Do any of you other Si owners feel like your car is trying to take over (or has already taken over) your life,
Ive had my Si now for 4 years, and every year it seems to need more and more attention,
if your bored and have nothing better to do feel free to read through the pains of owning my SI
WARNING This is a very long winded and probably boring post........
Year 1
So i just bought my Shiney Aubergine Si 16v, £450 with 12months mot, no visable rot, killer deal.
within a few months the it needed wishbones disk pads a tyre and i felt a more sporty exhaust would go on a treat, i eventually opted for an air filter, and i figured it better have a cam belt change and a service so i carried out the work as i only pay garages for MOT's and tyre swaps,
also heated windscreen relay melted i noticed a little bit of rust underneith so out came the hammeright and sand paper
Year 2
This year the car ate through 2 sets of patern part wishbones, QH and some ebay special ones,
then it ate through 2 sets of pbbs flo flex wishbones which then become discontinued, finally i opted for a set of genine ford ones at about £160 for the pair + new hardware, also the wishone subframe mounts were rotted so i replaced with with a nice set from the breakers also fitted new disks and pads again as previous set had cracked in a bad way, i fitted some evo 40 grooved disks and green stuff pads, several months into the year these cracked and were replaced with some red dot disks non drilled just groved, this year i decided to fit kent cams a decat a super chip fse boost valve.
During year 2 the gearbox imploded after a 4 hour drive across the country to Weston supermare, with a full load inc camping gear. also one of the rear shocks seized up and the car was stuck in a squat cocked leg position, so i decided to replace rear shocks and lower it,
nearing the end of this year i decided that the 1600 was to slow i had done everything "bolt on possible" to improve performance, so i bought an rs1800 engine and gearbox and transplanted these over, in march, whilst the rs lump was out of the car i done cambelt pulllies and water pump,
also both electric window regulators broke and central locking solenoids were also replace
as well as complete replacement lock set as boot drivers door and fuel cap all gradually stopped working.
end of year 2 the ashley exhaust system i bought had gone pretty rotten so i removed it and replace with a full stainless steel magnex system.
this year i also went for rs turbo interior
car had an MOT and failed on 2 rear wheel bearings which i had changed only a few months ago as they were whirring turns out ebay bearings a junk dont ever buy them.
Year 3
This year was by far the worst year for the Si
The fiesta rot had got a grip over the car so i fitted the rs body kit to hide the nasty sills and arches, also the car was wax oiled to slow the rust process.
The rs1800 lump had been in a couple months now running amazing, the car was completly transformed finally i could challenge other cars on the road and leave them, for dirt,
one morning when i was driving to work i heard an unusual rattle from the engine, followed by a large clunk, i poodled to work as all power had gone peered into the engine bay to see bits of fluffy fibre glass round the cam cover, upon removing the cam cover the cam belt was sheared to pieces, turns out after further investigate one of the water pump bolts and jumped out and dropped to the bottom of the cam cover ripping the cam belt to pieces, after fitting a new belt the car never seemed to run right again, compressions tests confirmed there was not massive amounts of compression i suspect the valves all had a little dink so werent seating properly,
so i bought a cylinder head and swapped this over.
this year my car destroyed its second gearbox,
so i bought a couple of boxes off cookie the second and fitted a limited slip diff with new bearings etc etc theres a post for that on here somewhere,
reverse didnt work for a while i came to the SI meet and had to be pushed back into a space
(thanks guys)
later on in year 3 the car over heated as one of the water pipes on the back of the thermostat exploded whilst i was going pretty fast and i cooked the head, so i bought another cylinder head
which i gave a little port and polish, i then invested in some webber twin 40 carbs and stuck these on, unfortuantly i only used on of the throttle cable linkage parts, and left one loose, this was sucked into the engine and totally smashed it to pieces,
so i took the engine out and replaced it with a £100 escort gti engine, several months later
another water pipe burst and i cooked the head on this engine so i bought yet another head
which i massively ported and polished inlet and exhaust valve, and had skimmed 20 though in increase compression, unfortuantly when i fitted this head on i timed the cams up wrong, timing them to the first 2 notches on the crank pully instead of the second 2 after a little bit of bad performance driving there was a crazy rattle from the engine at the traffic lights follow by some banging the piston had hit a valve which bent then snapped off a piece of the valve guide which then smashed the piston in,and smashed the head in, i whipped the ported head off and replaced the damaged valves but the bores were slightly scored and the engine ran like dog, fortunately my friend had a 40k xr2i zetec engine which i obtained for a reasonable price, i swapped over the rs spec parts i.e cams inlet and dropped this in the car,
also this year the ford wishbones failed and were replaced with poweflex wishbones
also gear box mounts snapped these were then replaced with vibra technics mounts and the decat was replaced with a magnex decat to match the full exhaust system,,
later one the gearbox mount bolts snapped so i snapped the magnex downpipe, the previous decat pipe was welded back together and the snap gearbox bolts were replaced also the little strengthening gearbox mount box section was fitted to prevent this happening again,
also this year the car had ebc turbo disk and pads and another alternator plus the battery was knackered so was replaced with a redtop rally battery.
Year 4
So far this year
red top rally battery died so was replaced with a pc680
ford ecu was replace with megasquirt
window regulators from onslack i bought them last year but bodged the broken ones which worked for a while then completly failed and window dropped in the door
In the last week
the car has had another rear beam as the last replacement must have been a little bent as car didnt drive or brake right,
front brembo disks as ebc ones were cracked
the the passenger drive shaft snapped
and finally tonight the alternator belt snapped
there is loads of little things i have missed like the seat webbing in my recaros braking
the heated wind screen relay was replaced several times, the ignition relay was replaced i have gone through numerous sets of pads and shoes, all the bushes were replaced with poly bushes, number plate fell off guy in a clio crashed into my and broke rear bumper and light cluster,
but basically this car is taking over my life,
my neighbours think my job is working on my car
please someone else tell me they have had worse time with there car, and then please explain why i am so reluctant to sell or scrap the car and buy something a little newer.
If i get bored i might tidy this up, this has just been one big ramble haha
:D), let me know if you want my "alpha n" map, i've spent many miles on the road tweaking the ignition, unfortunately it still needs a rolling road or some form of retarder break to apply load in the high revs to get the most power out of it, its tricky trying to map the car at 120mph on my private air field 
as it doesnt stay at each rpm range for long enough. 
