brumster

Dave Andrew's site has all the necessaries - I'm not going to put it in detail but basically... 1) Set ignition advance at base load sites to ~15 degrees (+/- 5) 2) Wind in all the balance screws on the bodies and set the left/right butterfly gaps by eye 3) Set up some basic, low fueling on those load sites 4) Crank, attempt to start, up fuelling as necessary until it runs 5) Get up to temp, re-adjust 6) Balance bodies with a synchrometer or "by hand" 7) Extrapolate the rest of the fuel maps and tune with a wide-band http://www.dvapower.com/ems in particular, this bit might help you the most.... http://www.s262612653.websitehome.co.uk/ems/#mapping There is a bit more to it than just the above, but I'm not going to just repeat what Dave's wrote

Cool, thanks guys. Probably a good point about the mild steel.

I've seen/read reports that wrapping like this fatigues the manifold earlier; anyone any experience around this? I'm talking purely of what I've read on t'internet (and I appreciate how dangerous that can be!). Personally, never bothered with wrapping myself, but appreciate it certainly gets warm under there

Take a communial bog roll too, just in case.... ;-)

Further to Steve's post, has your tank got a breather pipe on it? If not, that is bad. Assuming it has, it should have a one-way valve in it that allows air in freely, but not out (or, if it's a nice one like we use in motorsport, it allows pressure out once it reaches a certain pressure difference - more for safety really - and closes if inverted so fuel doesn't spill out everwhere!). If you have got a valve, check it's on the right way round (you can do this by simple blowing/sucking through it - but detach it first lest you want to be sucking in fuel vapour!). I'd consider a second high pressure fuel filter anyway, even though you've got one in the low pressure circuit. The low-pressure transparent ones are excellent to verify that you're getting fuel flow, and see the state of the filter/dirt presence.

Without knowing your car, I'd have to make some assumptions... 1) You've got a low pressure pump taking off the tank, through a filter, and filling a swirl pot (probably up front somewhere I'm guessing). There's a return line from the swirl pot back to the tank to dump back any excess fuel. 2) You've got a high pressure pump taking from the swirl pot, through another suitable high-pressure filter, to the fuel rail, via regulator then back to the swirl pot. Which pump is sounding laboured, I assume the high pressure one, which begs the question how has any dirt found it's way through the filter in the low pressure circuit. If the filters are the kind that can be disassembled, strip then down and check for dirt. Make note of positioning of filter when you take it apart, and ensure you put it back together and that you put the same fitting back onto the same hose (ie. don't turn it around in the process!). I'd have thought it would have to be some fairly major dirt buildup to make a pump sound so obviously laboured - it sounds more likely that maybe the regulator, filter or return back is in some way affected and the pump is having a hard time pushing against it - outside it's specification. Be careful not to run the pump hot, if it is being laboured, you could knacker it up - especially if it's actually running dry due to some serious blockage. If you can at least isolate which circuit the problem is in (low pressure or high pressure). If it has found it's way into the high pressure circuit past the filter, then realistically I'd want to be stripping down the fuel rail and checking the injectors - but focus on the state of the filter first, and let's take it from there.

Well that was a pleasant day congrats on booking the weather! Car of the Show for me (excluding the Hoodies) was the V12 Jag E-type, I think.

Do bike carbs cycle fuel around like an injection system, or are they essentially same as 'old skool' carbs - float bowls and all? Does it happen after a spirited session on your run; does it feel in any way heat related? If so, is it getting hot under there and you're suffering from fuel vaporisation and/or frothing if the bodies are mounted rigidly?

I'll aim to be there between 11am and 12 then; leave me a space

Ah yes, I think you may be right there, the 3A had a prominent tube under the front nosecone didn't it?

Had a good chat with GBS. Will pop up there some time with some dimensions and see if the K-Series will fit into the Zero and, if so, I think I'll transplant directly into a new Zero build and keep my current reg. Too much invested in the K conversion to really warrant going any other way - Zetec doesn't really warrant the effort and expense over the K (plus I'd forever be grumbling with myself about the iron block!), which means Duratec is the obvious route.... so that's my fallback (with a new reg), but it will end up costing a lot more... project for next year, or maybe the winter, we'll see how things go.... going to enjoy the Exmo for a while first now it's back on the road!

Check the VIN against the V5 too, of course (same with buying any car, but moreso on a kit as I've known misprints to cause troubles!)

The general perception of Q plates is that they are horrible, disease-infested vehicles that should only be approached with rubber gloves and a 10ft barge pole. Now being serious for a bit... I think there is a degree of snobbishness, particularly on cars that are trying to pretend to be something they're not (e.g. ferrari replica running around on a Q-plate just won't float with anyone, will it!). There is a possible argument that since the bits are sourced from all over the place and the car cannot be identified from a single donor, that this may leave the history of the vehicle (or it's constituent parts) in doubt. Some people may argue they can't put a private plate on it, I guess Otherwise, I think it's just that less desirable 'branding' that a Q-plate puts on a car.

This is all of 5 mins away so I shall endeavor to pop along, but cant stay all day unfortunately.

Errr.... date ? Scratch that - just seen it in the tag (odd place to put it!)... ok, my bad... Sunday 9th for anyone else who missed it! ie. this sunday

To just get the thing running won't need much by way of a base map; set the advance to around 10 degrees and then progressively up the fuelling until it fires. Set the butterflies by eye at first - close all the individual balance adjusters on each body (grub screws, probably, with a lock nut) and adjust up the grub screw on the connecting linkage so that the front bodies' throttles have the same amount of air gap as the back (it should be a gnats' nadger, nothing more). First job is then to balance the bodies. But it should run on idle without too much hassle. Never used MTech though, so can't help there! edit: I should have made it clear, this 10 degrees is only for the idling range, not the whole map! So around the 1000rpm mark and each load side either side of it, for the first few throttle position sites (assuming you're on a TPS). If you have no luck, try ranging it up to 20 degrees at the most. edit2: Missed your injector question Injectors have an upper flow rate at a given fuel pressure and duty cycle (how much they open within a period of time) which will suffice for a given power output. If your engine is standard, then going to higher-flowing injectors won't achieve much that the standard injectors cannot do themselves. So, in short, don't bother - if what you've got is good and known as working, stick with them. At most, if you suspect them, send them off to be cleaned.

Had a response from them - exactly as I suspected and not surprising. They assessed it, that's the fair value for a vehicle of this year, type and condition (without even seeing the *bleep*ing thing), and no further discussion entertained without an independent valuation. I'm not going to play their games any more. I'll consider myself robbed of £15 for sweet FA effort on their part, and ensure I send no more business their way. I'm not going to cut my nose off to spite my face and cancel my policy (although tempted) for this year - by next year I suspect I'll be building a Zero and I'll take up my policy with someone else. Hey ho - you live and learn. Just need to look after it, I guess! And all the business I put their way in the 90's.... <hurumph>

I'll just add into this for the record (apologies for the thread necro)... Insured with AF recently and when the application forms came through there was the agreed value stuff in there too if I wanted it or not. £15 cheque and they'd do an agreed value assessment. Since my Hood is a little unusual, and has had a few choice bits put into it over the last few years, I thought I'd give this a try for £15 as it seems worthwhile. The car receipts run to just over £10k since day one, so I figured valuing the car at £5k would be fairly reasonable (more from a perspective of total loss, really). I plumped for £6k, figuring they'd talk me down to the £5k I'd be happy with It came back at the usual, standard RH market value response of £3.5k I could break it tomorrow and get more in bits for it than that! Of course, the only approach they'll accept if you dispute it is for me to take it to an independant vehicle assessor (who's registered with some automotive engineer group) for a valuation - which looks very expensive to me as the only local one to me is TRW in Solihull! The flipside is, they were still the cheapest quote by a long shot (almost half) so it looks like, should it come to it, I'll just be arguing my case with receipts to prove, should the thing disappear of the face of the earth. But their agreed value policy? Don't waste your time and £15, there is nothing agreed about it - they enter no dialogue and simply take the standard market value (which is what the policy insures you for anyway).... so what is the point!?

There'd also be an assumption that nothing was worn bush-wise. Play in any component could cause this, of course. But, assumings it's all good as new (which I'd hope for only 200 miles) then check camber/tracking/pressures as above.

Question for you - I have an idea, not a new one I suspect, but wondering what the outcome would be. I have my Robin Hood Exmo, purchased as kit in 1996 and built/registered in 1997 from a single Sierra donor. It's all pre-SVA, so it kept the sierra plate, back in those lovely days when it was oh so simple. In 2000 the engine was swapped for a K-Series, and the V5 was updated legitimately to reflect this (correct engine number and capacity). Now I've recently invested a lot of money in getting it back on the road - gearbox rebuild, ECU, fuel pump, cabling, seats, switchgear, radiator, fan, coolant hoses, etc. so I'm considering building a Zero next year, but using this car as a donor... I'd never get back for it as a complete car what it is worth in donor parts for a new build. I'd be quite happy registering it on the C reg, to be honest (age-related), which I'm guessing is fully feasible as building a new Zero I am effectively keeping everything from the donor apart from the chassis, right? But I was just wondering, in order for a "new" registration, how "new" do the bits need to be? How is this defined in the regulations? I've got some Westfield seats, for example, bought in 2007 that have just been sitting around unused - still have the receipt. I have an ECU bought a couple of months ago... switchgear the same... How new does stuff have to be? If we accept I'd change the engine for one with a receipt, there's the matter of the gearbox and diff - would the receipts I have for BGH gearsets, bearings, seals, etc. be enough proof to make an inspector happy I have recon'd the gearbox to as-new myself, or do you pretty much have to have a receipt for a brand new gearbox from a mainstream manufacturer? I'm just wondering how much of a ball-ache it would be to go for a new plate, but quite happy to take the easy option of an age-related plate to be honest.

Indeed. Trust the mapper, do it how he recommends, then anything that doesn't work out is his fault

Hmmm, maybe you're right. Maybe I've got my wires crossed somewhere along the way it was a comment I vaguely remember during a chat with someone. <heads off to google, but can't find anything backing up the premise>... oh well... You don't need to use a MAP sensor, no. My competition car just runs a TPS but then that's been driven balls-to-the-wall everywhere so refinement at partial throttle openings isn't really top of my list . MAP's are bit awkward on ITBs, but I believe can deliver a more refined performance for 'road' cars. Never used that myself; always used just TPS.

Oh dear. Not the first time in the past few years I've heard this about automotive shows, either

Oh, by the way, the regulator compensation is not really for barometric pressure - it reduces the fuel pressure when you're idling, because the manifold vacuum is at it's highest and the vacuum within the throttle bodie can 'draw' more fuel out of the injector than at higher RPMs where the manifold pressure is less. By disconnecting, the pressure regulator will deliver a constant fuel pressure - higher at idle engine speeds than with the vacuum connected... but, as Nigel says, a decent map will compensate for this anyway. This is probably why everyone I've ever seen moving to throttle bodies has just left it blanked off - they've always had to go to a specific custom map anyway by way of the throttle body swap, so any differences due to fuel pressure have been catered for in the mapping session.

I think if you were that fussed you'd be better off setting up the ECU to compensate for baro but, if like you say, your ECU doesn't offer this option then you're a bit stuffed. I've heard of more hassle using the regulator compensation - contamination in the diaphragm/etc. Ah no, I see what you mean - no, not in the main run between the regulator and the bodies, but between bodies. Or just don't draw vacuum from multiple bodies - just take it from one, is the simple answer (but then I suspect the vacuum drawn may be less, so if the regulator was calibrated to a single plenum on all 4 cylinders, you could argue this would be equally pointless). I don't think it matters. Well, I've never done it, but applying some reasoning... If connected to just one body, the draw on atmospheric is being created by just two cylinders (presuming the take-off is into both tracts on a single body), drawing through 2 holes (with 2 throttle valves in them). So in 720 degrees of rotation the engine will 'suck' on that pair of ports twice (each cylinder will do it once). If connected to both bodies (all 4 inlet ports), in the same rotation you'd have twice as many cylinders drawing against the throttles, but you've got twice as many inlet ports and valves to draw through anyway - so I'm thinking the net vacuum will still be the same (provided one bank can't draw any air from the other, which I suspect would be negligible anyway). So I suspect blank off the one set of bodies and just draw vacuum from t'other. Mind you, whether the vacuum drawn on a pair of ITBs is calibrated the same as the single plenum that your regulator used to run with, I have no idea.