Dead Cheap Performance Enhancement

Aug 25, 2006 8 Replies

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Paul Halliday 19 years ago

Happy as I was with my car's performance (1989 C900 T8 Special), I'm in the process of replenishing various things under the bonnet as a kind of maintenance that gets a little overlooked on old cars.

I happened across a new set of Bougicord leads for just over 20 quid (available from if anyone else is interested), which is a very good price indeed. I popped the leads on this evening and we went for a drive ... WOW! WHAT A DIFFERENCE!

Where the car jumped to the split between the yellow and red zones on the APC gauge before, now and again, I could hear the wastegate smash open and the power drop a little. Now, the car leaps up to just into the red with a final surge that is like a little second boost (it's not boost creep, don't worry :) ) with a kind of internal organ re-organising surge!

It just goes to show what a car in stock form can be like when well tuned. It just feels right ... Really strong and very planted on the road. I'm a happy chappy ... Easy to please, but a happy chappy nevertheless :)

Night all ... New vacuum lines tomorrow ...

Paul

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DervMan 19 years ago

Surely, the old leads were shot? Funky leads merely retain the power output of the engine rather than improve it...

Just as it should! ;)

It's all the little bits and pieces that refresh an engine that's seen some of the world and one of the reasons why people think a 100,000 mile donk is tired. It isn't, it's nicely run in, but benefits from lots of bits being replaced.

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Paul Halliday 19 years ago

in article 44efe3b9$0$1387$ snipped-for-privacy@news.zen.co.uk, DervMan at snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote on 26/8/06 07:00:

Evidently :)

My old leads were a set of Bosch, which must have done over 30,000 miles. At least Bougicords are what SAAB put on the car from the factory and have a replacement schedule for 70,000 Km, so they'll be good for a lot longer than the Bosch leads.

Paul

1989 900 Turbo S

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DervMan 19 years ago

Gotcha. I was going to go on about OEM leads tending to be better than alternatives, but I prefer glowplugs to sparkplugs and try to avoid such sparkies wherever possible. ;)

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DervMan 19 years ago

D'oh. "Gotcha" here means, "I agree and we're on the same wavelength" rather than "hahaha you're wrong, boo boo face" or whatever. :-p

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Paul Halliday 19 years ago

in article 44f05ea6$0$2551$ snipped-for-privacy@news.zen.co.uk, DervMan at snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote on 26/8/06 15:44:

Indeed! I read it that way ... Which proves we're on the same wavelength ;) Paul

1989 900 Turbo S

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Johannes 19 years ago

Removed waxing and it had a great effect on the performance . . . . . . . . . . . of my hearing...

I take my coat.

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Nasty Bob 19 years ago

Go Johannes!! ;)

Johannes wrote:

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DervMan 19 years ago

I wax my modem to make it go faster..?

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