kevin the chicken

I think if you haven't had a very good feed of cold air to your intake and you put one in you will probably notice the difference in performance, it may not be much in terms of horsepower but you will feel it. Many years ago I put a new stainless exhaust system on a forward control landrover, identical to the rusted out original except that the balance pipe between the two sides was much better formed with a much better bend with no constriction. The difference was immediately noticeable with much better pickup and throttle response. All these little things add up, a bit better intake with cooler air and better exhaust extraction and a bit less power absorbed by the mechanical fan if you put an electric one in. After all car manufacturers have millions of pounds for r and d to get these things right. That's why it's fun and a great achievement for every little step forward you take.

I am on top of my cooling now I think but spotted some lovely shiny stainless steel vents on somebody else's car at a show so am going to fit a couple of those to the side of my bonnet to help get more hot air out. We spend ages trying to get the cooling air in but forget that it has to get out somewhere. If you type in marine vents on fleabay you will see the ones I mean, they come in several different sizes and they look good.

Managed to scrounge a family pass for duxford flying legends air show today. It's the only way I will be going as adult tickets are 34 quid and children's tickets are 18 quid! That would be an exensive day out by the time we have had something to eat and an ice cream. Should be good though as the weather forecast is good fine.

Should be a good turn out of hoodies. The weather forecast could be better but it's only for showers. Have you got a stand booked dave? I am going with the east Anglian kit car club and we are stand 38

Maybe they were on the other carriageway and were unable to gain access. We are told time and time again to not stop on the motorway. The police are very thin on the ground nowadays, sometimes they can't even give an eta time if we go to a car fire of doubtfull origin so tha vehicle is recovered and all evidence is disturbed before they even get there. They always turn up in large numbers if it is an rtc though so there was definitely a breakdown in communications somewhere.

The corrugated plastic that estate agents use for their for sale signs is what I used. It's light, easy to cut and curves in one plane and folds in the other easily if scored. It's free if you collect after winter storms!

Running on is usually due to a build up of carbon giving a hotspot which ignites fuel. Is it a lumpy running on or like normal running? Try it again with your spare key, might be a lot of wear in the barrel or key. If you turn the ignition off it should kill the engine whatever the carb tune. Hopefully it's the barrel as these are cheap.

Happy birthday Dan

Ditch the viscous fan, when it's not needed it is just a waste of horsepower. When the engine does need the fan on an electric one will move far more air through the radiator, a puller is best but a pusher will still be better than the viscous one and it will only operate when needed. A thermostat is a necessity as it allows the engine to warm up quicker before allowing the water access to the cooling effect of the radiator, in essence it is a temperature controller. If The fan were to stay on and over cool the water the stat would close up again to allow the engine to warm up again. This was happening with mine on a cold day until I turned it up. Block up all the spaces around the radiator so that any air entering the front of the car has to go through it and as others have already said the air has to get out somewhere. I have louvres on the top of my bonnet but the area there through which air can exit nowhere near matches the area of entry through the nosecone. I have seen some nice vents on another car and may well put one or even two pairs of them on the sides of my bonnet rather than propping up the rear of the bonnet. I went out on the hottest day last week and had no problems but you can never have too much cooling in reserve!

Mine has an eight gallon tank and I try to fill up before the gauge shows less than one quarter full due to pick up problems mentioned earlier. My filler goes directly in to the top of the tank, this makes filling up much easier as I can actually see how much fuel is in the tank but you have to be careful not to tip fuel in the boot when removing and putting in the nozzle. I think with brimming the tank I can easily do 120 miles if driving fairly sensibly. The engine is a redtop with twin 45s. That makes it quite thirsty really but on putting it into perspective my civic type r would only do 28 mpg if you drove it like your grandma. I don't worry about it, just put some more fuel in when it needs it.

I'm too tight to spend fifty quid on a rollover valve so reasoned that if the breather pipe went above the fuel tank as high as I could get it and then low down below the fuel tank bottom fuel can't run out of it whichever way up I parked the car.

Happy birthday. All your effort and hard work is appreciated

Yep, I changed both my pistons and the seals came with the kit. If its binding you may find that you need change the pistons as they probably have rust on them. Think the kit was about a tenner a side

I think my tester does what he is supposed to, everything else of ours that he has tested before has had an emissions test. When a tester sees the q plate he knows that he is unable to pinpoint the year of manufacture so can't really apply any year related tests. I suppose that is a bit easier for him though.

I had this the other day after queuing to get in to a show. The car was really hot and when I knocked the ignition off it wouldn't restart so I pushed it out of the way and tried again a little later when it started fine and has been ok ever since. I put this down to heat soak into the starter. It doesn't always engage properly anyway so it is on the list for replacement in the winter anyway

A q plate will help with emissions testing, my tester watches me drive into the garage and passes me on on emissions if there is no visible smoke. Some people are quite snobby about q plates, saying that it affects resale value but I don't know if if that is true. Probably is on new cars but I like the simplicity at mot time so don't even consider it. Each to their own. Besides you will be very lucky to recoup what you spend on the car build if you decide to sell anyway.

Before you part with any cash make sure it says robin hood (not sierra or sierra sport or anything similar) on the log book. Also make sure that it has a chassis number that tallies with the log book. There has been somebody on this forum recently who purchased a car only to find out that the numbers didn't match up and DVLA wants them to put it through testing again. Oh and make sure the engine number is the same as the logbook too. Insurance is usually surprisingly cheap, depending on age and claims history of course . I insure mine with frank pickles for about 120 pounds a year on a limited mileage of 3000. Others use a plan or Adrian flux, ring round and see what they can offer. Mine is a series 7 too but has a redtop engine as opposed to the majority which seem to be pinto engined but the insurers don't seem to bother to much about how they are powered. Having thrust all that information at you, welcome to the forum. When you get your car post some pictures, somebody may recognise it. Any other questions just ask on here, most of mine seem to answered in about ten minutes! Kevin

Zed is right, go for 15s, 14s gives you very little choice of tyre.

I can't advise you on the actual size wheels you need but look at the availability and prices of the type of tyres you are likely to fit before plumping for a particular size. I wanted to fit a dry weather biased tyre as I have no wet weather gear and found that it was actually cheaper to buy some new wheels to be able to get the tyres I wanted. I was very limited in choice until I changed to 15 inch wheels and then suddenly the world was my oyster!

I would have said that any standard pads should be able to lock up the wheels. After all the car will only weigh roughly half what a normal car does. I would start with a good clean and deglaze if you need to if the pedal feels ok. I have no idea what pads are on mine but in an emergency situation it's very easy to lock up especially the fronts, although I still have my servo. I think that when you change things like this which are operated almost instinctively it is sometimes hard to acclimatise but if you can't lock the wheels then it's not you, it's a mechanical problem!

The block isn't a ballast resistor is it?probably miles off the mark but it was the first thing that popped into my head when I read the post. See if you can post a photo of it.

Went to the cars on the green event yesterday and came away very impressed. Held in Nowton park in bury st Edmunds, this event is free to enter and to attend with a suggested voluntary donation of a quid for the public car park. With it being free and seven or eight hundred cars booked to attend you can imagine how busy it was. Set in a large public park with cars lined up amongst the trees, it was subtly marshalled with ample facilities and most of the cars were privately entered rather than with clubs so they were mixed up so you were likely see a mini next to a corvette. A lot of the cars were modified rather than concours which I find more interesting not being a bolt counter. All money raised goes to charity, put it in your diary for next year. Thanks to Martin pidd for organising our entries

I have already done the things you mention, it has a new radiator which has deflectors to ram air through it rather than around, the bonnet has louvred, all the hoses are new. It does seem that the engine compartment is thermo-nuclear hot when you remove the bonnet though not as hot as it was before I wrapped the exhaust . I may however prop the rear of the bonnet up slightly to see if that makes any difference. I was tinkering today and had a look at the fan setting and it is set too low, I think my rolling road man turned it down as he mainly works with pintos or maybe he did it just for the rolling road run. Anyway I will turn it up higher and see how often it comes on then. Thanks for your comments

My sensor is in a joiner between the thermostat and the radiator. Does running the lower temperature thermostat make any difference to the running temperature? I don't know what stat is in mine, perhaps it would make sense to put a lower temperature stat in and set my fan the same as yours. At least then I would know it was right as you have run a lot more miles with yours than I have with mine, although as I said I haven't had any overheating issues since I put a header tank on. The redtop does seem to run a bit hotter than a lot of other engines

At what temperature should I set my electric fan to cut in on my redtop? I don't have a problem but the fan does seem to come on quite a lot so I was wondering if it's set too low.