December 2012

Another busy couple of weeks, spent travelling mostly. I've been up to Glasgow again, and flew back in to East Midlands Airport on a very windy and bumpy flight last Thursday. I never fail to be impressed with how easy the pilots seem to make landings appear, in even the most testing of conditions.

I've bought and fitted a K&N Filter Panel to the Subaru diesel. Just to see if it makes an difference to the fuel consumption more than anything. After 125 miles the car certainly feels smoother to drive, but time will tell as I rack up the milage if there is any difference to the performance. I'd like to get the ECU remapped for a little more power too. And there's a company in Loughborough who specialises in ECUTEK remapping, though they dont make any claims about tuning Diesels. I'll give them a call to see if they would be willing to have a try. One side effect of the new filter is that the car is less prone to purging the DPF when I accelerate. There has been noticeably less black smoke from the exhaust after I've been driving on cruise control, and this has got to be worth the price of the modification alone.

I had a chance to drive the Meriva on Sunday, four up, in the wet, and the suspension modifications have paid dividends. Its far happier round corners now, and the suspension being firmer gives a far better ride over the bumps than before. The only thing now is that the engine lacks oomph, being a 16V 1.6, so I'll see about getting a K&N for the car, and see if we can free up some more BHP. The bigger wheels just seems to attract more attention from other road goers, as they push you along at every opportunity. Maybe a bit of NOS wouldn't go amiss :D

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