Well put some big kilometers under it during the last week of October and headed out in the Victorian deserts (North western Victoria) and did some exploring. It performed flawlessly other than me destroying its passenger mirror which is now disconnected and cabletied. I'm now thinking about how I get some better ride out of it as I did find even on the sand it was a little rough and the front suspension is my first suspect.
Ride investigations
Now my fuel economy has been something I've been tracking mostly out of interest rather than trying to chase every last KM out of a tank (I could have bought a CRD if that was my focus). During the trip I did a change of tunes on the car with my Superchips and found that the 91 tune with me filling up with 95 or above is getting me much better economy. I did the trip between Melb and Syd (went via Barry Way along the Snowy river) and managed to average
13.49L/100KM during that drive which is a big improvement on the rest of the trip which averaged 16.9L. I'll continue to use the 95 octane or above with it for a month or two to see if this trend continues.
The other key thing I changed was I refitted my front apron(black strip of rubber/plastic) to the car which in theory might have given me ever so slightly better wind resistance.