down. Didn't use any oil or engine coolant, just lost a bit of the charge cooler coolant thanks to the dodgy hoses. All in all I'm very chuffed to have him back and will now be able to apply some TLC to get everything back purring and shiny