steve in stockport

Sounds like you have either a blocked jet or the float valve is stuck shut in that carb, possibly an air leak between the carb and the engine could also be the culprit.

Fuel pump sold

Header tanks sold

Time to clear out a few of the unused parts cluttering up the garage, so here we have : a pair of sierra pinto alloy engine mount arms £5.00 a Rover 25 header tank, complete with full mounting bracket, needs a cap which is less than a fiver from a motor factors £5.00 Bosch high pressure fuel injection fuel pump, came from a 2.0 16v Calibra, part number 0 580 464 008. 12mm inlet, 8mm outlet and with wiring tails. £5.00 Set of four Bosch grey/black fuel injectors with clips, as fitted to 200bhp Astra GSI £5.00 All are plus postage, or collection from Stockport it you're up this way. PM me or ring/text 07944 615999

Saturday only for me Jase, but put me down for camping as I'll stay over Friday night before the show. F326PNC

No, this stuff

It comes in a pressurised cannister with a nozzle, just apply a bead to all the mating faces and make the joints as usual. If you're using the baffle plate with the rubber seal you don't use any sealant. Thread lock on the sump bolts is the important bit with the vauxhall engines

ebay

With the XE I used double cork gaskets and baffle plate with Wynns black gasket maker on every surface. Plus thread lock on the bolts as they work loose due to the low torque setting. That seemed to work quite well if it was done with the engine out and upside down on a stand and left for 24 hours to cure. On the Z20LET I've fully baffled the sump, ditched the baffle plate and use one cork gasket with Wynns, shorter bolts and thread lock done on the stand and that's oil tight.

looks like there is a ford logo on there, so suspect they are from a Ka similar to the ones Bob and Mo are running on Florin

In traffic in the 2B this morning and I pulled up alongside the rear end of a cattle truck . Luckily I'd left a gap to the car in front because a couple of seconds later a stream of cow pee came out of the side of the truck splashing down into the gap I'd left. I know it's warm today, but that wouldn't be my first choice for ways to cool down!

No idea Dave, one of the numbers in there will relate to the length so you can either cut it and measure the length or measure the uncut belt pulled tight and double that for the full length. Then it's of to a motor factors because halfords don't do them any more apparently

no problem Darren, you bring it and we'll build it

Been at work all day and just catching up on D Day 70 on TV at the moment, just watching all the proceedings brings a tear to the eye and a lump, heroes every single one of them.

good result for both of you, hopefully you'll be able to get out and about once the weather bucks up a bit

No need to worry Stephen, he certainly knows his way around an engine. It's just the vagueries of Emerald that seem unnecessarilly complicated compared to other systems. First week in October is the plan for Millau

I know, if we'd have pushed the boost to a full bar it might have seen 300, but I just wanted it so all the pistons stay in one piece and to be honest 300 never even crossed my mind

It's a completely different car now Tim, still really driveable round town, but put your foot down and it flys. Next step is a wideband lambda to monitor the AFR's

After having a few dramas with my turbo engine, two melted pistons, a rebore and finally a complete new bottom end in April I decided the sensible thing to do would be to book it in for a dyno session with someone who could actually tune turbo engined cars. Ben Copeland (locostbuilders and RHOCaR) recommended Dale at Bailey Performance, so I got the car booked in for a session yesterday. Dale will do a full eight hour day on your car for £250, starting at 10am and going through til 6pm, or as in my case yesterday 6.30pm. I arrived just before 10am and it was straight into the workshop with the car. Once the Emerald software was installed on a laptop it was time to connect it up to the ECU and for Dale to take a look at the map that the car was running.The map was set up for throttle position, which is fine for carbs and injection but for a turbo engine it needed setting up to read MAP. This was where we started to realise how user unfriendly the Emerald software is. A slow plod through the 65 page manual and no hint of how to change the settings from TPS to MAP. Luckily pressing and clicking in a few places on the screen gave us the answer. Trying to reset values in the tables was less than simple too, every change needed the map reprogramming to the ECU, it was going to be a long day for Dale, but after a couple of hours he had definitely got to grips with the Emerald system. A first run on the rollers showed the car was running all over the place, so a load of changes were made to try and get the map somewhere near to being usable. This was another test for Dale as a one unit alteration in a load site on the fuel table would send the AFR from very rich to very lean. Cue lots of changes to MAP compensation tables, injector scaling and signal smoothing to make the changes to the various tables work. Once the map was sorted it was time for the power runs, first run saw 233bhp at around 8lbs of boost. 'How high do you want to go?' asked Dale. ' Give me a safe 250 and keep all the pistons in the engine and I'll be happy' so a bit of adjustment on the actuator and it was time for another run, only this time boost was lost early and power was down. Another adjustment on the actuator and fitting a bleed off from the actuator allowed the engine to hold boost for longer on the next run and produced 272.2bhp, but there was a little dip in the graph just before max power. A couple of small changes to the ignition map and a final run saw the figures rise to 278.4bhp and 295.5lb/ft of torque at 13lbs of boost. Next job was to set the cruising fuelling so there is still some economy in there for long distance driving. Last job of the day was the road test and OMG, the turbo starts spooling from 1800rpm and the car was so much more responsive than it had been. The damp roads near Dale's place proved to be a bit challenging, but the drive home was absolutely brilliant once I got a bit further north and out of the drizzle and could actually try to put the power down. So if you want your motor sorting by someone who will dedicate a whole day to it, go over and above to get things right and all at a decent price then get in touch with Dale at Bailey Performance in Telford.

two points: VFL101 is possibly a genuine Vauxhall filter and the bottom hose that you say is a breather and runs all the way through to the engine bay was probably a fuel return from way back when your car had a different engine in, as I'd bet it wasn't originally built with the red top. Put a bolt in it and fit a jubilee clip and problem solved.

First breakdown was failed alternator on the M60 coming home from Blackpool lights run, the next one i thought the fuel pump had failed but after I'd called for recovery I realised I'd run out of fuel, came home on the truck with flashing lights both times. This time last year it was a melted piston and recovery from Wales, earlier this year was another piston only 4 miles from home so I drove it back on 3 cylinders and then a few weeks ago the oil pressure relief valve stuck so I had no oil pressure, on to the truck with the flashing lights again! Not too bad for nearly nine years and 35k miles. I just think if it breaks get it home, get it fixed and get back out.

Yes, nice to put faces to names, hopefully will see you again tomorrow

Pass arrived today, cheers Jase. weather looks ok to good from now on at Tatton, with a chance of rain at the very end on Sunday, just hope the ground stays good as it's lashed it down in the past few days.

also have a good look around the engine bay, especially in the corners near the bulkhead for signs of cracking or tearing. If it's had a hard life on track it may well be starting to crack , again another well known problem and easily mendable with a bit of welding and reinforcing

it's showing up on an RAC vehicle check as Robin Hood 57, so pretty much correctly registered other than some muppet at the DVLA mistaking and S for a 5. Also showing as a 1600 so the engine change hasn't been updated with DVLA, but that's nothing that some photos, a letter and a couple of recent receipts from microsoft office can't fix.