Strangely

I changed up from 4th to 5th, fluffed the change, and whilst in neutral I stomped the throttle in the same way I would have done if I hadn't been an 🙆🏻 ☹️. So I've no idea what it revved to...

[Also posted to the Sevens list.] I buzzed my engine after fluffing a gear change from 4th to 5th. I think the revs went somewhere over 8,000 rpm (the engine's not normally revved over about 7200 - standard bottom end with 633(?) cams, Lotus Sport 135 head with Jenvey DTH TBs). Now it's making a nasty tappy valvey noise, here: www.strangely.org/tmp/engine.mp3 (The recording makes it sound worse because the noise-canceling microphone that I used did a good job of filtering out the rest of the engine noise.) There are more crackles and pops than normal when I drive it, and I think it's down on power (but no slower because I rarely get chance to use all of the power on my commute, so perhaps I'm going just as quickly by using more throttle?). Bent valve? And recommendations for people who know their K stuff near Reading, and are likely to be able to take a look and hopefully fix it on Wednesday or Thursday? Otherwise I'll start phoning the usual suspects, starting of course with DVA but he's bound to be booked up, and it's a long way to drive a poorly engine. I'd be happy enough if somebody could (truthfully) tell me "yes, there's a problem but you won't damage the engine any more by driving it, so go off to Scotland and fix it when you get back". I'm currently a bit depressed. I'm really looking forward to Haggis, but so is my brother who's coming as my passenger, and I really don't want to let him down. :-( I'm going into the garage to fix some niggley little problems just in case the tour's still on for me... Jason.

Phil said: Well, I did say . Edited by - Strangely on 17 May 2005 14:02:01

Ah, I remember. I spotted you a bit late and wasn't sure whether you were gesturing at me, or just throwing away a cigarette... I don't think I'd been doing anything naughty that you would have seen .

Free: make use of the measured mile markers on many motorways. Time how long it takes you to travel that distance at an indicated 70 mph; calculate from there how quickly you were actually traveling.

There's a good comparison of 28 helmets in Ride magazine this month. They focus on safety, and tested the helmets themselves. They include a "bash it with a spike and see if your head gets skewered" test which is not part of the current EU standard, but apparently was part of the BS standard. A worryingly large number of perfectly legal helmets fail the test 😳. It made me change my mind about my then imminent purchase...

I found that a simpler way of stopping my leg from being impaled by dangling keys was to simply remove the ignition key from my keyring. Admittedly, it's not cool though .

With my Tillet driver's seat, the tunnel cover wouldn't budge until after we'd removed the seat 🙆🏻.

Sorry, I just realised that you said you wanted a Compact Flash GPS. Me bad. This was my useless original posting: Hmm, maybe I can help... A friend of mine has a Dell Pocket PC with Tom Tom and their own GPS mouse, as shown here. I don't know whether they sell it separately though. Edited by - Strangely on 26 Apr 2005 10:35:37

I can't help, I'm afraid Jim, but I was thinking of buying a GPS mouse off eBay 😳. Would you mind saying why you think it was a waste of money, and ideally mention which one you bought?

Sorry Jack, but I know nothing about the Autocom, other than glancing over the info in that first link that I posted. I haven't had to use it yet, but the Starcom allows for driver and passenger to have different volume levels, but only with very coarse adjustment (it's designed in case one of them wears earplugs but the other doesn't).

Belatedly, I did the obvious thing, and asked Tecstar (makers of the Starcom) for the pinouts. They sent a diagram by return! Top service . I have suggested to them that it would be really useful if that information was on their website...

Charlie, if you get no joy with a local (to you) rolling road, then try posting to the Sevens list. I know there are some Scottish engine hackers on there, who should be able to recommend somewhere.

I'm trying to find details of the pinouts for the Starcom intercom, and whilst searching I stumbled across this, which I thought might be useful to you guys who use Autocom: http://www.largiader.com/electric/autocom.html If anyone know the details for the Starcom connectors then please do share.

My engine is a 1.8K with Lotus Sport 135 head, 644 cams (I think), Jenvey DTH TBs, Bernard Scouse airbox, Powerspeed 4:2:1 exhaust. I'll try to check my actual idle advance later today (in the office now ☹️).

Myles, at load site 0, my ignition advance goes: 0: 5 500: 10 (high to kick the revs up if they drop below 1000) 1000: 2 (this is where it wants to sit) 1500: 0 (low to make the revs drop if the idle is too fast) 2000: 10 2500: 10 3000: 5 My coolant enrichment for ignition is: -10: 10 0: 7 10: 8 20: 5 30: 3 40: 2 50-100: 0 110: -2 120: -5 Air temp correction: -10: 3 0: 2 10: 1 20-40: 0 50: -1 60: -4 70: -7 80-120: -10

I turned on idle control with advance (after tweeking everything with it turned off), based upon this reasoning. If the idle is stable where I want it, or is even running a little fast, then the ECU won't do anything extra. However, if the revs start to drop, then I'd rather the ECU kick in with a little extra advance than have the engine stall.

Myles, I think my engine got easier to turn over when I reduced the advance at 500 rpm / load site 0 from 20 to 10 deg. With all of the temperature compensations added in, it was using some HUGE amount of advance. If you'd like to see my map then let me know. It's been starting fine in all of the cold weather, and on the odd warm day we've had recently. I'll have to wait to find out if it needs further tweeking for the scorchers .

Hi Charlie, I can only echo what others have said about adjusting the TBs to give enough air at idle. I struggled with having to feather the throttle when starting the engine for about a year, and tried all sorts of mucking about with the map. Eventually I admitted defeat, and tweeked the throttle stop so that it is now slightly more open. I did this scientifically by running the Emerald software in live mode and watching the throttle pot reading as I feathered the throttle to keep the engine running. Then I stopped the engine, and with the live view still active (requires the ignition to be on) I adjusted the throttle stop to give that opening (the retrained the Emerald). It was only about 5 more than before, but it made the world of difference. Now I don't need to touch the throttle at all to start the car, and it's only slightly over 1000 rpm idle even when warm. I also noticed that the advance was far too high at idle, which was making the revs try to race higher. I ended up with 10 at 500 rpm, 2 at 1000, 0 at 1500, 10 at 2000 (all at load site 0), with startup advance of 5 deg. Let me know if you'd like me to send you my map. It almost certainly won't be right for your engine, but you can compare to see which areas differ markedly. Good luck. Having a turn-key engine is such a luxury .

Possibly relevant: I have no ARB on the rear - removed it at the same time as the dampers were fitted. The car feels much more planted now, but that's probably the sum total of all of the changes, since the old dampers were completely shot before I changed them (I only realised how much so afterwards ).

I can't help with sprint settings, Rob, but I normally run 5 front / 3 rear on the road (with my Freestyle front adjustable ARB set to fully stiff). My method of coming to this conclusion is documented here: http://www.strangely.org/diary/200208/Freestylehandingkit-fitte.html

Nige, I ordered a 9522 @ £249 + £10 P&P + VAT. It doesn't look quite like that picture. The motor and solenoid are more like the picture above it, but the bit that mates with the flywheel is similar to the picture. I've got a few photos of the Brise starter next to a Magneton which I will be including in my web write-up when I get time. If you'd like to see them sooner then BlatMail me your favourite email address and I'll send them over.

I did notice that the box proudly proclaimed that the starter is guaranteed for a year. I intend to keep it somewhere safe and hope that I don't need it.

I actually did do the chamferring thing. Give me a gold star! Phil, I don't think I'd class the current hacksaw blade as "new" . That's a good idea, BOSS. One good thing to come out of this is that I got talking to one of the other Dads whose child is in the same class as my son. He's building a Capri to take post-historic racing and offered the use of his well-equipped garage and trailer .

I was quite determined .