The Car Thread

[Luke Rainbird]

25 minutes ago, Greetings said:

Just leaving a pic of Andrew who got a bit lost during the last event.

Classic Andrew.

[Greetings]

Yep. Not very bright! 

Some pics of a recent trackday just surfaced.

'

Driving The Stig around  

And a few other pics

[SamKidney]

I have a new found sense of admiration for you VAG group lads. 

Ive just about buttoned up an engine replacement in a Mk4 GTI 1.8T and it’s been an arse the whole way through. 

What’s with all the unnecessarily complicated breathers and vac lines?! The rediculous vag plugs/connectors with those silly release clips that never work and threaten to rip your nail off before they unclip. 

Swapping all the shit from the dead engine onto the replacement has taken longer than actually removing/fitting the lump as a complete unit. 

[Luke Rainbird]

Those clips either work fine or are a pig. It's genuinely taken longer for me to get my turbo off than it would have to pull the whole lot out. Should have borrowed the crane and done it right.

[SamKidney]

21 minutes ago, Luke Rainbird said:

Those clips either work fine or are a pig. It's genuinely taken longer for me to get my turbo off than it would have to pull the whole lot out. Should have borrowed the crane and done it right.

If I’d had an engine there with all the ancillaries on including loom the job could have been done in a day no problem at all. The way the loom intertwines its way through hoses and impossibly small gaps is what’s taken the time it has. Removing the engine box as one is an hour and a half of a job if that. Frustrating. 

[Luke Rainbird]

Yeah. When I was swapping mine over I had the old lump out, new one in, mocked up some pipework and back out again in under a day. If I had a crane at home to use I'd have pulled the lot out when I had to replace clutch slave recently and done turbo bits but have ended up doing each separately (and subsequently regretting it. Live and learn)

[MadManMike]

Stick to 90's Jap cars!

After owning two Seat Leons and pretty much rebuilding the Eunos with mostly just axle stands, I can safely say I prefer older cars. Not just for the manual side of the job either, those dash lights can be a pain to shift.

To be fair, I've learned a lot since owning the Eunos - I used to get mates to help or do the work for me, but I'm much more confident getting stuck in now.

And on that note, discs and pads on a Punto Grande tomorrow, if the weather holds up. Not the most exciting job, but my girlfriend is pretty much metal on metal at the moment, which is not ideal!

[SamKidney]

90s Hondas *** when it comes to maintanence. 

Ive got D series (single cam) to B series (DOHC vtec) engine conversions in my shape civic down to 1hour 40mins haha 

[MadManMike]

It's most things 90's or older really I'd say, I managed an engine swap in mine with a mate over a weekend.

The main thing that slowed us down was rust - so many ruined bolts to chop off.

I reckon I could do it in a day now that I've done it once.

[Tom Booth]

Post 90s??

Post mid 60s is too complicated

[Jolfa]

Older VAG stuff is like Lego, I got my twin engined creation down to a bare shell ready to weigh in, in a day 

Used to quite enjoy getting dashboards from the scrappy out of MK2s when I was doing my flocking bit, me and my mate could have one out in under 10 minutes in the end

[TROYston]

On 10/27/2017 at 10:23 AM, Jolfa said:

Older VAG stuff is like Lego, I got my twin engined creation down to a bare shell ready to weigh in, in a day 

Used to quite enjoy getting dashboards from the scrappy out of MK2s when I was doing my flocking bit, me and my mate could have one out in under 10 minutes in the end

Holy shit i remember the video you posted of that thing basically burning you alive with ezstart!

[RobinJI]

The 1.8t's are a rat's nest of pipework and wiring aren't they? 

My cage is coming along well. I've welded up all the roof level stuff, raised the cage back up into place and done the front strut-tower bracing on one side. 

Dropped down to weld round the top: 

All welded up: 

And the farward bracing: 

Once the front bracing's done it's time for door bars, then welding the feet into place, then the main hoop cross, then the rear legs, then gussets on the crosses and door bars. 

[SamKidney]

Rats nest is an accurate description yes. 

[MadManMike]

So here's a brain teaser, probably more for the MX-5 guys, but in principle I guess it would apply to any engine.

Since I fitted my "new" engine in the Eunos (March this year) it's done a few things wrong and continues to do so. Mostly because I haven't really bothered to sort it. There's two separate issues, which I think may actually be linked.

Firstly, it burns through oil. Not a major issue, it's old, I can top it up. The problems that do concern me are:

1) It overheats and the fan doesn't kick in. I've replaced the sensor at the rear and at the front, I'm lead to believe the front one is the one that tells the fan to kick in. Today I warmed the car up and felt all the pipes and they all seemed hot, so I believe sufficient coolant is flowing. I did have to top the coolant up though, as the pipe into the heater matrix leaks slightly. I plan to bypass the heater matrix soon as a short term fix to this problem.

2) The car doesn't idle well. Setting the base idle to what it should be, it struggles to start and sometimes cuts out, until it's up to temperature. The alternative to this is to set the idle screw higher, so that it starts and idles around 1k. The downside to this is that once up to temperature, the idle sits around 2k. Even higher if you press the A/C button or pop the headlights on.

Initially I thought these were two different issues, but I'm wondering now whether the fact that the car never thinks its hot enough to turn the fan on could be linked to the rough idle?

Planned purchases include a new idle control valve and a new thermostat, but I'd rather avoid buying more stuff if they are not the fix.

I've replaced the leads, the coilpack and the plugs. I checked the timing and it seemed OK.

Any ideas?

[MadManMike]

To contradict what I wrote in the post above, I've just purchased a new intake manifold & gasket and a new throttle body & gasket.

I've spent enough on the car already, might as well keep going

[Greetings]

How much oil does it use? Though unlikely, it could be connected with a rough idle. Have you done a compression test? Abnormally high compression on some cylinders could indicate a leak.

 

Had another lovely weekend at the track. It turned out Andrew has his own fanpage where he leads quite an interesting life so I took him out for a spin.

 

And one more, driving on hard racing slicks at 5*C in the rain. Just as I thought the learning curve for driving at this point was pretty flat, I gave the keys to my car to our top instructor (carting world champion and ex Formula BMW driver). He taught me an interesting way of driving into corners by forcing understeer before entry to warm up the tyres. As he reached the entry point, he'd unwind the wheel and the car would pull into the corner much harder. He also avoided the standard braking zones and racing lines because they're much more slippery than the rest of the track in the rain. Here's my attempt at doing the same and failing somewhat.

 

Got a green light for renting the car next year so we did some publicity shots. This is not one of them, we were taking the piss  

 

[AdamR28]

Interesting technique! Can see it working in the video, I've not got sound on but the way the camera shakes when you do it is the giveaway

I guess it makes it easier / safer to push hard on entry which is where you then gain the time?

[Greetings]

Yep, it gets rid of understeer on entry. Although my attempts are a bit misearble as you should really force the car to understeer for a bit longer. Apparently this is not an uncommon technique in Formula cars and he learned it while being coached by Fernando Alonso. He combined this with a very late apex in every corner due to the racing line being more slippery in the wet. Try it Adam, I'd be interested to know if it works for you? 

[AdamR28]

Yeah I'll give it a go! Normally tend to do 'karting lines' but it'll be interesting to see how that compares... Nice one.

[SamKidney]

Might give it a shot weather dependant at Cadwell next week.. if it will yield similar benefits in a FWD platform. 

Certainly looks to work for you. 

[MadManMike]

Greetings - it used half a litre at a track day recently and just under a litre going to Brussels and back (725 miles).

Yes I've done a compression test, it seems OK. I can't remember exact figures now, but there was nothing suspect.

[bike_dummie]

5 minutes ago, MadManMike said:

 

I don't own and have never worked on an mx5 but,

Bad or incorrectly set tps?

Have you tested the maf? Unplug it and see if anything changes, it shouldn't rev over something like 2k drop down and eventually die. Usually runs rich.

Check both with a multimeter and clean the element in the maf.

Both the above will cause a rough idle and stalling. 

Don't think it would be a thermostat as a car will run without, just take longer to warm up.

 

[MadManMike]

43 minutes ago, bike_dummie said:

I don't own and have never worked on an mx5 but,

Bad or incorrectly set tps? - checked this, all fine.

Have you tested the maf? Unplug it and see if anything changes, it shouldn't rev over something like 2k drop down and eventually die. Usually runs rich. - replaced with a known good one, no different.

Check both with a multimeter and clean the element in the maf.

Both the above will cause a rough idle and stalling. 

Don't think it would be a thermostat as a car will run without, just take longer to warm up.

 

Those were my first thoughts too, so I checked them first

[SamKidney]

Hondata K Pro fitted this afternoon. The inner geek in me loves it. 

A friend has sent me a map that works nicely enough for my current set up. Had a little drive this even and it’s so much smoother! 

9k rpm rev limit sounded awesome but I’ve got too much mechanical sympathy so I’ve knocked it down to 8300 haha. 

Bluetooth feature for real time data on my iPhone is a nice feature too, handy way to keep an eye on temps.