Andy Briggs

The front wheels on the red one are the wrong way round.

Welcome. You'll find lots of helpful advice on this forum. Congrats on buying a great car. How much cash have you got? Andy

I'm sure Mike would have checked all that. He knows far more about this than I do. He's had the car several times running tests etc and came up with the electronic linkage between speedo and gearbox being faulty. ie the gearbox didnt know what gear to select because it didnt know how fast the car was going, and this was an intermittent fault. The problem lay with the speedo converter that was put on when imported and the problem has largely gone away having replaced this item. Mike reassured me that the timing was ok (see post 11 of this thread) and at this initial check CAS was checked too. I know Mike occasionally dips into this forum so if he's reading this and has any other thoughts i'm sure he'd give me a ring. Andy

I get about the same with my N/A auto especially round town and short trips. Motorway driving however is a lot better, getting upwards of 300-350 miles to a tankfull. Andy.

Hi Jez, I expect that the Dyno wasn't calibrated properly? Or could it mean that my car has been modded in a previous lifetime as I have absolutely no history on it?! Andy

There's never been a problem with the torque. I'm not sure about the units which the charts show. Andy.

Before you add anymore power wouldn't a brake upgrade be advisable?

This is to bring everyone up to date with this old thread. I drove around with the 8bit ECU for a bit which did improve throttle response but there was still a massive hole or flat spot in the power curve. The car would perform ok for bits and then it would seem that the engine totally lost interest in pushing forward. It also became apparent that it had difficulty selecting the right gear appropriate for the speed and acceleration. I also noticed that the speedo would often "start" at 20mph. I decided to have the detonation sensors fixed which didn't seem to make a lot of difference to the overall driving experience. I agreed with Mike at MJP to recheck the Dyno afterwards and to compare the two ECU's; my original 16bit one and the 8bit that I had fitted. I'll try and attach the traces at the end of this note if I can work out how to do it. You'll see a massive dip in bhp around 4300rpm which then quickly recovers approaching 4600rpm. It seemed that there was faulty wiring between the speedo and the gearbox (as evidenced by bodged soldering and loose wires etc at back of speedo) and a simple replacement of the speedo converter (SpeedM8 removed) seems to have done the trick. Many thanks to Mike at MJP Eastern....now lets see if I can get these Dyno traces on here.... yours Andy

Winchester's a long way to go for a curry if you live in Essex!!

Back passage. Front passage. Dirt box. Pandora's box.

Don't forget Seaman (Semen) Staines!!

Thanks Chunk, but a bit too far to travel. 1400cc a bit too big for learner driver??

I'm planning on buying my daughter a cheap runnabout for her 17th birthday this week. I reckon to spend up to £2K. I'm looking for a low insurance, manual that's 5-10yrs old. The models that come to mind are: Punto, Fiesta, Micra, Clio, Pug 106, Polo, Lupo, Corsa... Anyone got any experience of these and are there any that I've missed? Cheers Andy.

Insurance is a total lottery IMO. I'm a professional man, nearly 50 and live in a leafy suburb of London. I have 11yrs no claims bonus at least on 2 policies. My Z is a third car so required a new policy, ie no "no claims". The quotes I got for it were so random it beggars belief how they work it out. They varied from £2000 to £600. Some companies wouldnt insure me at all because my Z is an import and others insisted on a tracker being fitted before they would even consider insuring it. The answer is SHOP AROUND and check the small print on the policy you're taking out covers you for what you need.

Best wishes for a speedy recovery Hamster. You are incredibly brave.