stricker

I had one running 380 bhp... Prodrive upgraded brakes and wheels... Engine rebuild had been done as the oil pump hadn't been changed on import... Interior was horrid, gear ratios were far to close, it made any journey over 30 miles or on any motorways a real chore... I wouldn't have one again... If you're going to buy a scoob buy a late model STI i.e. after 2003, the rest are best steered clear of imho.... Oh... and I had to replace every piece of rubber hose and such under the bonnet which is right PITA! Awful!

Sorry to hear this mate... time to start removing limbs if you find out who did it!!!!

Age: 32, No Claims: full, License: Clean, car: 91 JDM TT (Highly modded) Parking: Road (which makes me angry) Insurance: £920 all mods declared company: Michael Stephens

Happy birthday Mikey!

Hi mate, the ls3's are nice speakers mate... we had them in the studios at the previous place I worked... Look after the quad amp... they're difficult to get hold of and the only amp really capable of driving those speaker properly...although be warned they're a bit thirsty... IIRC they're current dumping amps... meaning they drawing their maximum current all of the time and 'dump' what they don't need!!!! I've got a set of Tannoy Monitor Gold dual concentrics which are lovely... they're augmented with a REL Sub... I'm using a Rotel pre-amp and 2 Harmon Kardon amps in bridge mode of the Tannoys. If you want a really good studio toy look at http://www.tcelectronic.com/dbmax.asp . This is an awsome piece of kit... though a little costly.... anyhow, have fun!!! Paul

Hi Mate, I'm a broadcast engineer so I can tell you exactly why it does and how... Firstly the commercial production companies want to make the biggest impact they can with the commercial so they make the Advert 'loud' they do this by using compression which makes audio sound louder by reducing the dynamic range (how much space audio takes up in the available audio power range) normally the dynamic range is between -18dbfs and -10dbfs... (this explained later) however production companies reduce the range to approx -12 to -10 in essence moving all of the audio into the top of the dynamic range. Now I will point out that as an engineer my job is to try and counteract this... I have a number of weapons and the one of choice is currently the Junger B42 compressor limiter... now we use an audio measurement range called dbfs where the reference level is -18 or in the world of measurement tools we use ppm. OFCOM recently released a set of rules that means broadcasters are responsible for what you hear at home (despite the fact that it's purposefully mixed that way and this should be the production companies problem) basically we can use a loudness scale, different to DBFS, or we have to reduce the maxmimum power output for commercials to -18DBFS or 4 PPM so the viewer doesn't hear a noticable change in program volume... which is what the junger kit does... Now the upshot of all of this is that if you notice that a particular channel is loud during adverts you can complain to OFCOM as all broadcasters have a responsibility to make sure that you do-not get 'hit' by volume during commercial breaks... So that's Why, how and what it means... sorry for going on but I've put alot of work into trying to prevent this happening for the company I work for... so hopefully it's not one of their channels!!!! Paul

Hi mate, Just a word on the Impreza... I had a Type RA, similar sort of age to the one on Ebay... They're not the best cars for day to day driving tbh... 0-60 was quick but topped out well below 130, the box ratios are so close that when cruising at 80 you're doing 4-4.5k revs and that can get pretty tiring after a while... Also if it's an import it needs to have had the oil pump upgraded otherwise you're looking at engine rebuild as the plunger on the jap item cannot keep up with the revs on a de-restricted car... anyhow just thought I'd mention it as it's a car I actually know a litlle about lol. Paul

Yep, you did tell me so; cheers Jeff:duffer:!!!! It has still failed its balance test though :mad:... The conclusion is that it must be fueling... noid light was used etc. adding 7% fueling on conzult (?) at idle clears the misfire at idle and the car drives perfectly so the problem seems only to manifest it's self at idle!!! Does anyone know if the Nismo 555 is a single point or multi point injector? Going to run some injector cleaner through it (as suggested by jeff previously) and see if that clears it otherwise it's an adjustable FPR and then if that doesn't clear it plenum off and new injector! will keep you all posted Paul!

Cheers chaps!!!!

Yeah... It's a big relief... Fingers crossed it's fixed!!! Still waiting to see if it passes the balance test but at least I know the base engine is sound!

Fair enough bud.. Good luck with whatever you get next!

Cheers guys! :duffer:

Well... Just Spoke to Mike at MJP about my car and the fact it failed the balance test and the results are......... It's not a compression issue, all cylinders are between 175&168 PSI so fairly healthy!!!!! What was found is that where the Coil Pack connects to the plug was rusty so it may have been arcing out... apparently it sounds much better (no missing at tickover now) and a conzult is going to be run on it soon so as to prove it.... I am over the moon!!!!!!! :hyper::hyper::hyper:

Cheers guys... appreciate it... I am expecting the worsed though... It can't be broken as it's a 7K car so I might have to look into storing it for a while if it needs a rebuild... I'll be gutted though as I really wanted it for the summer!!!!! Have you decided what to do with yours yet StellaZ? personally with the amount of work you've put in to it I'd get a decent engine build and create a monster... but that's me and I'm not the most sensible person when it comes to cars!!! Good luck with whatever you decide!

Well, as some of you gus know my car failed the Conzult balance test a couple of weeks ago... It has gone up to MR. F's today to be looked at and so far it's not looking good... Coil Pack swapped - No Difference... Fails the test hot or cold! The gut feeling is that it's an internal issue (sticking valve or worse) and I'm waiting on the results of a compression test tomorrow morning, as you can imagine I'm panicing a little now IF it is internal I'm not sure what to do, I spent £7K on the car from a member on here (not that I blame him) and it only had a rebuild 3000k miles ago. I can't really afford a rebuild after paying out so much for the car....

hmmmmm... had another thought... your house looked fairly new(10 years old or so), have you got a passive splitter in the roof space or more than one aerial socket in the house i.e. one in the living room, master bedroom and kitchen?

OK... Just checked, you should be able to get Freeview in your area but official switchover is 2012 and your transmitter is Bluebell hill, meridian... So probably just an aerial change.

Hi Si, You'll need a different aerial probably, what's happening is that the area your in will be running at 50% power for the digital signal until they turn off analogue it may not even be coming off the same Transmitter as the analogue. What's you postcode? Now... it could be your box at fault... If you buy another get a Humax or Philips. On the Aerial front you can get them from B&Q for approx £40 if in doubt get one with a mast head amplifier, or nip to maplins and get a signal tester and that should tell you what's what... The option I'd choose though is Free Sat as they have HD Channels and are expanding... Anyhow if you've got any other questions drop me a PM Cheers Paul

Cheers mate... I shall go and look that book up now!

Fantastic Info Guys!!!! I thought it might be the Brand Snobbery coming out but just wondered if there was something else. Thanks again Guys!!!!! :bow::bow::duffer: :duffer:

Hi guys, I've been looking into getting a DSLR for a little while now, most of my frieds have Canon DSLR namely the 450D and 400D. I'm not a massively keen photographer but would like to be able to take some better pictures than I am able with the Canon Ixus that I have... Now the thing is that for the amount I'd use it the Canon is a little expensive at aroung £500. I've been doing some research and found that the Sony A200 is quite highly regarded and at £300 quite a good price. Thing is my mates with the Canons immediately jumped on their High horse about Sony not making 'Proper Cameras'. I know that Sony bought Konica Minolta in 2006 so I feel that this is unfair, they do have a point though when it comes to Lens selection. So has anyone got any experience with the Sony Camera and what are your thoughts on them? Thanks in advance for any advice you can give and sorry for the long post!!!! :bow::duffer: Regards Paul

Well it sounds positive mate, hope it is a lifter... Fingers crossed for you... Good luck mate.

Hi mate, They won't be able to replace the lifter... it's a plenum off and then remove the Rocker covers etc... It might clear if you have an engine flush but I'd get it to a Garage and have them look at it. Paul

I'm guessing you know better than me but this is a zed so I'll go out on a limb and say, ummmm, NO!!!!! LOL.

This is lifted from wikipedia... A hydraulic lifter, also known as a hydraulic tappet or a hydraulic lash adjuster, is a device for maintaining zero valve clearance in an internal combustion engine. The conventional means of adjusting valve actuation always requires a small clearance to be left between the valve and its rocker or cam follower to allow for thermal expansion and wear. The hydraulic lifter was designed to ensure that the valve train always operates with zero clearance, leading to quieter operation and eliminating the need for periodic adjustment of valve clearance. The hydraulic lifter consists of a hollow expanding piston situated between the camshaft and valve. It is operated either by a rocker mechanism, or in the case of one or more overhead camshafts , directly by the camshaft. The lifter is filled with engine oil intermittently from an oil galley via a small drilling. When the engine valve is closed, the lifter is free to fill with oil. When the valve is opening and the lifter is being operated by the camshaft, the oil feed is blocked and the lifter acts just as a solid one would, oil being incompressible. There are a number of potential problems with hydraulic lifters. Frequently, the valvetrain will rattle loudly on startup due to oil draining from the lifters when the vehicle is parked. This is not considered significant provided the noise disappears within a couple of minutes, typically it usually only lasts a second or two. A rattle that does not go away can indicate a blocked oil feed or that one or more of the lifters has collapsed due to wear and is no longer opening its valve fully. The affected lifter should be replaced in the latter situation. Anyhow hth....