DohNut

But he Paid £1100 and didnt check weather it was flat or chambered head !!! OK its not the first question I would ask but I would ask a lot of questions before shelling out that kind of money. I wonder what the reserve is set at? and is it the kind of thing that was cast "ported" or do you then need to go to RK and get lots of work done on it?

I should be at Stonleigh on Saturday with my car E331 HPM It has a fuel injected Weber Alpha X-Flow. There are no ECUs that are "better" for x-flows than others - but there are specialists who are more familiar with the engine and one type of system. ie RogerK I personally miss the lack of user access of the Weber system - I would love to change the cold start settings on my car but I would have to take it to one of a handfull installers (who may or may not be familiar with the engine) and leave it over night for them to have one meaningful attempt at getting the mapping correct - untill the car is completely cold again - end of day? - overnight? If it was using an Emerald I could do the cold start / idle mapping myself. Jan On some of the other questions Throttle pot - buy from Weber / one of the other ECU suppliers - do Emerald have a special plug? Crank trigger - Depends which style your chosen ECU can read - mine being an old system has only four triggers with a double at TDC The main car manufacturers have a 30+ tooth wheel with one or two missing teeth at TDC You may be able to get a coil from a scrapyard - I think that fords use a twin coil double ended for wasted spark. My ecu is on the bulkhead in the passenger footwell - the coolest / dryest / least vibrating place is best. Nick

Sold to Angus *smile* Delivery tonight Now who wants my Gearbox 😬

Calling Angus (not & Tessa - I dont think) I got your mail but as I cant find a posting you have made I cant reply to you. please mail me with a return address and I will forward a photo A second trackday set of wheels sound ideal use for them. Susie - photo sent Guy photo sent but you both knew that

Oliver This is a completly straight cut gearset in a type 9 casing. (XR4i type 5 speed) I would say that they are close ratio as Quaife supply three sets of ratios for the type 9 and this is the "closest." If you are refering to the SPC box then this has closer ratios but is noisier Nick

£400 Quafie Gearbox for Sale - More info This is the clubmans gearbox Long input shaft 2.04 first gear 1.54 1.21 1.00 0.87 Quaife suggested that a fair second hand price for this box is £450+ R&RT Suggest a rebuild would be around £100+vat Suggest £400 as is or £500 with rebuild - or make me an offer Contact Nick 07887 736 779 nallen@ashland.com Edited by - Doh!Nut on 1 May 2003 15:40:29

Wheels for Sale 5 Wheels from DeDeon Caterham 14inch *6 Fitted with Yokohama A008 tyres approx 4mm tread (one 3ish) Early HPC style 6 pairs of "Bent Spokes" - can email photo Delivery a possibility as I drive around country. Make me an offer Contact Nick 07887 736 779 or nallen@ashland.com

Nick Lorries and busses have more than one set of indicators (and brake lights) at high and low level, I am not sure how the regs differ from car to bus. I would be surprised if anyone objected especially given the blue LED washer jets The challenge would be to make it a neat installation. Nick

Al Superchargers should definately not produce a problem for LPG, as you say the compression of the air charge is mechanical and independent of the volume of exhaust gas. I am a little sceptical of how worried you need to be with turbos, after all the volume of exhaust gas and the power produced are directly related. If an LPG engine produces 5-10% less power (I think this is the figure) then you would expect to see a 5-10% reduction in exhaust gas volume. The power being produced by the pressure of gas pressing down on the piston and then being released to atmospheric pressure. But driving at a set speed both the LPG and petrol car would be producing the same power and therefore the same volume of gas (more or less). this would suggest that the turbo would be spun up the same amount in each case. BUT with the cost of LPG you can increase the boost level over and above this defecit and win nearly all the way. Nick

Greg I have a set of 5 old KN style 14 inch wheels from an 88 DeDeon Not minilightstyle - have been described as "Petal" spokes or like the ones fitted on the BDA HPCs 5 off 14 inch by 6 currently fitted with Yokohama 185/60 A008 tyres, but as they have been off the car for a while the rubber is a little hard, they will get better when scrubbed in but will never return to their best. Nick nallen@ashland.com or 07887 736 779 - I will only get to this phone after 6pm monday

I would be satisfied that a brake that stopped the prop shaft rotating would be fine for parking my car on a hill as it is just the same as putting it in gear, which is what I do. BUT what is the MOT individual wheel requirement for the brake? I seem to remember that they test each side of the car, and I dont think that this is just for service brakes. Now if you have a solid diff - fine But how quickly does a plate diff lock up? Would a torque biasing diff just behave like open diff? If during the test one wheel is held still (or the roller that it is on is held still) and one is spun then I think that even an open diff would be sufficient, which would be great. but if that were the case then everyone would pass their handbrake test by turning off the engine and putting the car in gear. Nick

Cant suggest a figure - but the milage is pretty high - not actually a problem - but a lever in the argument also I believe that post 98 engines had larger inlet valves. Check it has 20 cast on the side of the block not 18. Nick

Halfords exterior trim cleaner works for me It won some awards from Auto Express - It does need re-application but if you persevere it does last sucseessivly longer and take less to bring the switched back to black, I believe it is silicon based so weather there is a huge difference beteween the products I dont know, I use it on the interior pannels / dash also, A tooth brush gets into all the nooks and crannies and texture of the dash, it is easier if you heat and bend the toothbrush so it bends the other way, unless your dashboard is in the same position as your mouth in which case the oral biased inclination of the Ennamel enhancement device is prefferable. Just thought - i have a spare electric tooth brush that may be pressed into service. Nick

Although in the same CCC Article mentioned I seem to remember that Dave did remove the whole impeller / pulley arrangement and blocked the hole that was left by the shaft. In which case he would have had a shorter belt bypassing the (now absent) pulley. He did make other alterations at the same time such as fitting a smaller alternator so has was forced into the faff of finding new belts etc. While Mr Walker ,as ever made a nice job of the installation, he left the large alloy water pump casting on the engine and then fed the water to the Craig Davies pump which was held on another braket somewhere else and from there to the rest of the cooling system. It did strike me that you were leaving half the old system in place. The ideal would be to mount the electric pump directly onto the pump block in place of the alloy pump housing, it would be a larger engineering exercise and would subject the pump to lots of vibration but it would remove weight and reduce the number of components / joints. OR for the cheapskates - aparently the motor in the pump is the same as the one used by a Big bikes fan motor (Hyabusa or Blackbird??) It would be possible to mount the motor on the end of the old belt driven shaft and get an electric water pump that way, it would not be as efficient as the craig davies pump as you would still be running with the bent metal impellor but you would still have all the benefits of contstant flow independant of crank speed and circulation after shut down. It would be dependant on the particular motor - I think that one without cam belts would make life a whole lot easier. Nick

Looking at the brake disk thermal immage - apart from the obvious differences in spot temps and average temps, on both disks the center is massivly cooler than the edges. This does give an indication to volume of heat soak into the hub. -although disc velocity will be greater at the outer edge of the pad. Then thinking of the comparison between one solid disk with integral cast iron mounting identical disk but with an alloy bell identical disk supported on an alloy spider (motorcycle style) The motorcycle disks are supported indirectly on the spider (also allowing for differing thermal expansion) I am guessing that this method provides the smallest heat soak. The all solid disk next and the alloy spider (with full circumference mounting) giving the most heat soak (I am assuming that alloy has a significantly higher thermal conductivity). From the pictures of Knackered brakes at the front of all Haynes manuals I recall that the cracked disks through excess heat cracked radially (as opposed to round the circumference) This would tie in with the hotter outside of the disk expanding more than the cooler inside of the disk. So is it best to encourage heat soak to the hub with a full contact alloy bell and hope the differences in thermal expansion is not a problem or "insulate" the disk from the hub with a spot mounting alloy spider. *confused* Nick

The switch that engages when you are in reverse gear, probably located on the gearbox, I dread to think how easy that will be to get to, but it may just be a loose connector onto the switch. Not the most helpfull - sorry Nick

I have a VDO cordless one on my bike and it was a bugger to get working because by German Telecoms law the the transmitter must have a range less that half a meter. I would be highly surprised if there was a transmitter that would reliably procuce a signal 2.5 meters and still get past the dashboard etc. Also that would take more power,the transmitter must of cource be separately. The VDO has a battery 2/3 the size of an AAA battery ie tiny and does not last long. Nick

I have got another one of these in my garage Ratios are the same 2.04 first etc. but the main-case and lid are standard. Dont know about cost but may also consider P/X for something with better ratios than the std 5-speed In which case I would no longer need my BGH improved syncro std ratio 5 speed. If you see what I mean Nick

I am not sure of the internals of my swirl pot but it works with only one pump mounted on the bulkhead next to the swirl pot, so it is possible, it has the advantage that there is only one pump and the tank remains untouched, but weather the orriginal cost of the swirl pot which must increase with the extra complication out weighs that ...... I dont know. Nick ps the original install was done by Whiting using a Weber injection - but it was 10 years ago so I dont know what

You dont have a header tank already ? I think that mine is connected from the neck of the filler cap / thermostat housing. a pipe then runs back to the end of the passenger footwell to a header tank. The pipe enters the bottom and there is an over flow pipe that comes out the top This should mean that any excess air/water is fed into the header tank at the bottom (air bubbles away) and then when the system cools and contracts it sucks the water back into the system. Nick

Bigger choice and cheaper for 13 inch wheels Also for people with 5 speed boxes it lowers the gearing slightly - that is it lowers the gearing for everyone but it is more of an issue with 5 speed boxes. Nick

Alan I have an engine stand in my garage looking for a job to do. It makes working on / storing the engine a lot easier even if you just want to change the sump foam or what ever. It will be good to meet the other Twickenham blatchatter Nick 07887 736 779

Do you have the 7th set of louvres in the bonnet? that is the ones on the car centerline close to the wind screen, if your bonnet has those then you can get a heater that can take in air through the top and put it out at the bottom, through the bulkhead. (new tall type) If you dont have the louvres then you have to have the re-circulating type that (flat old type) that pulls air up from over the transmition tunnel and pushes it back down into the footwell. You could use this type of heater even if you did have louvres I suppose but I understand the new one is better. Nick

The difference between 2D and 3D is that 2D gives the correct ignition advance at any point in the rev range for FULL THROTTLE only. When you are at anything less than full throttle the engine will require more advance but will not get it. This would be a small improvement over the original distributer. 3D adds in a throttle position sensor which senses your throttle position (unsurprisingly) this allows the ignition to be mapped at the best setting determined by not only engine speed but also throttle opening. As you spend 99% of your time driving at something less than full throttle it does make sense to map the engine correctly for that mode. Nick

I believe that the DCOE has a small connection above the float chamber which pressurises the float chamber. Connecting a small pipe from this point to the air box should provide any extra fuel due to an increase in air pressure. I believe this is how cars such as the Renaut 5 turbo could work (and the turbo pressure not blow the fuel back out of the carb) Nick