Car appreciation... the aesthetics, the engineering, etc

Most of that weight would be the steel vs alloy bellhousing and tail shafts

That is a serious amount of weight.

What I could and still can't get over was ford using the more sporting ratios in a production box so basically killing off a lucrative stream of income, tho making life a lot easier for lower end racing/rallying on a shoe string.

Yep. A screaming i4 to 13k is brilliant.

I've always thought the road-tuned S1000R engine would be pretty good in a conversion - relatively flat torque from 3k to 12k and as a result nice linear power delivery.

I liked my e61 (sport version) but it wasn't super comfy, for a premium car, my outback is a lot better put together and premium. I did do 1000km drives without complaint though. Will drive a lot tighter than a V70. Went like stink and cruised very happily at continental speeds.

Interesting. I'm coming from an Outback (2001 H6 3.0) so your experience is especially helpful. My main conundrum with the E61 is do you go M sport? They look nice but don't want to have a crashy ride.

Don't go msport then, it is a crashy ride, but it does handle well. But my outback handles like a boat. I do miss the e61, it was better for long drives than the outback. I should probably refresh the suspension on mine but €€

Super helpful, thanks. It'll be our only family/dog wagon so keen it's comfortable. Sounds like an E61 SE spec might be the sweet spot. Yup, our Outback is like a wallowy barge too.

My outback simply won't die no matter how rough i treat it, it's great having a beat up car. Thankfully petrol is 1.35€ a litre here so the fuel consumption is just annoying. I guess it's why you're looking for different.

Moving wood!

I think the V70 will be better all around. Try sit in both, but I find Volvo a lot more comfy.

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Why A6? When you can A8

Why do you find the ITBs annoying? I’ve seen a couple mk2 MX5s come up for sale with them fitted and they seem a much cooler alternative than a turbo conversion - most of which seem to be dogs dinners

Am interested too as every so often I play with an itb set up for Fulvia and that has different intake and exhaust lengths for two of the cylinders so is my own concoction of oe parts with my own ECU.

Yes. Definitely cool. Unquestionably cool.

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Niiiiice!

I neeeeeed this! Unobtanium sadly. 😭

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Oh yeah it's cooler, makes better noises, but they're not fit and forget.

Cold start and idle are two things that are hard to get right and need adjustments. A lot of people loophole that by setting the idle to >1k rpm but if you live in central and have to sit in stop start traffic until you get out of town then you have to deal with an engine idling at 1250rpm which starts to grate and everyone looks at you.

My aftermarket ECU is not as good as say a Link G4, so the level of adjustment on the tune isn't as good, which means the drivability isn't as good in all driving situations.

I think if you throw money at the problem then it can be a lot better, but mine is a home build. The ITB inlet manifold is home made by a friend of mine, everything has been about doing it cost effectively, but that means the end result isn't perfect.

Alpha N (TPS) based tuning isn't as good as MAP tuning and you need a specialist to get it prefect, and I am not a specialist and it would appear the people I've paid in the past to create the map for my ECU aren't either.

I’ve been wondering about this, on the M96 you have intake vacuum going to the air-oil separator, without which I think we’re going to need a vacuum pump and a vacuum reservoir.

On the ITB’s themselves we want to try to keep the cable throttle, which in turn has a bunch of knock on requirements in terms of idle control - whereas an electronic throttle can handle that without any additional gubbins.

The ECU is (going to be) a Syvecs unit so plenty of tuning ability there, but the entire throttle side is going to be analogue.

it seems like everything- my timing belt and something to do with my power steering especially -squeaks like a bastard in my old banger. Should I be concerned, it settles down after a drive but returns and has got incrementally worse

It generally suggests that something is either worn or fucked, when were the belts, pulleys and tensioners last changed?

Hi! It's a relatively new belt and should be under proper tension but not sure if that also means pulley and so on are recently serviced.... Actually I think it may be the AUX belt, perhaps explains the relation between the PAS pump and the belt, sorry!

EDIT very grateful Dammit for your response

this seemed to be the right ballpark. I think I need @lynx to help me. How bad is it if the bearings in th PAS are fucked. could it cause catastrophy. Is there anyway to cheekily get lube into the place that needs it without taking apart or replacing?

Yeah interesting, TPS is probably the worst of my experience with ITBs, that and crank sensor reliability.

For reference my setup is jenvey ITBs on a cast manifold from MTS, with a DTA S60 ECU, although the one I had is quite old hat by now and I’ll likely replace with haltech / link at some point.

I was thinking of converting it to DBW aswell and getting rid of the throttle cable nonsense

If I did that then I lose the cruise control (which is a separate ECU and motor that literally pulls the throttle cable), if that wasn’t in play I’d change to an electronic throttle.

Can’t you map cruise from Syvecs using DBW? Obviously the factory guff will all be removed

Yes, but how to make it work via the stalk that at the moment talks to the cruise ECU?

Which, thinking about it, is going to be very simple so maybe that’s straightforward.

Yeah assuming you can pull the wiring out of the stalk and re-pin it into the syvecs sounds doable