Lude Generation

I dropped my Lude into a local tuners to have a stainless exhaust fitted a few days ago. I'm delighted with the work they did.
It's custom built from the de-cat back. I didn't want it to drone.







Hopefully these images work!
New stainless exhaust

Lo
That looks really nice
Cheers for posting
Toadster

My new trunk spring clip turned up in the week so went to have a go at fitting it and adjusting the torsion bars to suit the larger spoiler, i wasn't expecting this to be easy and surprise surprise it was an absolute bear.

Fitted the clip which was easy it just twist locks into place, then went to adjust the bars... OMG what a pain. In the end decided that lying in the boot with the rear seat down was best, after more faffing i decided removing the speakers may help as otherwise you're fighting against them too. So finally with the speakers removed and lying in the boot with nothing but a 15mm ring spanner i managed to get both sides adjusted, winner winner chicken dinner!

Then with the boot open i wrangled the bars onto the clip, almost crushed one of my fingers between the bars... lucky escape.

So finally after all this time with everything in place, torsion bars adjusted and positioned in the clip as per the factory diagram, i shut the boot and went to pull the boot popper to see it finally work like it should, drum roll please........ pop, Huh?

Gotta admit im kinda disappointed, I was expecting the boot to fully open by itself like my BMW but all it does is pop it open an inch and prevent it acting like a guillotine once open.

Still, at least the bars dont clang against the speakers and the boot makes a nicer sound when you shut it.

Swapped the dash over to a good condition one (mine had bad scratches and some previous numpty decided to superglue things to it...) ended up having to swap the entire loom over from the old dash to the new due to the digital climate control, i was surprised at how many of the bolts holding the dash in were lose, they must have worked themselves out over time... hopefully now it will be a bit less rattily over bumps.



Total time was about 4 hours on my own but quite happy with the result and everything works.



Between that and the carbon centre console trim I found I'm pretty happy with the interior, but i would still like to get a double din in there at some point...

If anyone wants a dash loom or any connectors etc from a 2.0 5th gen let me know, although i suspect 2.2 dash loom is the same.

I did a tip run today:
4 car batteries, 1 bike battery, a bike radiator and about 100kg of ferrous mix = £72.

I was happy with that.

Lo
Great work with the dash
Cheers
Toadster

Done my first wrinkle red valve cover paint job and i have to say im very happy with the results, my OCD says its not 'perfect' as in terms of how even the wrinkle finish is i would call it 98% but i am being very nit picky

Lo
I would be VERY happy with that
Great job
Cheers
Toadster

Max wrote: ↑

Sat Jul 09, 2022 10:10 am

Done my first wrinkle red valve cover paint job and i have to say im very happy with the results, my OCD says its not 'perfect' as in terms of how even the wrinkle finish is i would call it 98% but i am being very nit picky

Looks good - using the tried and tested method of 'a bit of wood on an upside down plastic tub on the back garden patio' - exactly how I did it.

I found the wrinkle came out more consistent if I heated the valve cover up first with a heat gun, one very light coat of paint quickly followed by a very heavy coat sprayed on from all directions. Need to re do mine as all the track day heat has slowly started to brittle it and flake off. This time i'll see if i can use the mill at work to restore the machining marks on the lettering which always end up getting sanded off.