OliverSedlacek

The alternator needs to run lights, wipers, ignition, fuel pump, heated screen, cooling fan and have some juice left to charge the battery. 45A is about the smallest rating I would suggest as adequate for a road car.

I recommend getting hold of a vacuum bleeder. After struggling using all the above suggestions, I borrowed one and got an instant result. My personal theory is that all the pressure systems compress the air bubbles and they stick in the nooks and crannies. Vacuum bleeders drag the air out with the fluid.

Any links to where I can buy an Ali diff nose for an Ital axle?

Don't forget that water is a combustion exhaust product. When an engine is hot, it comes out as water vapour but when the engine and exhaust are cold it will condense out.

As I understand it the '150BHP limit' for the Ital axle comes from the bevel gear carrier at the heart of the diff. If you have a Quaife LSD you should be able to run quite a bit more power.

Replacing HT components if they are a few years old is rarely a waste of money, and even professionals use "diagnosis by substitution".

Why should you use rubber gloves when dealing with sensors? If you're worried about electrostatic discharge, get a pukka earthing strap.

Lifting an HT lead slightly can in some cases give a 'better' spark. It's a little trick used by some professional garages that needs to be used with caution as a shock from a modern ignition system is seriously hazardous. You need to be clear whether you have an ignition problem which leaves the plugs wet when a plug fails to spark or whether you have a fueling problem where the fuel quenches the spark.

Both pairs and manifold now sold. Having converted to fuel injection (grisly details on https://www.facebook.com/CaterhamX300/ if interested) I'm selling my entire collection of 40DCOE carbs and bits. There are six carbs in total, plus K&N air filters, a manifold for a Ford XFlow and a bunch of bits. Cherry pick by buying early or pick up the unwanted bits for a snip. The carbs are also up for sale on Facebook where you can see the pictures. I'm considering a 7 club members discount because that's what a club is for. Sold - Two carbs are a pair of Type 151 Spanish made carbs. They are the ones shown on the manifold and with the K&N filters with carbon lids. They were running on the car before the conversion to fuel injection. Note are that I removed the cold start levers but could supply them if wanted. The trumpets (AKA horns) are wide aftermarket items that needed 'adjustment' to make them fit inside the K&N filters. They are shown with the Caterham throttle linkage and a linking bracket to stop them going out of balance. They could probably do with a minor overhaul. Sold - The second pair are a pair of Italian made Type 32s. They were on the car before I replaced them with the newer Type 151s. The Italian made carbs are generally better than the Spanish ones, but this pair do need a full overhaul. Next up is a single Type 4 carb. I can't tell you much about it's condition because I've had it in the back of a cupboard and I can't remember how I acquired it. I've never run it. The remaining carb is a Type 18. This is unusual type because they aren't supplied with the air hole for the idle air circuit drilled through to the air filter. Weber made them for an installation where they were run with a spacer to let them draw air in under the top cover. This one has been subsequently drilled so that you don't need the special castellated spacer. As per the pictures, it is not complete. There are also two K&N housings, two covers and one element. There are too many jets in the pile of bits to list. £150 +P&P would secure the remaining bits. If you've read this far you probably have some questions, so please ask.

It's worth remembering that the alternator is unaware of what type of battery it is charging.

Another outstanding job is to engineer some form of idle control actuator. The OMEX ECU is currently set to use 'spark scatter' which is better than nothing, but I'm looking for something better. There are plenty of existing solutions out there, but once you weed out actuators that aren't suitable for throttle bodies it gets a bit harder. What I need is something that pulls on the throttle cable a few millimeters. Reliability and fail safe operation are right at the top of the list, which doesn't come easily if it involves levers, cams or gears. It may be unconventional, but I'm going to try using MuscleWires. They are wires made of shape memory alloy, and they contract when heated using an electric current. The numbers look good for producing 2-3mm of movement with up to 20N of force. I'll obviously post more as I go......

I can't tell for sure, but they do look right to me.

I've held off tackling some of the smaller jobs still on the 'to do' list, mostly because of a lack of time but also partly because I just want to drive the car. I have had another crack at the fuel gauge having reworked my adapter circuit. A check with a multimeter showed that the sender was indicating a full tank even after 180 miles of driving. Clearly there was a problem in the tank, so it was out with the boot floor and off with the pump retaining nut. The top and bottom parts of the pump clearly weren't aligned properly, interfering with the movement of the sender. I don't know if there is a recommended technique for installing the pump, but the compression spring between the two parts makes it really hard as you are always fighting spontaneous dis-assembly. This time I looped a length of wire around the assembly to hold it together whilst I was inserting it into the tank. The wire came out easily when required and the sender is now indicating empty, as is the gauge. Here's hoping it's finally fixed!

Well it might not be strictly true, but my in practice it is.

I've just changed from a 3.9 to a 3.6 diff and initially I thought I had made a mistake. After a couple of hundred miles though I got it through my thick skull that I just need to be in a lower gear some of the time! With 6 gears to play with, there should always be an ideal gear for any situation, so the diff ratio only really affects what happens in top and in bottom. The 3.9 is clearly sub-optimal as you are running into the rev limiter in top. Assuming you can still break traction in first (and with 230 BHP I'm assuming you can) then I don't really see a problem.

No problem so far with cold weather, coldest ambient has been down at 4-5C. I'm unlikely to take the car out below -5C.

7 wonders, I got a bounce because your inbox is full

It's a 14Ah Skyrich YTX20HL-BS, see http://www.skyrichbattery.com/p581/HJTX20HL-FP%3Cbr-/%3ELithium-Ion-Battery-YTX20HL-BS-PW/product_info.html

Mobil 1 5W40, I've done 122,000 miles on it.

Sounds like contamination of the disk surfaces to me. The modern brake pads are much more sensitive to this than the older type of pads.

I've been running a Lithium battery for nearly a year now, having convinced myself that the point had come to stop theorizing and to just give it a try. All I can say is that it works for me, cranking my XFlow better than the old lead acid batteries and it survived several accidental (caused by a wiring fault) complete discharges. I've never bothered with a special Lithium battery charger, but the XFlow does have the advantage of no battery drain when the ignition is off. The weight saving per pound spent is unbeatable, but then again I only spent £160.

The pressure showing on the gauge mostly reflects the state of the main bearings, so you're going to have the engine out and inspected.

I don't know about 1st being too low, because that depends on usage. If you ever crawl in slow traffic then trickling along at a few MPH at idle RPM is probably more useful than optimising 0-60 times.

I've got a Type 9 5 speed, but with ratios modified by BGH. Fifth is 0.89 rather than 0.82, which is a sporty difference (as opposed to a cruise 5th). Overall gearing now gives 3300 RPM at 70 MPH, and I've got enough power and torque to pull that. See my blogs at https://www.facebook.com/CaterhamX300/ for details. I still don't much like the shift quality of the type 9, but for quite a modest outlay you can get a good set of ratios.

Hmm, even after 50,000 miles the scavenge pump in my XFlow seemed fine.