RobinJI

I'd hate to add up what I've spent on the Scirocco. Speaking of which, I just spent over £250 just on bloody coolant hoses for the thing. Screw you custom engine install, screw you. At least it'll be nice to get rid of the horrific nest of hoses that currently lives above my gearbox. It should smarten up the engine bay massively. This was all caused by an £11 plastic fitting on the side of the head failing. As I'm replacing the fitting, I want to replace it with a much more suitably shaped one (A3 fitting instead of Passat fitting). As such, I need to alter the routing of a few hoses, and logic says that this means I should replace every coolant hose in the engine bay. I'll be spending more tomorrow too on the fitting its self and obviously some fresh coolant, as well as ordering a new header tank (mines cloudy and they're only £12.) Then I'll be needing a catch tank ASAP. Sorry bank account.

Yarp. Chemical bondage....

I just tried adding you to the group, but it needs admin acceptance, so I don't know when that'll happen. Hopefully someone on there will be able to recommend someone.

Craig, yeah, I was probably being a bit harsh, really I meant that post in a non-aggressive 'give them a break, they're not hurting anyone' way. I'm just getting bored of people slagging off other peoples cars for compromising performance, it can't be that hard to understand that some people don't want to go round corners fast can it? Most people with 'stanced' cars are well aware it makes them shit to drive, but they don't really care, and the fact is it makes a trip out in them an event, it can be kind of fun/interesting in a perverse sort of way. (Probably doesn't help that I'm a bit grumpy thanks to breaking my collar bone and giving myself a pretty harsh concussion on saturday, I'm not loving the idea of 6 weeks with no bike/car ) Mike, I'll have a look/ask. Are you in the S.O.S. (southern old school) group on Facebook? They're based down that way and would know all the right guys.

I don't really get how that makes it shit? It's just different. There's more to cars than speed and practicality, or they'd all be bloody boring. And yeah, they are more into stance and looks than handling, 99% of them would openly admit that. I don't really see that as a problem, they're not hurting anyone. In fact, they hurt a lot less people while slowly scraping along the ground than people who find their cars full performance potential do. Fair enough if you don't want to pay it any attention, but slagging it off just because it's not what you're into's a little off surely?

Where abouts in Dorset Mike? It's a big old county. If you're in the west half I'm sure I could recommend some places. What sort of work is it you need doing? Full system? repair existing system? modify existing? etc... Are you still in the Leon?

Been away for a week so to play catch-up: That evo's front end needs painting, the panels being carbon doesn't make them being the wrong colour look any less silly, otherwise, good work. Nice videos on track Adam/Greetings. Adam, nothing wrong with 'ruined' lowered cars, you're not having to drive or buy them and it makes the owner happy. It sucks that everyone's coolant's falling out. Mark, how on earth did they justify not covering that on warranty? And regarding the solder vs crimps, on a lambda sensor it's pretty irrelevant, the wires are multi-strand stainless and a MASSIVE ball-ache to solder even if he wanted to. Personally I much prefer soldered joint, but yeah, they need supporting to stop fatigue damage over time. I drove to Anglesey and back this week in the Scirocco which is about 300 miles each way, mostly motorway. I felt fresh and decent after both drives, the car didn't miss a beat and I managed 37mpg despite spending decent lengths of time at naughty speeds. As a bonus, I counted 3 phumbs up from random cars, several nods and smiles and at least 3 different people taking pictures as they passed me/I passed them. A random mk2 golf convoyed with me for ~50 miles then gave a flash and a wave when he turned off. I really do love that car. Must chase up the new doors/wing I found for it.

In-car video of me and Ben Moore on the final stage of the Three Counties Stages yesterday:

Roadkill needs watching if you haven't already. (YouTube series of 20 minute episodes that come out about once a month) Link: http://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL12C0C916CECEA3BC While you're on YouTube 'project binky' by bad obsession motorsport's well worth a watch. Link: http://m.youtube.com/user/badobsessionmsport

Ermmm... It's quite literally the new Nova, yes

I'm going to vote for leaving the cat in and selling the 3" downpipe to someone with a turbo car,and just fitting the rest of the exhaust (if it'll fit like that.) The cat will probably provide less restriction than having to run a bung in the exhaust. A 3" downpipe isn't really what you want on a naturally aspirated car anyway, the exhausts requirements are completely different to a turbo'd car. I'd be pretty confident that the factory downpipe and cat will give better economy and response, and probably not at the loss of any power. (Plus there's the bonus of being able to MOT it without messing around.)

I'm game, the last 2 weekend in August I'm busy, but I think most other times I'm good to go.

Hu? guessing you're on about power/weight ratio rather than power. 1.9tdis from mk4s only came in up to 150bhp, 170 didn't appear until the 2.0's in mk5s. You won't get over 200bhp/ton from a mk4 TDI engine without a map, but mapped you'd probably be at about 200bhp/ton. Personally I'd be tempted to go for an earlier, non-PD TDI engine (the 110bhp one). MUCH cheaper to buy (have you looked at the cost of a 150bhp PD engine?) easier/cheaper to fit, more reliable, easier to tune and they'll run on veg/bio all day long. I guess it depends how bothered about the power you are.

Basically just times the mpg by 1.91 for the diesel equivalent. (133.7 / 70.6 (the average cost of LPG at the moment.) So if you managed 28mpg from the Mazda (allowing for a slight drop from the LPG conversion) will cost the equivalent of 53.5mpg. An £800 conversion's likely to be pretty basic, but it's hard to say really, she might have got lucky. (PS, if you hadn't noticed, I've done some looking into LPG, I'm keep to get the Scirocco running on it sooner or later. Should give the equivalent of 64mpg on my commute, 70+ on the motorway, whilst still being a quirky old 200bhp/ton car.)

The performance and economy will take a slight hit with the LPG yeah, but how much so will depend on the instalation. I expect a good one would be within 1 or 2 mpg and 3 or 4 bhp of standard, but a basic/poor set-up will loose a lot more. Besides the general quality of installation (wire/hose routing etc will all point to if it's a cowboy install or not), the main thing with the LPG installs is that there's a couple of different methods of getting the fuel into the engine. The really basic ones use a thing called a 'condenser ring', which aren't very good, they're pretty imprecise so tend to loose a fair bit of performance and economy, plus they can often hurt the engines performance even when you're running on petrol, as they sit in the inlet tract and can cause restriction. The other common, and much better set-up is known as a 'sequential' system, which is basically a electronic injection system that uses injectors and usually controls fueling through a controller that takes are re-interprets the signals the petrol ECU's sending the the coil/injectors, this should get close, but still a touch under the petrol power and mileage. Some systems even run a standalone ECU that's just mapped to suit the LPG, if it does have this type of system then that'd be brilliant, the standard ECU on MX-5's is a bit crappy and basic, and a well tuned LPG system on its own ECU could well put out more power, and be more economical than a standard MX-5 is on petrol. (Edit, I'm talking about literal MPG by the way, not 'equivalent', any LPG system, even a shit one should get better 'equivalent' MPG than the standard petrol, but a crap one will be problematic, so personally I'd avoid it. Oh, and I tended to get about 30mpg out of my old 1.6 in daily commuting.)

Yep, what he said, it's all down to the installation. Might also be worth considering how much space is actually left in an MX-5 with LPG. The boots usable, but far from big even without a tank in there. The spare's a space saver, so any tank of sensible size will be bigger than that, and I found my self needing to take the spare out quite regularly. It depends how important the space is really, and if you've got easy access to a partner/friends car for occasions when you need some space. Edit. Thinking about it, it might be worth checking out where you can get LPG around you, down hear it's no problem, but I remember hunting around Bristol for ages looking for anywhere in south Bristol in a friends land-rover (which only runs on LPG) and eventually having to cut right through town to the south end of the M32. I'm not sure where in Bristol you are, north might be OK, but it's not easy to get LPG in the south. Still, even if you rarely put LPG in it, if it's a decent conversion, you don't need the space and the price is right, it could be a nice bonus, you can always drive it on petrol most of the time.

Love it Skoze. I finally got around to sorting through my pictures from the VSCC day at Wiscombe, I was pleasantly surprised with how many came out well. I do love old cars, wish I had the cash for a vintage toy:

'RTV' isn't actually a make or anything, it just stands for 'Room Temperature Vulcanising', in otherwords it's stuff that sets/cures without needing to be cooked on. It's basically just silicone, but obviously different brands can have different properties. Personally I'd give it a go. If the silicone does get degraded by heat, then the diff may leak, but I can't see there being any other issues caused. Even if some gets inside the case, there's no small oil-ways in a diff to get clogged, and all the mechanical stuff in there would just smoosh the silicone long before it caused any problems. Just dont go overboard with it.

Absolutely. I think what some people were trying to say was that they prefer to have the control themselves. It does seem to be possible for a switched on driver to outbrake most production car's ABS systems and maintain control. Personally, I'm glad that most other drivers I come across on the road have it though. And frankly, at 6:50 when I'm blearily getting in the car to head to work, I'd probably be quite grateful of it too. That said, I don't feel unsafe in my old car without it, I've got decent tyres and enough sense to think ahead and allow a good braking distance. I'm sure as hell less likely to run into trouble with needing better brakes than most of the morons I see hanging off the car in fronts rear bumper. (So having said that, I'm pretty much definitely now going to slam into the car in-front of me tomorrow morning aren't I? Screw you sods law.)

It depends on the engine. Some can be shimmed, but the greater portion of them use hydraulic lifters/followers, which are self adjusting. If the clearances aren't right, then they're either stuck or broken, leaving the only options as oil treatments to clean them out (hence my last post) or replacement. Luckily they very rarely seem to break. What engine polo is it? Petrol/diesel? 8v/16v? A video could well help. One trick's to narrow it down's to hold a long screwdriver against the engine while it's running with the handle against your ear, move it around the engine and see where the knocking's loudest, it can help narrow it down a fair bit. If it is tappets then it'll be loudest on the rocker cover/head.

No adjustment on them unfortunately. As I say, there are oil treatments that can genuinely help them. Something like this is supposed to work pretty well. I've never used it myself, but I've heard good things (it is hit and miss though, it's not a miracle cure, there's nothing to say the noise even really is tappets.) Personally I'd chuck some super-cheap diesel oil in there, run it for 2 or 3 hundred miles then change it again for decent oil. Diesel oil contains higher levels of detergent than the petrol equivalent, and it'll basically act as a gentle engine flush.

It depends what car it is. On most stuff since the 80s they're not adjustable, but there is oil treatment available that's often pretty effective at freeing them up and quietening the engine as a result. If it is one with adjustable tappets, then it can vary a fair bit depending on the car.

Home made gaskets: These are actually really quick and easy to make. Because the faces that gaskets are used on tend to have been machined flat leaving a sharp edge around them, you can just hold the gasket paper against the surface and gently tap around the edge with a hammer to cut it out perfectly. A ball hammer works perfectly for the internal edges and bolt holes. This lot took maybe 10 minutes and 1/3rd of a £2 sheet of gasket material to make. Idle valve blanking plate: The VW throttle body won't need the external idle bypass system, so this was blanked off. I plan to turbo this car eventually, and the original mazda bypass system doesn't really like positive manifold pressures, and it's a messy complicated system that adds pipework and clutter to the engine bay. A comparison of the VW and Mazda throttle bodys: The idea of swapping over was mostly to de-clutter and simplify things, as the VW units all self contained. It uses a stepper-motor to open the throttle plate electronically in order to control idle, rather than relying on any sort of bypass. It's also got a decent throttle position switch built into it, whereas the original mazda one just has a 3 position switch for idle, full throttle then anything in between. The VW ones also a touch bigger diameter. 3 of the bolt holes line up, but as you can see, one of the mazda's ones strays from being a simple 'square', so I had to drill an extra hole in the manifold. The other 3 aren't a perfect match, but VW throttle body uses M6 bolts while the mazda one uses M8s, so there's enough tolerance in there that the bolts go through. It does mean I'll have to be careful that the bore's lined up nicely when I bolt it on though. The mounting face on the manifold after opening out the throat and drilling the new bolt hole: I couldn't open it out quite as much as I'd like as I was worried about the thickness of the metal in places, so it tapers in a touch from the face, but it's a nice smooth transition and should just form a slight venturi, hopefully not restricting flow too much. The view down the new throttle body: And offered up externally, I need to order some bolts to mount it and the manifold properly: I also used the gasket as a template to port match the intake to the head, it was pretty close to be fair, but why not make it closer.

I'll probably grab some this evening when I finish off the blanking plate, I forgot to take any yesteday.

Oh yeah. I forgot to reply about the carbon stuff earlier. A normal automotive lacquer will work fine, but ideally you want one that provides UV protection. If the surface is nice and smooth you'll want to just key it with something around 1000 grit wet sanding. If it's textured you'll need to key it being careful not to go though the high spots, then build up plenty of thickness of lacquer to sand back to a smooth finish. If it's REALLY pitted/textured/covered in pin-holes, it might be worth chucking on a coat of surf board resin (make sure it matches the type of resin the parts are made with, either epoxy or polyester.) If it's a smooth finish, but just not very high gloss I'd probably just chuck a good few coats of hard-wax on there rather than messing with paint. It should come up to a decent shine and wont stone chip or anything as easily. Luke, that looks nice, I'm a fan of red mk4 chassis cars, it seems to suit them all really well. I was in the mood for some man-in-a-shed mechanics/engineering this evening, so popped to the local engine builders and picked up some gasket paper. Just made up new intake manifold, throttle body and thermostat gaskets for the MX-5, saving my self a few quid as well as allowing me to blank off a few holes that aren't needed anymore. I also decided to adapt the intake manifold to take a VW 1.8t throttle body I'd sized up for it a while ago as I've got a spare. Had to drill a new hole for one of the mounting bolts (3 out of 4 lined up) then attacked the throat of the manifold with a carbide burr to open it out to match the throttle body's larger diameter. I also made a start on carving a thick plate of carbon-fiber I had to blank off a hole in the inlet that used to form part of the idle control system. (Which will be replaced with the VW throttle body's system) I'm pretty pleased with how it's worked out, just need to order some new studs, nuts and bolts to mount it all back on the car.