Big Rod

Veeeery nice car mate. I tried catching you but you went off towards Sunderland and I was heading back to Doxford Int'.

Won't be taking the Zed down there any more Bird, I've bought an XJR Jag.

Nice looking car. Take it you'd been to Crail. I beeped you but I was driving a VW Sharan. :(

I'm at edf. Where you?

Gotta go to work bud. I'll give you a shout the next time I'm down tho. Coupl'a weeks maybe.

That'll be mine then. o/ It's been there over the weekend as I've been working at Doxford Int' Park and staying there through the week but had to go south rather than home for the weekend and they kindly let me leave it there while I let the train take the strain (rather than drive down the M1 on a bank holiday weekend!) I'm in the beer garden looking at it as I type but will be driving home tomorrow. It's for sale in the appropriate forum if you were interested. ;)

Job lot of shoulder chips for JayC please! Jezzuz titty fvcking Christ on a bike!!

Can I add Sitech Racing in Rosyth? http://sitechracing.co.uk/ He mainly specialises in Mitsi' GTOs and had a few ridiculously powerful, (500+ BHP), Focus' in when I was there but he's got some oddball stuff in too and is happy spannering the Zed. He also has a dyno cell.

Definitely the way to go if you've an oddball clutch setup. My 'other' project needs an unusual clutch due to the rare gearbox/engine config' so might be giving those guys a look up when the time comes... (Which at the current rate would be in about ten years time!! )

Ha! Beat me to it!

Or stop racing. I'll admit, my Zed scares the sh!t out of me on damp/greasy roads. Proper wet or proper dry is no problem but anywhere inbetween's interesting. I got 'coffee beans' yesteday for actually managing to avoid sideswiping the guy next to me when I hit a greasy spot coming off a roundabout. I guess he thought I was 'showboating', I wasn't but my trousers will never be the same! I won't ever buy the tyres that are on mine again, They are awfull, (Conti Sports), I had Dunlops on before and they were incredible!

I'm not so sure the ECU on my '89 car has a learning capability to be honest. I don't know if it's different on younger specimens, but It's been steadfast in its predicability. I like being able to disengage the O/D to put weight on the front entering a corner and its ability to maintain a gear through a corner rather than shift up/down like many autos I've driven. I can only compare it directly to my other 'daily' which actually does have a learning ECU and it's noticeable too. It's tiptronic and initially I thought 'great' but then found I couldn't drive it like a manual and then found that at M/way cruising speeds it was up and down like a yo-yo in fully auto mode and not nice to drive at all. then I discovered that you actually need to drive it in tiptronic mode for it to learn your patterns so when I got on a motorway I stuck it in 5th with occassional downshifts to 4th to accelerate and it learned that way. Now it drives great. The Zed hasn't changed its shift pattern in all the time I've had it and that's included a number of ECU resets by way of failed/disconnected batteries. The same goes for the engine ECUs

REally? I find the Zed auto box is the polar opposite. It does exactly what I want it to, when I want it to but there is an element of pre-empting and anticipation which is no bad thing in my book. I guess you just need to get into the style of driving. To be fair, the auto boxes on my other two cars drive differently again. I do have trouble remembering which one I can get away with 'stuff' in, but that's as much to do with cornering abilities too!! LOL

Basically, rather than the compression guage we all know and love, this doohicky screws into the plugway and pumps air into the combustion chamber when the piston's at the top of the compression stroke, (all valves shut). Then a gauge measures the loss of pressure, 'leakdown'. It wasn't for performance diagnosis, I wanted him to check for blown CHGs.

It was a leakdown test he did and the figures are.... 1,2,4 & 6 have 1% leakdown 5 has a 5% leakdown and 3 has 7%. He reckonned they were excellent results.