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Is the mounting tight? When I fitted my original Exhaust manifold it blew between the head and the manifold face. A bit of head scratching and I realised that the new fabricated manifold was thinner than the cast iron original and the nuts were bottoming out on the studs just before everything was tight. Some washers under the nuts sorted this.

Fitted LED bulbs to rear lights. very little light backwards as the lights I had pointed the bulbs sideways and the LEDs sent the light sideways. lesson learned back to tungsten.

one other thing to consider is that a lot of older electric motors overheat on variable frequancy drives (VFD) not normally a problem for intermittant opperation but if used for long periods can result in burnt out motor. If this a problem fit one or more overheat switches to the motor, one set to 50to60C range to give warning and one set to70C to stop everything.

I have never seen the starter run through an amp meter. The cables required would be long and costly.

Most engines flow is the most important but not personally much experiance with the cologne engine

My experiance is that there is very little extra restriction is a propper oil cooler and take off plate so no pressure drop there. As the oil is now cooler it is thicker so the pressure does not drop as much at tickover with a hot engine.

I use a volt meter. Does the same thing and a lot easier to wire. Not a lot of electrical load on our cars, Headlights 10A, Radiator fan 10A, Position lights 2A. So max continuous load under 30A so 30-0-30 is what I would use.

Looking at the pics your car is one of the early narrow bodied sierra based cars. Clue is the cones just in front of the rear wings that cover the ends of the sierra rear sub frame. I think therefore that you have a sierra based S7 model produced aprox late 93 to early 96. Wheels not central to wheel arch is normal as these cars were produced down to a budget and corners were cut.

Be aware that the rear wings were not always made the same. Cheep production encouraged the sub contarctor that made the fiberglass parts to pull them from mold before they were fully set. They then slumped a bit. It might be just that the wings are not symetrical. Also on mono cars the car was deliberatly built a bit offset so that there was more foot room in the right hand tunnel (good for foot to pedle control), this went through to the rear subframe mounting which was offset.

with a supressor capacitor on the outside it looks to be points based. so no need for motorcraft unit

There are 2 or 3 wires to the distributer earth (brown) not always fitted at distribter end. Signal 1 green/yellow Signal 2 black/red coil - and tacho green coil + Switched 12V Black Earth Brown note there are 2 earth connections

little black box with 5 to 6 wires is probably the electronics for the distributor.

My view is that as long as the oil does not overheat then amount only matters for how long between oil changes. If you go 6000 miles between changes with 3.5 ltrs then you go 4200 miles between changes with 2.5 ltrs. (4200 is approx (2.5/3.5)*6000).

If it is like the one I did on my exmo. Only the inner needs shortening as the outer length is set by the subframe which is as used in the sierra. I fitted the cable with the nylon adjuster in a position where I had lots of adjustment both ways. Fitted the cable to one side brake and the handbrake. Pulled the inner through the other side brake and then cut with about 1 inch for me to swage on a nipple. Fitted the cable and used the nylon adjuster as intended to give about 4 clicks on the handbrake to operate.

Is it just me or is that dropbox page mainly blank?

17155 after I signed

Wrong there are 2 times a pinto does not leak oil. First is when brand new before the oil goes in, the second MM has correct

I have run without a thermostat after boiling over in an other car (thermostat stuck closed on a sunday 20+ years ago). Even on the hotest summer day towing a caravan the engine did not get to temperature.

Yes 65K took some time but the miles are coming slower these days so you could overtake yet.

I run the cable straight out of the gearbox through the tunnel side. I have a false floor in the drivers side and run the cable under this and up the side of the car with gradual turns all the way to the speedo. Lasted 65000 miles so far.

You need a demist system to pass IVA. It can be electrical heated screen or air blow.

Sender earths through its body to the engine block. PTFE tape stops that so a wire round the body of the sender and connected to any convienient earth point keeps things working.

What percent of the time are you actually at idle. For me sitting at trafic lights is the main time at idle and is a small percent. At cruise the engine is running at 1500RPM to 3000RPM. Spirited driving 4000RPM plus. This should be charging with some to spare, alternators are normally voltage regulated Speeding up the alternator when it thinks that it is at 13.6 to 14 volts will just cause it to limit. The working regulator has a referance of the alternator body so charging volts should be measured from the alternator output terminal to the alternator body. If the volts are good here then check every joint in the charging circuit remembering the earth return.

My car runs its electrics happily on a 40A alternator. ECU is only a couple of amps. Big loads are headlights (2 x 5A), Radiator fan (8A), ECU (less than 5A) everything else is less than 5A. Starter is biggest load but only for a few seconds and the alternator will not have kicked in then. So 40A is more than needed.

I use the same size as for the power to the starter. I do not remember the exact size but around 8mm diameter probably 50mm2 I run seperate cables battery to engine and battery to chasies.