murph7355

Am not sure whether your liners can be repaired (Mike Bees may know) but I understand you can get more power out of the 1400 with std. liners (which should be OK to around 8k revs, but as with all things engine the stronger the bits, the more likely you are to get some longevity). Work to do would be (in no particular order): - change of exhaust (if you don't have a 4-2-1 etc. with longer primaries). If you can bin the cat', so much the better. - new cams and ECU. Piper do a wide range for the 'k'. I'm not sure which are best for the 1400 (no. 270s spring to mind. I have 740s on my 1800) but Warren at Piper would be able to advise. Emerald or MBE ecu would be the way to go, the latter being a bit cheaper from what I've learnt to date (I ended up going with MBE as the place building it preferred this route!). - throttle body injection system (Jenvey's DTH of course). - head work. The usual porting work plus I'm sure you can get bigger/better valves into even the 1400 head. - lightened flywheel. I've heard rumours that up to 175bhp is possible out of the 1400 which would seem feasible...certainly 150-160 should be doable (the Supersport is meant to give 130 but I've also heard that this is optimistic and it's more likely to be 120-125). To be honest though, I think I'd be inclined to go the higher capacity route as it's more of a known quantity. I also had some headaches upgrading my 1400SS to 'big k' spec, but as this route gets more common, it'll get easier for everyone else (as there are more people to give advice!). If you start with a "new" engine you can also take your time a bit more, safe in the knowledge you can still use the car even if you have delays. Tomorrow I should have some details of my upgrade together...if you need more info then feel free to drop me a mail.

You swine! The carbon inserts look good (though I guess you need them more on the Vx ;) ). I reckon this arrangement must be worth the equivalent of 5bhp. I was mucking about, aesthetics only (if you're into details). I'll hopefully be posting a few pictures of my installation somewhere this weekend... C7 AJM

I can vouch for the above as I have DTH on my K. Also "feels" like a neater, simpler solution, and simple is always best! One thing to remember - make sure you get red ones as this makes your car shed loads faster and makes the under bonnet area look bloody good. As Jenvey prefer not to sell direct in the UK, try Lumenition (QED wouldn't sell me red ones, buggers). C7 AJM

I had 2 go in 4yrs. I suggest some lucky heather in your top pocket - I've heard of others who've replaced more and less than me (luckily it's no longer a problem as I have a speedo with a wheel sensor). 3 in that time does seem a bit much though. Were they definitely broken or had they just popped out somehow (snagged cable as David suggests perhaps...)? C7 AJM

I think the thing to bear in mind is that every engine is different, and they can vary by a fair bit. Also, can't remember exact quoted figures but I didn't think there were huge differences between 1600 and 1800, it was just that the action happened lower down the range and the 1800 had a fuller torque curve (which wouldn't necessarily be reflected in peak output). Don't have CCC in front of me to see which figures you were comparing, but I suspect it was the one that had an Emerald bolted to it as a test? I think the suspicion was that the engine in question was unusually low on power for the spec. with the std. ECU which changed with the Emerald fitted. It'd be interesting to see if similar gains could be had with one giving the correct (or "better") quoted power as I don't believe they could do this at the time. Having said that, a programmable ECU wouldn't be a bad idea as it opens up the upgrade path (though it may be more sensible to enjoy the car as is first :) Changing it would also screw any warranty you have). There are a few available but I think the two most commonly employed are the Emerald M3D and one made by MBE - I have this one but can't remember the model number! Can't comment on what increases the ECU and TBs will give alone as I've jumped a few steps further than that from the off, but general wisdom suggests that peak figure increases won't be huge but throttle response and driveability would improve. Again, it also gives you the bits necessary for higher outputs... Once you've got the car finished, if you're near-ish to London, why not pop down to Emerald. Dave/Karl will do you a power run for a very modest fee so that you at least have a benchmark for your car and a comparison against the others in CCC (as rolling roads also differ widely). You'll then be able to see what differences are made later... C7 AJM

Ah, but what about traffic lights? I've been caught a few times in absolute deluges where sitting at lights for a couple of minutes has completely soaked through a "std" rain jacket. Hence me buying a decent one. There are also times when I've found it hard to drive quickly enough without the rain stinging my eyes so I can't see...and that's with a screen. Not sure I'm trusting enough on the last point :) The toughened glass would take a stone much better than my teeth or the bridge of my nose. And even with a screen I've sensed stones whipping very close to my head (admittedly I'm not small and my head probably sticks up more than most!). That said, the screen isn't chipped so obviously hasn't been hit with too much force in my 4yrs with the car. But it only takes one unfortunate incident... On the sunnies front - I've got some Oakley square wires which stay clamped to my head even with the doors off. C7 AJM

I think as long as they have the "GoreTex Engineered" label (the big diamond label you see on them in shops) then they should be up to it. Get one long enough to allow you to sit on the tail of it (so 3/4 length or so - stops your arse getting wet if the seats damp) and one that has a high collar as John said and you'll be fine. Other features are down to you but I'd suggest getting one with a double zip to allow the fitment (and removal) of a fleece and a hood is always handy (you can tell you're getting old when the idea of a cagoule and hood doesn't make you cringe!). That way it'll be suitable for winter and summer. Jackets of this sort start at about 150-160 quid and go up to 3-400 (though with the sales in full swing you may get lucky!). The Berghaus Storm I mentioned costs about 200 quid and you don't have to have it in bright blue/red/yellow as seems to be the case with most other jackets of this type. I therefore don't have to think twice about where I may end up when putting it on! C7 AJM

Stress again that I have a screen, but I have a bike intercom bought from Maplins for about a tenner (think they're about 20 quid now - I got mine in a 'sale'). It's not dash mounted but the unit itself would fit in the pocket of your new GoreTex jacket... It has noise reduction I think (to counter wind noise) and the volume can be made pretty loud so for 20 quid might be worth a try. The only hassle are the clips for the mikes being a bit awkward, but these would be easy to modify. It runs off a couple of AAA batteries. If you're anywhere near Dorking you can have a go with mine if you like. I had a look at a few different systems when I was looking but as I only really use it on track days (and/or when the doors are off) I didn't want to spend the cash for the more permanently mounted types (e.g. Peltor - you're talking over 200 quid for one of these fellas if my delving was indicative). C7 AJM

It may be of complete irrelevance, but does your gear lever stub have an "extension" piece threaded onto it (mines anodised green/black and believe this is "standard")? Or is it a single piece? I *think* the threaded ends (that the knob fits onto) of the stub and extension are the same diameter (hence the irrelevant bit) but they may be slightly different if the sizing isn't far out... I have a brand new, unused Momo alloy gear knob that would definitely fit for sale. It's a fantastic piece of kit (so good that tea leaves knicked my original one) but doesn't fit the colour scheme of my car now...Probably worth noting that it doesn't have the gate pattern (or anything come to mention it) engraved on the ball itself. Just Momo engraved on the collar. C7 AJM Edited by - Andy Murphy on 5 Jan 2001 09:27:58

Double post. Doh! Edited by - Andy Murphy on 4 Jan 2001 21:21:26

I think transmission losses are less than on a "normal" box and that in skilled hands the changes can be made quicker. I'd also think that the internals are simpler which could result in some weight saving/better reliability/cost benefits, but possibly not all of these or very much of any...

I don't have a screenless 7 but am often out in deluges and you still get pretty wet without doors etc.! I've recently invested in a decent general outdoor jacket (a Berghaus Storm or something). It's absolutely superb and not only keeps me bone dry but can also have a fleece zipped in/out for warmth and has well placed pockets for getting stuff stored (e.g. keys, phone, wallet) even with harnesses on. I guess any gore-tex (or similar) 3 quarter length coat would do the job equally well. I also found that the (peaked) hood is excellent at keeping water out of your eyes when done properly. The other benefit is that you can use them day to day without too much worry of looking odd! I haven't yet invested in leg coverings as I've found 80% of mine don't get wet as they're under the dash or covered by the bottom of the jacket. When I don't have a passenger the tonneau also helps. As for anything else, I have a pair of gloves handy just in case (regular leather/sheepskin pair as if it gets that cold I can barely feel anything anyway!) plus a decent hat. I have a particularly mad one for general use but Santa just brought me a fleece like Caterham one which is great (if perhaps a little sad).

I've since heard from a reliable source that it is only the stickers that are different. Said source also noted, however, that there may be hassle with available space. I think I'm therefore going to plump for a Red Top 700. These are around about 100 quid (incl. VAT), give 550A starting power (the Banner wet ones allegedly have around 200A) and it weighs about 3kg less than the Red Top 30 (the Hawker job's other name) at 6kg. These batteries (the Hawker ones at RaceTech) were originally designed to start Harrier jump jets in the field apprently, so if it fails to turn mine over I'm going to upgrade the k-series to a Rolls Royce Pegasus. Should have no worries breaking the 200mph mark let alone the 200bhp...might have to make a few holes in the bonnet though. C7 AJM

Same site as Mike suggests (http://race-technology.com) also flogs (relatively) cheap heavy load batteries...height is even less than you have so shouldn't be a problem, but length may be (250mm). I'm going to either try one of these or (more likely route) a Red Top as my Banner has given up on my HC 'k'. I also had an accident a while back and the wet battery leaked acid everywhere. This corrodes aluminium badly and is a bugger to clean up, hence me wanting to go the dry route (even though these shouldn't be left to go dead ever as I believe it kills them)... C7 AJM

It's going to depend on clearances between your head and the bonnet, plus what length trumpets and filter arrangement you go for... I have no idea on the former as I've never had a ruler out against a VX (or my K for that matter)...the only one I've seen close up didn't look any worse than a 'k' though. As for the latter, you can get all sorts of different types/lengths. I'm using 40mm trumpets with Pipercross sock filters (no backplate shenanigans) and these *easily* fit with no holes on the K-series. Apparently longer length is better for the mid-range but I've yet to see this conclusively proved (may do so myself over the next few months) and for a VX I wouldn't have thought this too much of a worry. I'm sure someone must have done this and will be able to give more info. I could measure the length from filter to head on my TBs if you like - I guess the VX ones would be similar in this dimension? C7 AJM

Are the throttle bodies for the Vauxhall significantly pricier than for other engines (or are twin 45s dead cheap as I always thought they were quite pricey)? Being a dolt I would have thought TBs the way to go, thus keeping the reliability of the injection system with improved throttle response etc. etc. Maybe not much in the way of extra power in its own right, but if you're going to have to change all you mention for carbs anyway, then changing this lot with TBs would surely give a decent gain whilst making more extreme mods possible with less loss of flexibility? And the percentage increase on overall spend wouldn't be too hairy? Perhaps I'm jaundiced by technical incompetence and experience of not only old MkII Escorts but also of an Alfa Sprint with enormous carbs, but I always found them to be a real p.i.t.a. and they only ever worked really well when freshly set up. Any deviations caused nightmares. They sound nice but the TBs I have on my K-series sound great too (and I'm 99% certain you can fit Jenvey's on a VX)... C7 AJM

I've also just gone through a similar upgrade path to Mick, only the mechanicals were done by Ratrace and I think I've gone a bit more "extreme". I've been promising to get details up to a few people for a month or so now (here and on the se7ens list) and will try and get something down in writing this week. I've finally taken photos of the whole installation which I'll also aim to get scanned in this week and possibly sent to SimonS if he's willing to take them... Long and short of it is that I now have an 1800K that gave 194bhp on Emerald's rolling road (for comparison with the Sevens in January's CCC article). However as the target was 200+ I'm not yet finished! Mr Walker reckons that some changes to the timing should see further gains so I'm going to look at doing this over the next month or so too. If anyone wants specifics I'm more than happy for you to mail me. I have all the invoices for the work carried out so can give pretty good indicative pricing of parts (and labour if you're mechanically as inept as I am)...we also had a number of problemettes, the solutions for which I will be eternally grateful to Dave Andrews for, in addition to all the info, help and advice he, Mike Bees and PeterC gave. With any luck I'll be at the next Surrey meeting and hopefully the North Kent one too (house duties last night unfortunately). C7 AJM

I'm not sure whether anyone's phoned them but I bought an outdoor cover from Cover Systems a few years ago and it was "only" 85 quid or so new and I'm sure they're about the same price now. Included an under car strap and storage bag too. I've just replaced it (it was so covered in bird sh*te after a few weeks storage that I decided it was a health hazard and binned it rather than risk diseases cleaning it - note the car was perfect underneath it!) with a Covercraft one. This is a very nice cover but frankly I don't see why it's 3x the price - the cheaper one kept the car drier (the Covercraft people say theirs all leak the first few times it gets rained on!), was just as soft inside and fitted the car as well. With the benefit of hindsight I'd go for the Cover Systems one in future. Usual disclaimers - no connection with the company other than as a happy ex-customer. If anyone wants the phone number, mail me and I'll dig it out. C7 AJM

I have 185/60-13 and 205/60-13 on mine and it works really well. I'm with Mike that 205s on the front are a bit much... If my maths is OK and assuming the tyres do exactly what they say on the sidewall, the 205 fronts buy you about 1cm of additional clearance over the 185s. I think you'd be better off accounting for this by adjusting the shocks rather than fitting the wider tyres. Your steering response should then improve allowing you to better avoid the manhole covers and bumps (believe me this country is blighted with rubbishy road decoration too!)... FWIW I run mine at 18psi all round and it seems pretty good. Once I get some track time sorted out next year I'll have a bit of a play with different settings, but unfortunately it's time I admitted to myself I'm no Ayrton Senna so can't tell if one wheel is 0.5 psi down. I'd probably be pushed to tell if they were 5 psi down! So I'd say anywhere between 15psi and 20psi will be in the right area. C7 AJM

Incidentally, I'd guess that if the mixture and/or timing was out then your power figures may well be affected (by how much though, who knows...). smile.gif C7 AJM

Caveat - I'm incompetent with mechanical objects. Now I have that out of the way, I seem to recall from the se7ens list that glowing pipes could also be caused by too weak fuel mixture being supplied to the engine and/or cam timing being out (the former was definitely the cause of a couple of K-series cars doing this, and it also happened on mine too). Whether it's normal on other engines and why it should go away after a couple of minutes (all else being equal) I don't know. But I think I'd check these things out as I'm sure exhausts aren't designed to run like that for any length of time (especially at low revs). C7 AJM

Before I get lynched for living in the dark ages I thought I'd try these out... smile.gif wink.gif sad.gif tongue.gif C7 AJM

Pierre This is where the sparks start to fly on Supersport engines (I thought it was nearer 5k on my old 1400K-SS). From here until the change up light they really start to motor. There's nothing like a step in the power delivery to get the pulse going. I loved it! C7 AJM PS No one's said it yet, but you could get a decent set of cams and a better ECU for a similar amount of cash and potentially better power. And this would leave you with an upgrade path a mile wide for later on...of course it wouldn't be standard any more but you're never going to sell it anyway, are you... :) Edited by - Andy Murphy on 12 Dec 2000 19:10:15 Edited by - Andy Murphy on 12 Dec 2000 19:11:01

I used to work for one of the big oil companies so might be able to add something here (note I didn't work in refining but we did get to visit the plants). I should add that I haven't worked for them for about 6yrs but I cannot see that some of the practices have changed that much as there were economic reasons for doing them... First up, supermarket fuel and the like pretty much all come from the same old refineries as the "branded" stuff. I can vouch for this first hand as whilst visiting a refinery there were trucks with all manner of brands filling up (including Tescos and, oddly, Worthingtons - makes you wonder what you're drinking :) ). I think shipping it from Eastern European refineries would be cost prohibitive ;) Further to this, it's not unheard of for "competing" brands to fill up from the same refineries. If one brand has no refinery in a particular location I don't think it's uncommon for arrangements to be made for them to "share" locations to ease distribution hassle. The biggest names pretty much have national coverage in this respect but the smaller ones tend not to and hence share a bit more. This is for the raw petrol product (which will be pretty much the same these days regardless of which modern refinery it comes from). The biggest differentiator as it comes out of the tanker is the additional stuff that they put in the petrol (typically detergents). Supermarket stuff *used* to be cheaper as there was little or no additive in the fuel. This stuff costs lots of money to develop hence cost can be saved by leaving it out (and for the early stuff you were probably better off without it). I guess that as time progressed, the magic formulae became easier to obtain, and therefore cheaper, and so supermarkets also use additives now...I suppose the big names (and Shell are big on pushing their additive expertise) would state that theirs are new and improved and worthy of extra cost. I have no idea whether ULSP promotes knock but if the official ratings for it are of a particular RON (or MON as I recall from another thread) then I'd say it should be no worse than an equally rated fuel. Similarly I have nothing but anecdotal evidence on the various companies' fuels. I once ran an Alfa Sprint that ran like a pig for a while. When I had it serviced the guy told *me* where I bought my fuel owing to the rubbish in the carbs. I used to buy from Shell garages 90% of the time and since have avoided them (the Alfa incidentally ran fine after switching fuel). Note that this was also many moons ago and I believe the widely publicised hassle Shell had with some of their additives have since been rectified. Personally I believe the biggest factor in fuel quality is the one Mark intimated to - the quality of the storage tanks at your local station. If there's rubbish in there, or the environs aren't right for storing the product and it's left in there too long, you're going to get less than perfect fuel. The problem with this is that you have little or no way of telling what the status is of the tanks. I tend to try and use stations that get frequent refills (i.e. the really busy ones) as you have more chance of getting fresh product. But with modern injection controlled engines I think it's much less of a worry these days as long as the RON rating is suitable for your car (just as well as I don't seem to have much range on mine, so often have little choice of where to get fuel!). This tends to rule out the use of supermarkets for me as they don't sell Super... C7 AJM