Rattie

But noe flange ☹️ Until Now!

At Bedford Autodrome on saturday, towards the end of the day, Alex was driving when suddenly the engine died and wouldn't restart. We had to get towed back to the pits, then back to the trailer. So glad we didn't drive to the track. Symptoms: Fuel pump primes Starter will run, even without the immobiliser dongle ( Sterling Excel ) ECU checks out OK over USB-CAN interface Must be ignition Work down the fuses, a 15A is gone - must be ignition Replace fuse, blows on start Pop the engine cover off, inspect loom At this point I found a short to ground where one ignition signal wire has rubbed through insulation on an unused threaded post. So I reinsulated the wire with self adhesive heatshrink sleeve and wrapped the bundle with protective loom tape. Then I secured the bundle with a P-clip to the offending post. So the engine starts again but only on 3 cylinders. Seems number 2 coil-on-plug unit has ceased to be. The others are 0.8 Ohm, no.2 is 0.4Ohm - I'm thinking coil meltdown. Ordered a new one from CC this morning, should get it tomorrow. CC are cheaper then local Ford and even eBay on the CoP unit, so good for them. For ref, the CoP is a 4M5G-12A366-BC Fingers crossed this is the only problem, though I'm pretty confident. I thought it might pay to write this up and caution anyone with a similar vintage duratec to have a quick look under the engine cover and check there's no chafe damage. If the engine had stopped while I was cornering, it could have been a proper off. Luckily Alex currently leave quite a safety margin between her and the ragged edge. Me, not so much 😬

YMMV, but I wouldn't use baby oil on natural rubber, it's likely to speed up the perishing. Silicone grease is great though. Conversely, don't use silicone grease on silicone rubber, as it work like a solvent. Your fine using baby oil or petroleum jelly for that though.

Having a Duratec I'm fishing in the dark here, but if it's held on with a metal clip, is it a JPT connector? Like these here? If so, the Polevolt people are great.

After getting a few candidates I went for one of these Hella slimline lights. It's a thing of beauty; very bright, very slim and easy to mount on the rear of one of the diagonals on the FIA bar.

For a better understanding of how the diff fits together and how it is overhauled, check this PDF out.

To answer Jet, these are great for the gearbox and the diff. For the engine, don't be such a lazy b*stard. 😬 Get it hot and dump it out the bottom, it's not that much hassle and it gets the job done well.

Hmmm, I just fixed it by deleting my blatchat cookie.

The oddest thing, I was happily using blatchat in IE8 today, when I followed a link to another blatchat page which appeared in the Default style, rather than my usual "In The Office". From then on, everytime I load a page it comes up in Default. I can set it to ITO and it'll change, but if I refresh the page or navigate to a new one it changes back to Default. Any clues? Martyn

Garth, sounds like you need to get yourself to Bedford Autodrome. The main straight on the GT layout is great for comparing "topish" speeds. We'll be there on the 19th March with Easytrack if you are interested. As for Steve G, he is a star. I'm intending to get him to source me a 9A4 and map the duratec on that. We drew a blank trying to get CAN data out of the Caterham locked box.

Trackday only for me at the mo. I don't have clearance from Alex to race the R300. Tempted by Ma5da though...

I've not tried AO48s, but the grip on track with the ZZR A60s is exceptional. I'm not sure I'd like to hit standing water on them though, they're very much a cut slick. Mostly rubber and not much sipe at all.

I'd either use black versions of the anodised machine screws Badger Bill posted, or just fill the holes with Tiger Seal and texturise it to suit as it dries.

Forms and cheques on their way to you. We'll see folks at Snett and Brands. Martin, It'll be great to meet you and the car.

Yeah, the boom is just a tube with a stiff piece of wire and the cables down it. The stiff piece of wire is bent round into a 'P' shape and glued in place. I think I remember having to open the P end out a bit to get it out through the hole. It'll make perfect sense once you get the units open.

Tony, which style of bracket are you using? Old (high, two point fixing) or new (low, one point)? Part of the interest in moving to the new mounting is to help avoid the vibration. Whether it will or not, I'm yet to find out.

Heh. If I'm alone (very rare) I just pop some plugs in.

As it happens, yes. I've rehoused one set from the yellows to the green Optime II. I suspect Optime III might be overkill unless you have a sequential boxed R500 and do a lot of Autobahn work. The boom is held in place with a big blob of hot melt glue, so have same available for the refit. The nice thing is that you can change the hole positions slightly to accommodate your own preferences about cables and boom etc. Be sure to use a bit of hot melt on all holes in the case where stuff passes through, this will help reduce noise injection. Steps are: 1) Remove felt cover over head band 2) remove cups from head band (twist to 90 degrees and pull out of claws) 3) use a small flat-blade screwwdriver or similar to removeear cushions from cup. IIRC there's a little notch to help with this. 4) Un-solder the various connections once you have recorded what connects to what. 5) Remove all parts from old cups 6) using old cups as pattern for new ones, drill holes in new 7) refit all gubbins into new cups 8) hot melt glue everything you need to 9) put em back together 10) Enjoy peace and quiet

Same here plz

Howard We originally went for the bluetooth option, but took it back and got a refund after a while. Trouble was there was no way of adjusting the volume of the bluetooth audio and the iPhone would start playing music when the call finished, even if nothing was playing beforehand. Did either of those issues get sorted out? In the end I got a couple of the isolators and rewired them to isolate both input and output on the iPhones. The driver's iPhone is used for music as well as the TomTom app.

Garth I'm guessing a hose take off like this from Revotec at DemonTweeks should do the trick if CC are out of ideas. Unless someone knows otherwise I assume you could put one in the wall of the top hose and run the overflow pipe off that. Here's a cutaway section to show how they work:http://89.206.185.119/images/product/summary/rev_sealing_tk_off_d2.jpg

Mike I did much the same, but actually mounted the autcom on the in-boot face of the back panel, and ran cables from the dash (where my tails for the cig lighter were) through the transmission tunnel to the boot, mouting a 4-way blade fusebox also in the boot. Since it's hanging off the cig lighter circuit (instead of the socket) it's fused in the main box. I housed the cables in some split convoluted tubing, cable tied in place: Like this at Polevolt

NP, ground clearance is around 80mm for the wet sump Duratec SV. I suspect the Sigma is very similar. That does mean that to get the car onto the lift I have laid lines of concrete building blocks (100m) thick, either side of the lift.

Jason If you're worried about the height or clearance, you could try doing a dry run with just the engine to make sure you can get the crane into basically the right place. Do however remember that the CofG and hence the hook will end up being a bit further back once the gearbox is haging off it. Alternatively you could do what CC Mids do and attach the two in situ, avoiding much of the aggro. I was surprised how little room (height included) you need to get the engine in, when you can get the chassis down low to receive it.

Simon I got the lift from these guys, via eBay: automotech Mark and Garth were so impressed they bought the same, direct IIRC.