brumster

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.

I don't have specific experience with the bike bodies/regulators. But, on bodies like Jenveys and typical malpassi-style fuel pressure regulators, I know most people don't bother, just blocking it off with some bent hose. If you do connect to multiple bodies, make sure you put non-return valves in as I believe the pressure will be positive and negative on different bodies at different stages in the engine cycle, causing issues with balance and not accurately operating the regulator diaphragm. But, as said, I believe the effect of air pressure on the fuel regulator is negligible in places like the UK... maybe someone with precise experience of these bodies can comment.

That's interesting - my type 9 is on the left hand side of the casing!?

I run a Fuchs GearSyn 75w90 semi-synthetic and, on my freshly built box, it feels very good. I hear cheap Comma or OE Ford oils are also a safe bet. Main thing is apparently to stear clear of thicker GL5 oils (despite what the Haynes manual says), EP80/EP90 stuff. It's a good point about the clutch cable - on the old Pinto, I had the same problem, the exhaust had fried the outer clutch cable and must have done a similar thing to all the lubrication or nylon sleeving inside. I've lagged it with heat reflective material now (not that the new engine exhausts on that side anyway).

It certainly sounds like the clutch is dragging; you could verify this by jacking up the rear wheels and putting it on stands, and seeing how much drive you're getting to the back end (a little drag is normal, mind). Otherwise could it be wrong type of gearbox oil; I hear type 9's are a bit fussy... ...but I would suspect the clutch first. Maybe a temporary measure of locking out the adjuster somehow so you can test the theory.

The short answer is, it depends on the map. I run 4 bar on another car that has been mapped to that pressure - but whether it's standard for a zetec (and whatever management you're running), I honestly don't know. Certainly 4 bar isn't a problem, per se. Is the regulator standard - I'm not au fait with Zetecs; is it part of the rail? edit: ^^ beat me to it; if the standard pressure is 2.5 or 3bar, then you're fuelling will be off (on the rich side) assuming the ECU map is for the lower pressure.

I assume this is no longer available from Ford? In which case, as a fallback if you can't source one second hand, Speedy Cables are not massively expensive and should be able to turn one around in a week or two to any spec you like...

I'd go for the intertia switch - you should be able to pick on up off any Rover K-Series powered car (Metro for example), they sat in the engine bay and are a little rubber-topped button to reset. In fact, I might have one kicking about if you want it - drop me a PM and I'll stick it in the post for you for the price of a beer and the postage... Any heavy impact trips the switch; if you wire it into the fuel pump relay (don't run the fuel pump current directly through it), bob is your mother's brother.