DohNut

If you have changed the engine for a much lighter one and kept the springs the same then at the very least they appear to be too long (as they are no longer being compressed as much and you have run out of adjustment) It is possible that they are also too stiff as they now have significantly less weight to support. (stiff relative to driving down a bumpy road rather than smooth track) If your front dampers are on softest (for both bump and rebound) then I could immagine the dampers are not controlling the springing allowing it to fling the front of the car up in the air. My reason for the above was I had a Xantia which locked out its rear suspention and it was undrivable, the smallest bump threatening to spin it Nick

Because of the angle that the damper is leaning over 1cm of suspention movement will only result in less damper movement - about 0.7cm if the damper is at 45 degrees and 0.5 cm if the damper is at 60 to the virtical. But I do aggree with the logic that your damper is nearly closed (not much shiney rod showing) then if you shorten the spacer by a couple of centimeters and wind the springs down the damper to get the ride height back then you will have more damper available to compress but you would have to make sure that there was still enough droop available which I seem to remember needs to be twice the travel available in compression. As far as front suspention goes then I thought that the front suspention should be set so the lower wishbones are horizontal as this is the best point for the suspention to work without excessive changes in camber and roll center etc. Nick

When mine broke I just bought a new one - although maybe I should have got it welded. But the replacement was a slightly different design, the short length of sqaure? tube from the bush-holding bit to the a-frame bit was a little shorter and the a-frame bit was a little longer to keep the geometry the same. Maybe this makes it a little stronger? Nick ps mine is an 88 chassis Edited by - Doh!Nut on 11 May 2004 21:15:11

One option I was looking at was to use my old 4" diameter silencer as the framework for a bigger diameter silencer. Keep the main pipe as it is then cut off the outside of the canister and get a sheet of stainless sheet made into a tube and attach it. The "attach" bit being the most difficult to acheive making sure that the increased diameter does not foul the side of the car or the ground and make it gas tight and vibration resistant, by which time the options mentioned above start to look good value. If you are still not put off I need to clear my garage so if you want my old side exit... Nick

John thanks for the offer, I am in London so getting it there - and me back may be a bit of a pain. I would like to see if anything else comes up before deciding if that is not too cheeky. Simon - It was the first of the more recent shape - the one with the big headlights and the curved tailgate glass, if you know what I mean. Nick

Need to sort out car before traveling for a year. sell or store. 1998 R 1.6 RXE 3- door - Air con central locking etc. Blue 1 careful lady owner - my girlfriend 😳 70K miles £2600 OR Do you know of safe cheap (Donation to Ntl??) storage for this car for a year.

Zak Sounds good Drop me a mail to nickallen@dial.pipex.com to arrange collection etc. Thanks Nick

Zak Jacket is size large - fits 6 foot 13 stone type person Mostly blue with all the Valvoline Nascar sponsors logos embroydered. Nick

Just clearing out the flat before going traveling Jordan F1 rucksack - one strap type Jordan F1 cap Valvoline Nascar jacket Valvoline cap. All unused and to go together for donation to NTL. Nick Twickenham

The manifold has to lift the carbs above the chassis and out the whole in the bonnet while keeping the carbs horizontal. This means that there must be an s-bend - I would immagine that this is less extreme with the longer length. But then again the bends can cause minor reflections which may be bennficial - or not. FWIW my car has the shorter manifold to 40mm throttle bodies and then the filters spaced out 2inches from the manifold. Nick

I thought the modern classics had a 1.6 8v Vx engine If the engine you have shares the same block as this and the 16v Vx then a previous owner may have just bolted it in place. I would be rather surprised if you had a DeDeon chassis with this engine.

I understood the basic mechanism of an auto choke on a carb to be a bi-metalic spring which either shrinks or expands when it is hot or cold which twists the spindle of the choke. I would guess either the spring has broken or it cannot summon enough force to overcome the stiction of the spindle. - all of this may be well hidden inside the carb though Nick

Transmition loss may not be down to the "transmition" I believe that the majority of the transmition losses on the rolling road occours in the tyres. It is not uncommon to have several people sitting on the car to stop the wheels slipping. There are two rollers for each wheel so two contact patches each contact patch is not flat but (being a roller) curved. All of this adds up to abnormal deflection of the tyre - hence abnormal energy loss. And all of that is dependant on how fast the rollers are going ie which gear you are in and what type of wheel / tyres you have. N

Manolo Would you care to comment on how the leaf spring set -up has enhanced your virility I would guess at at 10-15% increase in both stamina and satisfaction Although I understand that obtaining impartial data in this arena is often difficult. N

The reason that it has misserable specific power output output is the fuel that it burns - after all the kerosine and petrol and other nice stuff is taken out of the crude oil then you are left with the crapiest third - It is actually solid at room temperature so it has to be treated and is over 100 degrees C by the time it gets to the engine. The boost is quite impressive 5 bar You do have to think twice before draining the coolant - 20 tons of distilled water is a pain to get hold of. Nick

Just testing the water - these are not actually for sale yet My company is selling to other employees a couple of PCs for home use. These PCs were used to run four screens - You could drag and drop things from one screen to another then maximise it in the new screen - all very clever - I think the graphic cards that ran this are quite expensive £400plus Anyone interested? I realize the market for 2nd hand - unboxed and without software. ☹️ computer stuff is limited - but it maybe what someone has alway wanted. Nick nallen@ashland.com

Coscast Group A cylinder head £180 on rallyspares.co.uk of cource this may not include valves etc. Nick

I had surprisingly little interest on here but sold it in 2days on rallyspares.co.uk Although it was the clubmans version. I think i did underprice it but only by £50 less than the Quaiffe tech bloke said it was worth Nick

I had a problem with it misreporting the unlinked pages in that bit of the program - I lived with it for ages until I found the "repair and partially re-install" utility - which worked ❗ and did not loose any of the defaults I had changed This was with FP2001? - the XP type one - it may fix yours 🤔 Nick

For the double cable underslung linkage to weber throtle bodies - I got some from a bike shop. They were heavy duty bike brake cables If I recall - It was a bit of a pain as I only needed the first foot of cable I suppose it depends what kind of linkage you have. Nick

My car pre-dates the excellent idea of powder coating some/all of the interior pannels. I dont mind a little extra polishing of the scuttle etc but the footwells really annoy me. I have thought about buying/making new carpet/vinal/rubber and bolting it to the floor as the poppers dont work for me. OR Is it possible to paint the plastikote stuff that is designed to rubberize tool handles etc. It appears to have the right combination of adhesion and resilience. I think that if I wire wool and degrease the floor - it could paint on well - that is if you can paint it 🤔 Or would I be better etching the surface, in which case what to use. 🤔 Suggestions on a postcard please Nick

Water cooled engines can remain at much more stable temperatures. Even if you have variable airflow an air cooled engine is not going to be able to cope as well as good water cooled system in coping with varying load. This leads to a variable combustion chamber temperature, which means that you can make fewer assumptions about what is going on so have to throw in a bit more fuel-"just in case" But in race engines where there is no emmisions requirement, load and road speed / airflow / ambient temperature are predictable, it works very well, it weighs a bit less and there is one less thing to break. Nick

Adrian could you email a photo to nallen@ashland.com Thanks Nick

I think you will find that you have three wires. the outside two wires attach to each end of the semi-circular resistor the middle wire goes to the sliding contact that moves when you rotate the spindle. The resistance between the outside two wires never changes The resistance between the middle and outers will change due to throttle position. Adding the resistance of each middle to outside resistance should add to the outside to outside resistance. To compensate for length of wire the ECU measures the comparison of the resistance between each "half" of the throttle pot rather than an outright value. I suppose that the thing to check is that it is working roughly to this format.

Hoopy beat me to it - too busy messing with BOLD The "adjustable" ones have a screw thread and are infinately adjustable. It sounds like the ones that you have - as Hoopy says are adjustable in steps. The spring sits on a collar which is stopped from sliding down the damper by the ring which sits in the groove in the damper body If you can unload the spring enough then you can tap the collar up as it will have partially settled over the ring. The ring can then be levered out of the groove using a screwdriver or similar. move the ring up to the next groove - or skip a few by the sounds of it. Then push the collar down so it sits on the ring. It is all very well having a low center of gravity but you will loose more time (and sumps) by having the suspention working outside its designed geometry range - too low or too high. Nick Edited by - Doh!Nut on 15 Jul 2003 14:58:19