What's In ALM's Garage?

[Deano1978]

A look at how the dealer fitted the Flow Designs brackets.
The DH plinth is for the DH not the GT.

Hi All,

My dealer wasn't confident enough to fit the flow brackets to the front cause of the angled bumper, did the back plate and it looks fine.

I drove home from the dealer today with the front number plate resting on the dash on the passenger side

So it was up to me fit the front plate and while I consider myself a good DIYer I was VERY reluctant to be drilling holes in a car only a couple of hours old.

Using Adam's vid I guesstimated how far from the centreline the holes were and how far down the bumper they were so I could figure out where to drill. I then took a close look at the bumper and gave myself an uppercut!

There are two factory indentations in the front bumper as marks for the holes for the factory holders, and guess what - they align perfectly with where Adam's dealer drilled the holes for the Flow Brackets!

No stuffing around with measuring tapes and white out required, just drill where the indentations are and the alignment of the bracket will be fine.

For my install, I used the angled spacer and a flat spacer together to get the required offset from the "nose" of the bumper and can confirm that the "Option 1" screws supplied by Flow Designs with the brackets work just as well.

Have a good weekend.

Sponsored

 

[bfets]

Jacking Pads

SVE jacking pads have been fitted underneath the S650 to protect the pinch welds, if/when the car is raised on a lift, or with a jack.

These are bolt-on, billet alooominum ( < US English version of aluminium ) with a black anodised finish that is poorly packaged and will most definitely float around inside the mailing satchel and be nicely marked by the time you receive them! At least they aren't in normal view.

Easy to install, and although a tight work environment under there, the vehicle does not need to be raised at all.

This is not a sponsored video.
Purchased from yet another vendor that does not ship internationally, whilst in the US.

Will be installing mine on the weekend. Thanks again for the instructional video Adam.

 

[bfets]

@5.0ALM , Have you used jack stands on your car yet now that you have those jacking pads installed?
As you know I have the same setup now and I need to take off the wheels to ceramic coat them. Lifting the car with a jack on these new jack pads will obviously work, but how do I swap the jack stands in. They will just need to go on the standard pinchweld spots I guess. I havent tried but was just going over it in my head wondering if that will work and if there will be enough space to get the jack and the jack stand in there at the same time.

I guess thats where the jacking rails make it easier, but I didnt want to cut the under body carpet panels.

I've seen other threads on the subject and people do both on the pinch welds like this:

Obviously not using jack pads like ours in that case.

 

[5.0ALM]

@5.0ALM , Have you used jack stands on your car yet now that you have those jacking pads installed?
As you know I have the same setup now and I need to take off the wheels to ceramic coat them. Lifting the car with a jack on these new jack pads will obviously work, but how do I swap the jack stands in. They will just need to go on the standard pinchweld spots I guess. I havent tried but was just going over it in my head wondering if that will work and if there will be enough space to get the jack and the jack stand in there at the same time.



I've seen other threads on the subject and people do both on the pinch welds like this:

Obviously not using jack pads like ours in that case.

Hi Steve

Ahh.... the spare and the jack.
I was going to do a video months ago about the 20" spare, and jacking the bastard up.
That was November... never got around to it.
O/s work got in the way, then Xmas, then moved onto other things.

I did get a variety of rubber pads for the trolley jack to protect the underneath of the jacking pads.

Yep, neurotic!

I found this one to be the most promising:

The bottom of it was shaved with a Stanley knife to fit into the jack's saddle:

I then discovered with this rubber pad, the trolley jack couldn't get under the SVE jack pads:

I then removed the saddle, and the rubber pad now sits directly in the jack.
The pad is still free to move around as the angle of the jack changes with the car being lifted up:

It now slides in under the SVE pads.

Whilst it's all very nice using a trolley jack under the SVE pads in a controlled environment like the home garage, I really wanted to fit the spare using the jack that came with the spare.
ie; simulate a side-of-road situation with no jack stands.

I didn't like the idea of the supplied jack's saddle going straight up onto the pinch welds.

The side profile of the supplied jack's saddle is not symmetrical, so none of the rubber pads above were suitable... they would simply split.

I ended up using a some garden hose:

At the same time I discovered the low profile of the car meant it needed to be jacked up quite a bit for my jack stands to fit underneath.

I plan to use the rubber hose on the pinch welds with the jack stands as well.
Can't expect too many cycles of use with the hose, but I'll just cut off a bit more as required.

I wasn't entirely comfortable with jacking the car up so much, especially only having had it for a few weeks at that stage. Put it this way, I barely need to jack up my RAV4 for the strands to fit under. I was shopping around for new jack stands, but the minimum height of my existing stands were as good as any others I could find.

I really need to revisit the spare and jack.
Rehearsing a complete front wheel change was Job #1 for me in October.

Fail.

After all of that, not sure if the above answers your question?

I guess thats where the jacking rails make it easier, but I didnt want to cut the under body carpet panels.

Neither did I - that's a butcher job that would need you to lift the car to install.

 

[bfets]

Hi Steve

Ahh.... the spare and the jack.
I was going to do a video months ago about the 20" spare, and jacking the bastard up.
That was November... never got around to it.
O/s work got in the way, then Xmas, then moved onto other things.

I did get a variety of rubber pads for the trolley jack to protect the underneath of the jacking pads.

Yep, neurotic!

I found this one to be the most promising:

The bottom of it was shaved with a Stanley knife to fit into the jack's saddle:

I then discovered with this rubber pad, the trolley jack couldn't get under the SVE jack pads:

I then removed the saddle, and the rubber pad now sits directly in the jack.
The pad is still free to move around as the angle of the jack changes with the car being lifted up:

It now slides in under the SVE pads.

Whilst it's all very nice using a trolley jack under the SVE pads in a controlled environment like the home garage, I really wanted to fit the spare using the jack that came with the spare.
ie; simulate a side-of-road situation with no jack stands.

I didn't like the idea of the supplied jack's saddle going straight up onto the pinch welds.

The side profile of the supplied jack's saddle is not symmetrical, so none of the rubber pads above were suitable... they would simply split.

I ended up using a some garden hose:

At the same time I discovered the low profile of the car meant it needed to be jacked up quite a bit for my jack stands to fit underneath.

I plan to use the rubber hose on the pinch welds with the jack stands as well.
Can't expect too many cycles of use with the hose, but I'll just cut off a bit more as required.

I wasn't entirely comfortable with jacking the car up so much, especially only having had it for a few weeks at that stage. Put it this way, I barely need to jack up my RAV4 for the strands to fit under. I was shopping around for new jack stands, but the minimum height of my existing stands were as good as any others I could find.

I really need to revisit the spare and jack.
Rehearsing a complete front wheel change was Job #1 for me in October.

Fail.

After all of that, not sure if the above answers your question?



Neither did I - that's a butcher job that would need you to lift the car to install.

Yep there are so many variables. I simply need to try it and see if my stuff works. The cup on my trolley jack is bigger than the jack pads so I think I'm simply going to put a microfibre towel over the cup and then lift using the jack pad. The jack pad should go into the cup and not be able to slide out of it even though it will be able to move around a little bit.
I do have a rubber pad with a groove in it as well, so I'm thinking I'll try using that to protect the pinch weld from the jack stand. Anyway, I'll try it on the weekend and see what I find.
Apart from taking the wheels off for the ceramic coating, I also need to fit the underbody strakes which they left in the boot. If the jacking process is too hairy for my liking, I'll get them to fit them on the 3 month inspection.

Fingers crossed the height and size of my jack and jack stands work with this car.

 

[OBDH]

Dash Cam System #2 Install

It's the RAV4's turn to get the same Viofo A329 2-Channel dash cam system.

I have a new appreciation of how easy the Mustang install was now.

Because the RAV4 is a daily driver with extended periods of parking recording being required, powering it from fuse taps using the Viofo HK4 Hardwire Kit was mandatory.

This bit is not difficult, just a PITA.

As it turned out, P/OUTLET No. 1 was a battery feed.
P/OUTLET No. 2 was a switched IGN feed.

Running the rear camera cable was same same as the Mustang.
Use your fingers and the provided trim tool to poke the cable under the headliner and door rubbers, and make your way back towards the rear.

This is where the four-letter expletives start... the damn tailgate!

Getting the cable into the tailgate.
We have two choices to feed the cable up through the rubber boots and cable management.

Looking at photo time stamps, I spent the best part of an hour getting this bit done.

Seriously, there must have been 20+ small wires running through here in that loom.

Carefully nipping the rubber boot on the inside side and using coat hanger wire to feed the camera cable proved successful. Cable ties of various sizes were tried, but all got caught up inside. The stiff coat hanger wire provides visual feedback where the end is, and you can massage the rubber to help provide a straight-as-possible path for the coat hanger wire.

End result, and you can see the rear dash cam in the mirror!

Time will tell if the dash cam affects the DAB antenna's pattern (to the right) and reception.
And that's another thing, the Mustang's DAB antenna must be in the shark fin, because DAB reception is much better in the Stang.

I originally used the static sticker to mount the front camera, like I did with the Mustang, but the windscreen frits (the black dots) caused the static sticker to peel away from the glass. To work, it relies on the glass being, well, smooth as glass.

Once you have some driving done, you can then review the footage and tweak settings accordingly.

For the Mustang, compensation for the rear window being tinted meant tweaking the rear cam exposure up.

If you saw my Raceseng shift knob install video, I managed to sneak in some dash cam footage - always handy to have extra cameras if you're into that!

I can tell you the raw dash cam footage (of both front and back) is infinitely better than what you see on Youtube, especially the front 4k camera.

That video was only rendered out at 1080P 12MBs, and YT obviously compresses it even more.
Compression is obvious with the pixelation on fast changing scene detail (ie; the motorway on-ramp foliage off to the left).

Job done.

Hey mate
are you happy with the performance and size of the Viofo so far ?

 

[5.0ALM]

Hey mate
are you happy with the performance and size of the Viofo so far ?

The A329 is great.
My priority was always image quality.
If you can't make out the detail in the image, then a dash cam is absolutely pointless, and becomes a placebo.

 

[GrabThatBlue]

Nerd Alert!

This could be handy in the future, the vehicle's As-Built data.
I was expecting an export VIN wouldn't work... but it does!

Enter your VIN, and you can download an XML file (which in itself is useless with FORScan etc), but doing a screen print as a PDF, and saving that PDF becomes a handy look up reference document.

I'm curious to see what the dealer changed (most likely in the Body Control Module) to disable the irritating double-horn honk upon exiting.

Roket mentioned this in another thread.

(You dont need FORScan to do that anymore. now, you go into your vehicle settings and disable "key detection alert".)

 

[5.0ALM]

(You dont need FORScan to do that anymore. now, you go into your vehicle settings and disable "key detection alert".)

Nope!
That does not disable the double-honk upon exiting a vehicle that has just been turned off.

What it does is as per the manual:

Key Detection Alert
Displays a message in the instrument cluster if no valid key is detected, when you exit your vehicle with a key, after the last front door is closed and your keyless vehicle is in run, indicating your vehicle is still on. An audible alert sounds if you have driven the vehicle and reached a speed of 25 km/h and the above mentioned conditions are met.
You can switch the audible alert on or off.

1. From the settings menu, press Vehicle. See Center Display Overview.

1. Switch Key Detection Alert On or Off.

https://www.fordservicecontent.com/...ingEnabled=False&userMarket=AUS&buildtype=web

 

[GrabThatBlue]

Nope!
That does not disable the double-honk upon exiting a vehicle that has just been turned off.

What it does is as per the manual:



https://www.fordservicecontent.com/...ingEnabled=False&userMarket=AUS&buildtype=web

Well, in that case you can turn it off by using Forscan:
726-63-02: xxx1 xxxx xx-- to xxx0 xxxx xx--

I didn't test it myself, but this is what the spreaksheet says.

 

[5.0ALM]

Recall 24C35 Update

The Mustang went in yesterday for the 24C35 IPC recall.

The loaner vehicle this time was a Ranger Wildtrak, V6 10AT in Luxe Yellow.

During the POM service I had an Everest Trend 4 cyl bi-turbo slug last time, but the Everest is basically a Ranger with an SUV body.

My initially reaction driving this home was; this is a disappointing gutless POS too.

I was expecting a lot more from the 184kW V6, especially considering it has the same power train as an Everest Tremor... something on my wish list.

My RAV4 2.5L 4 cyl @ 132kW kills this thing.

My lack of familiarity with the drive modes, and how they are indicated on the IPC was the problem, not the vehicle.

It was in ECO mode, which explained being gutless and the hesitation in shifting both up and down. Changing that back to Normal, and all was good.


Not really a fan of the stubby shifter, and the placement of the manual shift buttons.
It's where your thumb normally parks itself, and exactly the reason why the buttons are there.

Portrait orientated center screen?
Meh.

And the the basic physical HVAC controls, one thing I miss on the Mustang.


With the Mustang back home again, time to discover what settings needed to be set, as I was expecting the 24C35 Update would reset everything back to as-built.

But strangely, no.
Just a few odds n sods, such as tyre pressure units. I use PSI, not bar.

Oddly enough the distance and fuel was still kmh and L/100.

The clock went back to 12Hr.
We're not in prep skool anymore, so back to 24 Hr it goes.

The ambient lighting was all knotted up.
It was indicating defaults, but the actual colour was my setting, being cyan.

Whereas the display colors reverted back to defaults, as you can see with the temperature, time and home button.

I also noted the custom tacho shift marker had reset back to 7,500 default. I never really used that, so it can stay off. Isn't it nice having ears and a brain.... no need for a stupid gadget.

All in all, a bit of a mixed bag.

And as a bonus, the irritating double-honk upon exiting that I had disabled when in for the POMs was still disabled.


Glad that's out of the way.

 

[DFB5.0]

My lack of familiarity with the drive modes, and how they are indicated on the IPC was the problem, not the vehicle.

It was in ECO mode, which explained being gutless and the hesitation in shifting both up and down. Changing that back to Normal, and all was good.

Not really a fan of the stubby shifter, and the placement of the manual shift buttons.
It's where your thumb normally parks itself, and exactly the reason why the buttons are there.

Not a fan of that stupid shifter either. I remember complaining about it when they launched the new model, you know change for change sake. I had a Ford employee say that apparently the "focus group" clinics showed a preference for the new shifter over the conventional setup.

How was the refinement of the V6, and did it improve when shifted out of ECO mode?

 

[5.0ALM]

Not a fan of that stupid shifter either. I remember complaining about it when they launched the new model, you know change for change sake. I had a Ford employee say that apparently the "focus group" clinics showed a preference for the new shifter over the conventional setup.

Are these the same focus groups that suggested the "all-new" Mustang should shift functionality to bigger and better screens, and be like a "fighter jet"?

I was amused when reviewing my dash cam footage, where the two young (guessing late 20's) techs were performing the POM service a few months ago.
They hated the screens, and preferred the S550 arrangement.
I guess they didn't get the memo.

How was the refinement of the V6, and did it improve when shifted out of ECO mode?

It actually had some get up and go when in "normal" drive mode, and the shifts were smoother for a more pleasing experience.

This is a relief, because the new Prado has been universally condemned as being a lemon (despite me loving the new retro look of it), which pushes an Everest Tremor to the top of the wish list.

The ECO mode of the V6 Ranger is nothing like the ECO mode I am used to in the RAV4.
Whilst you expect throttle response to be dialed back, I'd say the V6 Ranger's ECO mode is far too extreme. The jerking associated with throttle and shift points in city traffic was unpleasant.
Just first impressions... which can be lasting.

 

[DFB5.0]

Are these the same focus groups that suggested the "all-new" Mustang should shift functionality to bigger and better screens, and be like a "fighter jet"?

I was amused when reviewing my dash cam footage, where the two young (guessing late 20's) techs were performing the POM service a few months ago.
They hated the screens, and preferred the S550 arrangement.
I guess they didn't get the memo.


It actually had some get up and go when in "normal" drive mode, and the shifts were smoother for a more pleasing experience.

This is a relief, because the new Prado has been universally condemned as being a lemon (despite me loving the new retro look of it), which pushes an Everest Tremor to the top of the wish list.

The ECO mode of the V6 Ranger is nothing like the ECO mode I am used to in the RAV4.
Whilst you expect throttle response to be dialed back, I'd say the V6 Ranger's ECO mode is far too extreme. The jerking associated with throttle and shift points in city traffic was unpleasant.
Just first impressions... which can be lasting.

I initially liked what they did with the new Prado, but after seeing them on the road, it looks over styled to my eyes. And the fact they stuck with that old engine, in effect forcing you to buy the larger 300-series if you want a decent engine.

The PowerStroke V6 in the Ranger and Everest was a master stroke. And Australia is the largest market for V6, and apparently the factory that makes the engine is at full capacity trying to fill demand. The V6 is not popular in other markets due to taxes on engine size.

When my fathers PX III Wildtrak is up for renewal, I'll be insisting on the V6. The 2.0 Bi-Turbo engine is ok, but it lacks the effortlessness you'd expect from an engine with 500 Nm. Even though it was noisy, the older 3.2 seemed to do the same job easier. And that's in Ranger, the Everest is significantly heavier, which will tax that little 2.0 even more.

Sponsored