Priorities change, revhead-ism passes, and so it is time to sell WitEnvy. The new owner, whoever you may be will be getting an awesome car with a heap of grunt and fun to be had. I have spent a lot of coin on her and will be taking a big hit in the hip pocket, but my loss is your gain.

Here is what has taken her place… A 2005 Toyota Hilux 4×4. Slow, rattly and a boring automatic. What have I done!?!

Drop me an email at iwant @ witenvy.com if you’d like further info/pics about the sale. Also for sale is my 1987 Range Rover V8, but not sure if I want to let that go… If I could afford it and had the space I’d keep them all!

I must say, the ute has been neglected in recent times. In fact she has even lost her bling.
Why!?! The springs have sagged more in the front and even with the spring spacers the tyres are hitting in the guards on corners. Therefore, the bling has moved to the wife’s car and the original stockies are back on the ute. It’s quiet (less road noise), doesn’t scrub and smoother. Other than the look, it’s all quite enjoyable.

Mods wise, that’s it…for now.
Let’s check the ‘to do’ list and how my plans have changed.

Re-tune for better Fuel Economy – I can’t justify the expense of the re-tune at this moment in time, as the ute isn’t doing that many km’s each week anymore, not that it was doing many before.
Leather Interior – Another low priority. Something that would be great in the future.
Spray in Tray Liner – Quite possibly the highest priority on my list now. The tray is used often on my ute and is getting quite damaged. A spray in liner would help add protection and look good.
Big Brakes – I don’t drive my car very hard, so brakes would be more for ‘looks’ rather than practicality. Sad really.
Supercharger (Way down the list) – Off the list… More wank factor that I don’t need, as cool as it would be.

I had now sold the Silvia, so I had the funds to make my ute a bit more potent. The next major round of mods were for Ultra Tune Kalgoorlie to fit a set of Pacemaker Tri-Y extractors, metal catalytic converters, 3.9:1 differential centre, OTR Air Induction, and a lumpier camshaft (224/228 in this case).

So from the start of the combustion process, first was the removal of the restrictive airbox and its accessories and in its place an OTR Air Induction complete with reusable K&N air filter. The below pics show the difference in air flow between the OTR and the standard airbox.

Next in line is the Comp Cams 224/228 Camshaft, chosen because of its popularity and because of the power range I required. Other cars around town, generally have larger cams than mine. I probably should have gone with an even smaller cam, but this one is pretty good.

As we continue along the combustion cycle we get to the exhaust. The ute was already fitted with a Manta twin 2.5″ cat back (last half of the exhaust), so I chose not to change this unless it was too loud. To hopefully maximise the low down power, tri-y extractors were chosen over 4-1 style (Im not sure this is so true anymore, as the dyno graphs I have since seen with 4-1s seem to show just as much bottom end). To further free up restrictions, high flow catalytic converters were also fitted. People commonly remove their cats altogether and replace them with straight through pipe, this however is illegal and in this environmental day and age not recommended. A tad ironic that a V8 driver mentions the environment…

So with the intake and exhaust taken care of, the next item on the list was the differential. The standard ratio is 3.46:1 which is okay, but with the 6 speed sixth gear was really too low for our max. highway speed of 110kph, and I wanted more acceleration. A ratio of 3.9:1 was chosen because it has a balance between acceleration and top end cruising. 4.11:1 gears are available and are used on many drag Commodores and could possibly be perfect for a car that doesn’t really leave the confines of the city where 100kph is generally the top freeway speed.

So to tie that all together, the computer was re-tuned in a MAFless configuration. The resulting power can be seen below. I had Ultra Tune make the tune lumpy at idle for that look-at-me wank factor. The car physically rocks at the lights now which is always good for a few chuckles.

The overall feel of the car now is awesome! The only let down from the whole experience is the poor fuel consumption which is now around 21 litres per hundred kilometres. My average speed around town though is less than 40kph, with the max speed reached being 70kph, so I am thinking that could have a great effect on the usage compared to other cars on the forums I read. Highway runs get consumption figures in the high 10s and low 11s, so someone doing a bit of freeway driving would get better consumption than I do around my small town.