IanS

With 2 cams changeing the overlap can move the max torque point up and down the rev range. If you only have one cam then changeing the overlap is a bit harder. What you gain at the inlet you tend to loose at the exhaust. The cam manufacturer will have set up the overlap for a suitable max torque at about 1/2 to 2/3 the expected engine peak rev point, buggering round with the timing then tends to loose power at one end or the other without getting much extra at the gaining end of the power curve.

2 litre pinto is a bit heavier than the 1.6 pinto. Not a lot though. The extra power does make a diference and with the fine aerodynamics that these cars are reknown for the 2 litre adds a bit to the terminal velocity..err top speed is what I ment. Ian

Ally goes dull faster than you can polish it. Laquering does not last. Anodising on the other hand works well, its just very hard to find anyone with an adequate sized tank. Stronger... without knowing a bit more like how thick each is well guess away. My view is if going for a lightweight then weight is the only criterion. Ian

Things like the chokes put back the right way round or not forgotten altogether come to mind after playing with the carb.

I have used an old SU pump to prime the system on a previous car that had similar problems. Put a T in the line to the mechanical pump and a T in the line from the pump to the carbs. and connect the SU pump (from a morris 1000 in a scrap yard) in parrallel. The electric pump switches on with the ignition and primes the system, mechanical pump tends to give a higher pressure and holds the electric pump off in normal running. The mechanical pumps are a bit more reliable than the SU pumps which is why I used both. Ian

I have used both hammerite and POR15. Hammerite is ok on something very solid otherwise I found it to chip easily and crack. POR15 is better but still not chip proof. I normally use stonechip paint where it is out of sight. This will take a lot more abuse than either of the above but normally only comes in matt black and as it stays slightly flexible most hardening paints crack if painted over it.

What are you doing for a dip switch? If you trust yourself to never leave the lights on with the engine stopped then taking a wire straight from the battery to the light switch will work, there are rocker light switches from several sources. These are 2 position with a live in and a sidelight and a headlight output. The headlight output goes to the dip switch which is just a 2 position changeover switch. A flasher switch would normally come from the ignition switch so you can only flash when the engine is switched on. Techincally you should have a fuse for each side of the car for the sidelights (2 fuses). The rear number plate light can go to either side and the instrument lights go to the other side. It is normal these days to have a fuse for each main beam and each dip beam (4 fuses). Simple?? Ian

Just out of curiosity. When did anyone start thinking that there is a De-dion tube on any sierra? A De-dion rear suspension was fitted to the rover P6 and the IRS caterhams but I have yet to come across a ford with one. The sierra has semi trailing arms fitted to a tubular subframe. De-dion has an unsprung tube bolted between the wheels forceing the wheels to stay at a fixed camber through any suspension movement.

Looking at the picture the track rod appeared to be at a large angle to the wishbones. This makes me thing that the rack is mounted too high. Do you get much bump steer or has this been setup since the picture?

Petrol gradualy softens sikaflex. Takes a couple of months though

The thing to remember is that the vacume advance is there for economy. It comes into its own at part throttle. Tapping into just one cylinder, especially with a large overlap cam, gives a lot of presure pulses to the diaphragm on the distributor and so the advance does very little except cause the diaphragm to flutter. Trying to connect all 4 together helps a bit but you do not get the full vacume so you only get a small improvement in mpg. Expect 20mpg with no vacume and posibly 25 - 27 with all 4 connected.

First plate with copper. Brass is an alloy and it is nearly imposible to plate an alloy onto anything. Copper can be plated onto just about anything which makes it a very usefull interlayer.

I have run an 83 pinto on unleaded for about 20K miles without any trouble. This engine is suposedly leaded only. Ian

If you raised the engine in the car did you allow the air to get out of the top of the cooling system?? It normally gets out of the head to the top of the radiator which should be higher than the cylinder head, an expansion tank if fitted then comes from the top of the rad.

My reading is that the screen demister must work. If it works all the time OK If not just like a normal car you must be able to easily switch it on. go flame me for getting it wrong. Ian

The ECU relearns the value of the pot at closed and fully open throtle. It also attempts to learn the cold and warm coolent settings. If it cocks these up it is probably due to restarting the car with your foot on the acelerator or with a warm engine. Starting with your foot on the acelerator will confuse the ECU, it will eventually figure out the temp problems. ian

I fitted a simple baffle to my tank. It is made from a folded piece of stainless that goes from the back of the tank to forward of the pickup then goes to 1/2 inch from the left hand end. it is 3 inches high and has folded edges to give a larger area to attach to the tank wall and bottom. I attached it with araldite as this is petrol resistant (most glues are not). My pickup is near the left hand end of the tank. When the tank is nearly full the baffle has little effect but when it nearly empty it traps a small amount of petrol when I turn hard left, when I turn hard right (or straighten up) it allows the petrol to feed normally Ian

I replaced the sierra instruments in my exmo about 18 months ago. I got a set of smiths instruments from a triumph dolomite in a scrap yard. These cost £15. But Speedy cables charge £30 for a new speedo cable. The speedo calibration was the same. I used the original fuel sensor with the smiths guage, it is not linear but to my mind it works the right way round reading above the 3/4 mark when the tank is over half full and then going fairly rapidly down untill the engine stops about 20 miles after the guage needle hits the empty mark. I had to make up a new dash face as I wanted the tacho and speedo in front of the driver not in the middle of the dash, I made this from a 4 foot by 1 foot sheet of aluminum (with the top corners rounded off to fit) and cut holes to suit the instruments then used this as a template to cut holes in the existing dash. I made an instrument wireing loom to suit the instruments and added an old smiths instrument voltage regulator for the fuel and temp guages. The wireing was then just tapped into the connector for the sierra instruments.

The North Midlands, Staffordshire, South Cheshire & Shropshire area does not at present have an area secretary but some of us still meet on the first Wednesday of every month at 8pm at the George & Dragon pub on the A34 near Stone. Just because our area secretary has resigned we have not stopped meeting. Ian Sumner 01925 601434

The url was almost right http://www.chris-longhurst.com/carbibles/index.html

Just a thought but there are 2 starter rings fitted to pintos. I have forgotten the diference but the effect is as you describe. Most pintos have the standard ring but some transits were fitted with a ring gear with a diferent number of teeth per inch, these required a special gear on the starter. Sorry I do not know the measurements but perhaps someone will have thier memory jogged by this. Ian

Sierras were never fitted with balast resistors. You only should have a balast with points ignition. With points type ignition you could cook the coil if the ignition was left on the points were closed and the engine stopped. You will get some signal from both ends of the coil because the current rise time is fairly fast when the plug sparks. For the technical there is inductance due to the length of the wires from the battery throught the ignition switch to the coil so the high frequency part of the signal will get through from the battery side of the coil, but there will be a bigger signal for the tacho from the switching side of the coil.

You probabaly have a 50 amp alternator so the guage might spend some time at full scale. That said I have never seen a small car battery that will take 50 amps at 14 Volts. Right on to the nitty gritty. Your donor had 2 wires to the + of the battery, a thick one that only goes to the starter (leave this alone) and a thiner one that takes all the other current. Lift the second wire from the batery and extend it with 3.5mm dia wire (10sqmm) or thicker to the - terminal of the meter. Now useing the same size wire conect the + terminal of the meter to the + of the batery. Make sure that all joins cannot short to the body. Job done. If the meter reads + when the engine is stopped and the lights switched on just reverse the connections to the meter. Light(s) in the meter have one lead to earth and one to the feed for all the other instrument lights. Ian

I worked with electronics for 30 years some parts dont change and feel like they have been round since the arc was built.

The regulator is a standard electronics 78 series voltage reg at if I remember 10Volts. It is in a TO220 package and is a 7810 available from RS and posibly CPC