Damien - The resurrection

[merc85]

Was great to get a ride in it again after all this time, awesome car

[martybelfastt5]

hold on ...............two 850s?

[Saaamon]

hold on ...............two 850s?

And the other one is also very tidy.

[martybelfastt5]

somone show me!

[AndysR]

Was great to get a ride in it again after all this time, awesome car

Glad you enjoyed the spin out, awesome car? Lol

Was certainly good to catch up again

hold on ...............two 850s?

Yep sucker for punishment me.. Lol

And the other one is also very tidy.

Really..? Lol

somone show me!

It's a silver 855 T5 CD on a P plate.. No pictures needed lol

[martybelfastt5]

you know how it works andy now make with pictures lol

[stribo]

:

[AndysR]

After popular request, and forum rule infringement by not posting pictures lol, here is the T5 run about, nothing special so will be an anticlimax for you all. It replaced the poorly 940 in the summer and as my brother and I now work in the same place so it's our work hack, run about









Disgusting engine bay but being a daily driver I've never bothered with much more than a wipe over, although it gets what it needs mechanically



Since I've had it I've carried out 2 engine oil changes and Gav (Merc85) assisted with the PCV renewal as it was shot, recently I've popped a set of front tyres on it and Gav again came up top trumps and popped a set of front discs and pads on for me. I've renewed a load of dash bulbs, what a ball ache that was with the passenger airbag, as blown bulbs are a pet hate. Saying that driving one of these standard again I can see the appeal of the cars when they were new, although standard they're a little slow, so a quick actuator tweak and a Rica 304 means she's got nice turn of speed and is not too bad for modern traffic driving again. For those who spotted it the VPCUK sticker went in the rear screen the weekend I got it, luckily I had a spare

[T5frankie]

looks nice mate

[martybelfastt5]

looks well

[stribo]

Looks mint, but then I wouldn't expect anything else from one of your cars.

[The Flying Moose]

Looks a good clean motor Andy, I know it wont be perfect by your standard but it looks straight and a rare find these days!

[AndysR]

Well on Thursday night I proved it was possible for a guy to multitask... I was gutted and disappointed both at the same time.

Damien is back in the garage at home gathering dust again as he's smoking quite a bit on overrun, pushing oil out for the oil cap and smoking like a train from the dipstick, the result of this I suspect due to having lost a significant amount of compression
In as much as cylinders 1 & 2 only have 60 psi, cylinder 3 produces about 75 psi, cylinder 4 70 psi and cylinder 5 just about manages 150 psi. I've bore scoped the bores and they appear to be fine and I'm pretty confident it's a ring issue as compression doubled when I added oil to cylinders 1 & 4... Which again leads me to believe it's a ring issue.

Whilst I can't prove it I suspect that this is due to an air intake leak. At the time of my rebuild I decided to opt for one of those intake thermal insulating gaskets to restict the transfer of heat from the cylinder head to the inlet manifold. Turns out they crack and not so much that you'd notice but this then allows additional unmetered air to be drawn into the engine. I unfortunately only picked up on this due to the car idling exceptionally high one day and then by chance by hearing the slightest of hissing noises while manoevering the car after cleaning it when the engine was cold. I stopped using the car, but I suspect the leak had been present for some time prior to me noticing, and ordered a replacement gasket, these are now made from a different modified material to stop the cracking issue btw, upon removal of the inlet it was clear that the gasket had been the cause of the air leak due to the gasket being cracked almost completely and then having shifted by about 5mm allowing gaps to allow air to bypass the maf. I was pleased I'd found the leak and confident in the engine having not been affected I even had the inlet manifold powder coated black again as it had collected 1 or 2 chips. By then it was too little too late and whilst I'm not convinced an AFR gauge would have entirely safeguarded the engine it may have drawn me to the issue slightly sooner.. Still hindsights a fantastic thing and now I have a dead car, right now I feel like I should have sunk the money I spent on the car into a house but again hindsight.. In July I was very much looking forward to taking the car to the Ring in Germany, something I've been prevented from doing over the last 3 years due to costly issues that had arisen with the car, think it's trying to tell me it doesn't want to go!
Whilst I appreciate there are far greater things in life that I should worry about I do feel like I've been dealt a ££££ty hand, I'm gutted beyond belief. The car is without doubt my only vice it's also my pride and joy but I'm at the point now that I think this time really is the last time Damien will get the chance to open my wallet, I'm exhausted by how costly this car has been and I don't think I have the interest in it anymore to get it back up to where it was.

[jamesy12345]

Not good news((

[Jamest5r]

That's crap sorry to here that

[t5 pete]

Really really sorry to hear this Andy

[claymore]

Gutted for you mate , can I voice my thoughts on your air leak which in essence is a boost leak, I would have thought the car would run rich under boost as you are not in effect getting the amount of air the maf is expecting going into the cylinders, (only under vacuum), I have had the same situation with the manifold I made having a slight warp in it and giving the same symptoms of high tickover having said all that, I did adjust my afr to compensate for my air leak, so I may well be talking ££££££.

[MoleT-5R]

Shame to hear this after all your efforts, hope you can find your Damien mojo again and that the fix isn't as bad as you first thought, either in the work required or the time required to sort it.

[V70 Graham]

Sorry to hear your news mate.

[Biff]

Bad times Andy.
Hopefully you can sort it in time for the ring & go show them how it's done.