Snapperpaul

The solution is pinned, I’m surprised this thread has gone so long without someone pointing you to the correct thread. the dip stick is for the oil level and had no relation to oil capacity. you should not exceed the max level or the oil will be foamed by the crank. if you have shortened the sump you need to add capacity. the RS2000 sump is safe even if it hangs a few mm below the gearbox, I use them on 2 of my Pinto’s

In my opinion if it ain’t broke don’t fix it if you want unleaded the best mod would be an injection head as they have unleaded inserts but check it has the identifying mark on top left corner exhaust manifold face the injection Head is also worth 5 to 10bhp just doing this will cost £300 injection head £250 head gasket (Rheinz) £20 this is thinner than standard at 1.3mm (extra compression) inlet, exhaust and valve cover gaskets £30 oil, filter, plugs, leads clean it, paint it if the bottom end has good oil pressure leave it alone you could check compression on each cylinder. If you go for a refurbished bottom end then where do you stop? big ends, mains, high pressure oil pump, water pump, a rebore requires pistons and rings if you doing all this work then it makes sense to use good products and future proof the engine with ARP bolts for rods, mains, head and flywheel This is the rabbit hole I’ve been down to many times the minimum cost is £1000 if you then go with new cam kit and all the associated bits and pieces £2000

Tell me more about the 275bhp Pinto

The Essex Kit car club was formed out of the dying embers of Essex RHOCaR you are most welcome to join us for our Sunday breakfast meets last Sunday of the month. We have 40+ members and a huge variety of different kits and a very active events calendar. we could discuss some form of affiliation if Essex RHOCaR takes off but in the past not more than 5 turned up and we have 3 of them in the Essex Kit Car club. you can find us on Facebook or go through me as I am a founding committee member Paul

Cold is good for power, not so good for emissions. id be happy with that as it gives some headroom for spirited driving.

I followed Niduncan and used the original rear springs on Gaz shocks and 125lb on the front i took the wishbones off and drilled the top mount hole for the new metric bolt and also had to drill the bottom holes in the chassis. on the front I have only 3 clicks from minimum and get good suspension movement

Do you use the Mazda diff mounts? If so it could be the rubber mounts gone soft, replacing with new would reduce movements or polybush would reduce movement to very little

I have a friend/member of Essex Kit car club wanting to sell his S3a message me with contact details and I’ll pass them on

I and several others submitted their views and I got a reply...eventually, saying that the proposals had been dropped and that the U.K. government valued its creative small car builders meaning no real change for IVA. i am not aware of what happened about the resto mod proposals but assume the whole paper was dropped. im still fuming about the general lack of interest and the endless prevarication, one Facebook club site owner even said he did not care as his car had past IVA and was on the road. “I’m all right jack” syndrome. For me it was about the preservation of kit cars and specialist vehicles, manufacturers, suppliers and sheer joy of building and driving your own individual behicle.

First thing to check is if the throttle butterfly on the first choke opens fully when you put the accelerator pedal to the floor. The second choke won’t open unless there is enough vacuum.

Lighter

This months breakfast meet will be at a new location which has been recommended and tried. The Greedy Chef Cafe, Manor Koi Garden Centre Pound Lane Bowes Gifford SS13 2JS Pound Lane is off the west bound A127 ( from A1245/A130 Junction), just after Alton Garden Centre Aim to get there from 9:30am You can join us on any Last Sunday of the month to say hello this is tomorrow’s meet other meets you would need to check out the Essex Kit Car club Facebook page The Essex Kit car club was formed out of the dying embers of the Essex Robin Hood owners club, still has many new Robin Hood and Great British Sportscars in its membership and a lot of other Kit cars.

For IVA they require load spreading washers under the floor, this is worth doing if you don’t have a support member or equivalent under the mounting bolts

After rooting around the engine bay, the carbs are Keihin VP I’ve have literally just pulled a set of Keihin VP’s apart, needles are not adjustable so apart from jets, float level and the mixture screw there’s not a lot to change. keep us posted on how the fuel regulator works for you

Change or bypass the fuel filter. see if this has solved the problem. i have a Malpassi filter king fuel pressure regulator with built in filter set to 1.5 psi Bike carbs are usually gravity fed so don’t need much pressure. bike carbs have limited ways of tuning with out going to a rolling road however there are a few things you can do at home. bike carbs have an idle adjuster that props open the butterfly’s a tad, it’s usually a cable with a ½” thumb wheel and the cable goes to the throttle stop, you can turn this to set an idle speed when the engine is warm. Those carbs look like Mikuni’s and may have adjustable needles, you can access these by taking off the top plastic caps, remove long spring, pull out the slide be carful not to damage diaphragm, turn upside down and needle will fall out. If needle has 5 grooves in the top part, a circlip and a collar you can adjust the mid range fuel by shifting the clip position. Up = lean, down = richer. To set idle air/mixture there are screws at the back of the fuel bowl underneath the carb outlet these may be under an alloy plug which needs to be carefully drilled out to access and are a real pain to adjust. I suggest you leave these alone for now and get back to us if all other suggestions have failed. Ditto float levels which also affect fuelling. Do you run an air filter? If not you will be running lean and idle will be a problem.

My cousin has flexible long reach screwdrivers and I have used ¼” drive socket extenders with bit drive ends to good effect. I used gaffer tape to make sure the bits don’t drop off

I have added this link to a Locostbuilders thread that I had forgotten about, it shows the measured distance from block face to min and max dipstick levels http://www.locostbuilders.co.uk/viewthread.php?tid=142862

Be aware that some of the valves or flame traps are one way valves used between manifold and servo. i mistakenly added one before the vacuum line to the Megajolt and as vacuum increased it set the advance at 1 level and stayed there

Just a thought if all else fails swap front break pipes on the master cylinder, if the other side locks up it’s the master cylinder most master cylinders have two outlets for the front, 1 for the rear which goes to a T piece near the back

Gauges measure differential resistance, they usually only have 1 wire to the sender, if the sender wire is broken or the sender does not Earth through the block the gauge will read maximum. often to much PTFE will block the sender earth, I only wrap half of the thread in PTFE. If you have a T piece or double output adaptor that takes the sender and the warning light switch you’ll probably have PTFE on that as well. you could try a crocodile clip on the pressure sender body and earth that to check

I’m doing my brakes as we speak, found the left front also locks first but not by much. The master cylinder has 3 connections front left, front right and rear, once tyres and brakes are warm the front pulls up square I think the 1 wheel first thing is a Robin Hood trait. The rear drums are not worn much at all, this is normal for drum brakes on a light car and remember at IVA they check the tears don’t lock up first this balance is not easy to adjust but you don’t need more braking to the rear in normal driving

I stick the gasket to the maticulously cleaned sump gasket face with grey hyloma let that dry overnight then a thin smear on the exposed surface and present the sump to the block using the bolts to hold it gently in place, let it dry overnight then nip up to required ft/lbs one of the places the Pinto leaks from is the rear main bearing caps, I squirt Grey hyloma down the gap the sump triangle wedges go in before I push them in and smear the external joint face

I have he very same issue, I don’t like the idea of half a gallon (2.273045 litres) of Sikaflex self supported so am looking at a stainless steel blank for the outside and still thinking about the inside look, possibly an insert covered in dash material. There will be sikaflex involved (don’t sniff it, it’s really hard to get of your nose hairs) to seal the stainless blank from the inside.

If you have standard Pinto injection and Ford ecu and it’s all running well and you have a vernier cam I would suggest you have an FR34 injection cam which has the same valve overlap but more lift. a good simple way to get more out of an injection Pinto pull the rocker cover off and look st the back end of the cam, it will have letters and numbers stamped into the end which will tell you what cam you have. firring an aftermarket ecu will not make any noticeable difference and you would only need that if the cam was more aggressive and the engine not running well.