Hey B Bear, sorry for the late reply mate.

The parcel shelf carpet basically rests over the bare metal, the only part that is glued down is the small section that folds down behind the back of the seats.. There's 2 little christmas tree type clips that you need to pop out, and the child seat anchor point on the passenger side (held in by an allen key screw). Obviously the rear speakers will need to come out as well. Removing the rear headrests (if you have them) definitely helps too.

It's a bit tricky, but you just have to work the carpet out of position. From memory I tried pulling it straight out but lightly bending the carpet from the middle to get a bit more room either side. I left the c-pillar interior trim pieces in place and just worked the carpet out from under it, then once out of position just let it rest over the back seats since the centre seat belt passes through the cutout in the carpet.

Comes out easily enough, trying to put it back in place was a bit of a mission for me though. Trying to position it and getting the sides back under the c-pillar trims was a bloody nuisance! That may be because I had a layer of Dynamat down as well as some thick rubber insulation sheeting that went over the top before the carpet went back on.

Hope that helps

No worries at all mate, no rush as of yet. Thanks for all the great info, definitely helps to get some tips from someone who has done it before.
Just did the boot today as I've never worked with the stuff and it was a good place to test it out without seeing it under the boot lid carpet. Started to get the hang of it after one sheet. It certainly does the trick with insulation and rattle reduction.
If this Melbourne weather holds up I'll try and give the parcel shelf a go over the weekend.
Thanks again for the info

May as well update while I'm logged on

Port job on the head has been finished (well 98% of it anyways)..

After polishing up the chambers, I took a good look at the ports and saw what needed to be done. Got it all sorted out over a couple hours each night after work for the last 2 weeks or so.

Intake side
The entry has been opened up a few mm and the taper has been extended further into the port; not by a whole lot, but enough to make it a longer, smoother consistent taper from the port opening into the mid-port. Bowls were ground back smooth along and the transition from the bowl to valve seat has been blended to remove the massive step it had. No joke, there was almost a 3mm difference in diameter between the upper bowl to the machined part of the port throat. It's all blended nicely now, smooth transitions all the way through the port. Slightly widened the side walls of the port around the valve guide, but again not by much as there is still a fair bit of area in the port. The diameter of the valve seat ID has been measured at 41.8mm which is about 89% of the intake valve diameter so I left it as is, and opened/blended the port throat out to match. Entire port from opening to valve seat has been left as a satin, ground finish.

A few pic's in stock form..





Exhaust side
Very similar to the work done on the intake side. Main thing I wanted to do was open up the area just under the valve seat as it seemed very small to me. The Tickford heads have a flattened short side radius as standard (opposed to the std heads which are just round). All I did hear was round the short turn back into the port, and flatten the turn out a little on the sides try straighten it out into the port - anyone who has had a look at the exhaust ports on these heads will see the noticeable kink in the port. I have ground away a little material from the side closest to the valve guide to try get a little more area around the guide, and have just ground the other side of the guide smooth. Mid port has basically remained the same in terms of size, and the rest of the port runner has just been smoothed out. The valve seat ID on the exhaust side measured in at 32.5mm and the port throat directly below was about 33.2mm. The surface finish from seat to port exit has been smoothed out and polished to prevent carbon build up.

A few pic's in stock form..



Didn't get many good pic's of the ports close up as the camera was being an absolute b**ch with the flash and when trying to take photo's without flash they turned out almost pitch black lol..

These are the only decent-ish pic's I've got of the end result. Will try get some more of the ports once I get the head back.




I have talked to the cylinder head machinist about opening the valve seat ID up, which he has already done safely to 34.10mm (87.4% of the 39mm ex valve diameter) so when I get the head back tomorrow, all I have to do is smooth out the transition from seat to port throat and then blend it all into the bowl and short side radius so it flows nicely.

So yeah, currently the head is with the cylinder head machinist getting a decent once over. Intake and exhaust seats recut (3 angle), exhaust valve seat/throat ID's opened up, new intake and exhaust valves with a 30degree backcut, 25thou shave, valves lapped in and vacuum tested. Went in today to have a quick look and it's coming along very nicely, should be ready to pick up tomorrow fingers crossed. All that'll be needed then is to do the blend work on the exhaust side, give it a good clean and then assemble

Ordered a few more goodies for the Fairmont which will hopefully be here just in time for the holidays. 2 more days of work, then 3 weeks of relaxing and tinkering with the Fairmont

Custom tuned J3 chip has been ordered from Jason @ TiPerformance . Basically it'll primarily be my base tune with a few tweaks to get the Fairmont running once the cam goes in. Plan is to see how the tune goes, get it onto a dyno in the new year and then send the chip back over to Jason for some fine tuning adjustments.

Have also finally ordered my brakes for the front. Znoelli S6 slotted rotors and Znoelli SP500 sport pads, should be 11ty times better than my brake setup right now.

Ahhhh, after all this spending I'm now f**k broke!!!

Picked up the head today from Dan @ East City Reconditioner's. Massive thanks to Dan for doing a top notch job with the machine work for me, the poor guy was flat out and flooded with jobs, but still managed to get my head done just in time before closing up for the year




Got it home, pulled the valves out and blended the exhaust seat to bowl transition after having the exhaust side 'throated' out. Did a little more work cutting back some material around the short turn while I was at it.




Also got a few better shots of the ports:

Intake:





Exhaust:



Also got my new front brakes today! So much win when you get something better than you expected and receive it the day after paying for it


I ordered a pair of Znoelli S6 rotors which are just slotted. Opened the box today and they've sent me out rotors from the more expensive DDS range which are curve slotted and dimpled. I ain't complaining though lol, they stuffed up the way they worded their listing so it's all good I say, haha. Came with SP500 performance road pads as ordered. Should make a noticeable difference to brake performance compared to the current setup.

Those rotors look sweet.

I like em!

Cheers
BenJ

Hey BenJ, yeah they do look quite cool. Hopefully they'll be fitted in a few days time, just need to go pick up the brake caliper kits and new wheel bearings so the front is all freshened up

Another score today, the final piece to the puzzle



Massive thanks to Jason @ T.I, can't wait to plug it in once the new cam etc are all bolted in place

Those rotors look awesome, very jelly. How much for a pair if you don't mind me asking? Might have to add them to my shopping list.

Did Jason pre-tune your chip or are you going to have a crack at it?

Hey Mason, I got the Znoelli DDS rotors + their SP500 pads for $440 delivered (front pair only) but that was a special deal, of which they stuffed up on (to my advantage though) since I ordered their S6 rotors, lol.

From memory, the rotors alone direct though Znoelli is $396 front pair, rears were something like $305 and pads are $117 front, $88 rear - although that's their pricing around Christmas time when they usually have 20% off, or so they say on Trade Me.

http://www.znoelli.com/shop/pc/home.asp

Regarding the chip, yeah Jason has pre-programmed a tune for me. A combo of being too poor to afford the wideband and data-logging kit and being an epic noob when it comes to ecu tuning has led me to let Jason handle all the tuning for me. Once I get my head around everything that is 'tuning' and have let the bank acc recover a bit, I'll maybe have a crack at it as there's a few places with long, empty stretches of road/workshop's with dyno's locally which will come in handy.

It's only my base tune to get it running as I'm thinking the new cam will be a little too aggressive for the stock ecu to manage. AFAIK, Jason has made a few ignition and fuel map adjustments, as well as tweaks with the dashpot setting to eliminate rev hang and LHM has been disabled so I don't run into any problems when a hi-stall is fitted etc.

Fitted the Momo wheel up this morning, looks and feels so much better!!



Plan is to start doing the head and cam swap and then the front suspension and brake swap after Christmas, hopefully have it all back together and running well before New Years day so I can out and have some fun with it before I have to go back to work on the 16th

those rotor's look mean, was eyeing the complete setup till my timing chain snapped.
but found/bought a el tickford with 98,000k's on it.

That steering wheel looks nice as, hard to find? (i relise you got it recoed)

Merry christmas!

That wheel looks sweet, so much better than the Blue.

Merry Christmas mate!

Hey Troy,

Jeez mate, timing chain snapped? Ouch! How much damage did it do? I like the sound of an EL Tickford with so little k's though, how the hell did you find one?

These steering wheels are pretty rare over here. I've seen a couple on Trade Me over the years, was a woodgrain one out of an AU Ghia but I didn't have the money for it at the time. There's a few on ebay last time I looked, about $400 for a good condition 2nd hand Momo wheel seems to be the typical price over in Aussie. This one I bought has cost me $220 in total for the wheel and the repair work, so it wasn't too bad at all.

Merry Christmas to ya mate!!


Cheers Slo, these wheel's are so awesome to drive with!! Lol, it felt weird turning out of the car port earlier though, having the Momo wheel with the huge chunky grips after using a normal XR steering wheel for so long is a major difference in feel. Would be mint for spirited driving

Merry Christmas to ya too mate

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To all that are reading, Merry Christmas!! Hope ya's all have an awesome one

Like the brake rotors and the steering wheel looks the go too.

If it isn't a rude question, what did the rotors cost?

Haha, they sure do, I'm pretty wrapped with them

The rotors set me back $440 for the front pair with pads. That was a special X-mas deal though, I think they usually list the rotors only for $396 for a front pair

timing chain didn't do much damage, was just driving slowly in a parking lot when it happened.
But was an excuse to put a low k tickford in hehe...how was xmas?