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.

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/automatic-transmission.htm Google is your friend... HTH

At the risk of sounding negative, if you're worried about MPG you're looking at the wrong car. At best you'll get 30 MPG if you're kind to it but they're not cars that you'll be inclined to be kind to. Mine is an auto', (as have most of my cars over the past few years by choice rather than necessity), and I have to say that the Zed's autobox and management is the best I've ever driven. The overdrive on auto boxes is different to the overdrive on manual ones. Basically what it does is gives you much longer legs. On a manual, there's an extra gearbox added to the final drive which has 'planetoid', (google it), gears in it which dramatically increases the final drive ratio giving more comfortable cruising and, (hypothetically), better MPG. Automatic gearboxes have an interesting 'by product' in that they, by the nature of how they work, have an extra high gear available. As the next paragraph will elude to, not every car/manufacturer made use of this... BUT! That higher gear needs a lot of horse power to make it effective. For instance, the Lotus Carlton was one of the first production cars, (in the UK at least!), to have six gears. GREAT! Except that to use it you had to be doing over 120 MPH to have the engine operating in an appropriate 'power band'. So to sum up, it's there naturally but because of the lack of power in 'normal', 'lazy' shopping trolleys it's never used. Automatic gearboxes, (IMO), are far superior to the manual option. Hell, top fuel dragsters use autoboxes. They shift faster and if you know how to drive the things they're just as entertaining and when you're my size, (6'4"), getting your knee between the steering wheel and the gearstick becomes a bit of an issue! The downside is that Autos cost a lot to fix BUT there're plenty of breakers out there. Disclaimer! All of the above was posted 'in my opinion'.

Screw it! Whatever it pumps out it's a veritable handful compared to the slightly less powered, (220BHP allegedly!), Pajero I've been driving for the past eight weeks! Gonna have to be nice with the throttle for a bit I think. What's the betting it snows tomorrow as I left the Paj' with the garage to sort a couple of things?

I just thought it'd develop a bit more having been slightly tweaked was all.

He did, but I can't remember what the figures were off the top of my head. I'll post them up when I get the report.

Had a compression test done while it was in and the guy said that considering the engine is 23 odd years old, the compression is surprisingly good which is why I was surprised by the lack of gee-gees.

The dyno' showed 240 RWBHP which he did a bit of 'man maths' on and came up with 280 FWBHP. He reckoned because it was an auto the computer couldn't adequately compensate fro the transmission losses. But you're right though, the car does go well, and I doubt I'll be doing anything drastic with it performance wise so I'll let it be. Thanks Groover, that's kind'a what I expected.

Thanks for the reply Dill... It's an auto but he says it's the seal at the front of the crank that's leaking. What are the ramifications on that? I'm a bit disappointed with the BHP result as it's got a decatted straight through exhaust, freeflow conical aircleaner and a MINES chip. Had expected a bit more than the 280 he estimated. I was expecting somewhere around 350. Other than the oil leak, the engine's got a clean bill of health too as he's done compression checks and everything and he reckonned it was as sweet as a nut.

I've just had the car in to a 'specialist to have a few bits looked over. He put it on a dynomometer.. It's only delivering an estimated 280 BHP!! :crying: (It's faster than that!!) Anyway, the reason for my post is this. He reckons the front crank seal is weeping oil. Go on tell me, how bad a job is it? I'll be drowning my sorrows if you need me!!

:thumbup1: Would'a flashed but was in my Pajero so prob' wouldn't have meant anything to you and you were pretty well past by the time I'd realised. Will do the next time though, it's light blue with comedy redneck lamps bolted to the roof. (Not a light bar, actually bolted to the roof! :wacko: FWIW, I bought it like that!)