Jenson Velcro

I remember when carbs and distributors started being replaced by fuel injection and basic ecus. Lots of people were saying that it would be the end of diy car repairs and only main dealers would be able to tend the cars. I believe you work in IT, but even so nowadays here you are plugging a laptop into your car and carrying out what appears to be some pretty high level repairs/adjustments. Very impressive stuff.

Thanks for the explanation Si. Most of my car fettling has been on older vehicles with clockwork control systems so I’m just interested to see what is behind more modern cars, even if I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about. I’ve used code readers and replaced odd sensors and components etc. as identified but the rest is a big black hole. Plenty of mechanical and bodywork though. I’ve recently acquired a r50 Bini, cheap because of issues*. It won’t be a daily driver, so if any of them are control system related I will be learning as I go along. From reading other threads, I guess I would need something more sophisticated like a Delphi 150 knock off.

Sorry, but an electro-numpty here. There seems to be a lot of electrickery in that box. What functions does it control? I presume the engine is controlled by a separate Ecu?

Wow that’s one hell of a first car at age 17. Makes a change from a Fiesta, Corsa etc. What’s it’s condition now?

Great to see progress on this again, I thought you’d gone a bit quiet. I hope it provides a welcome distraction and events work out soon for you.

Good job he’s wearing shorts and not a kilt

Not necessarily, years ago our petrol Zafira went through a period of randomly losing power and going into limp mode. It never threw up a code for the maf, but that is what it turned out to be. We did work our way through any stored codes first though.

Surely it’s just the passenger seat that needs unsoiling?

Could the noise just be a tyre? I’ve had it before when a tyre is old or tread gets low and new boots solves the problem.

Oh no, that is one of those cars that gets associated with its particular owner and couldn’t see them being parted. Perhaps sit on it for a bit and see how you feel then? Still interested to see what you’ve got now though.

Thanks, so relatively* straightforward then, if somewhat more involved than sticking a 1275 engine in a 850 mini......

Wow, good work. I would be very interested to learn more about the engine swap. In this day and age I had thought that this would be more or less impossible as all ecus, wiring looms, sensors etc would be specific to each engine and even coded to it. what exactly was involved in making the swap please?

Well, it seems that neither Gingernuttz or Mr_Bo11ox are afraid to go balls deep into repairs of galloping rot. Must be something in the names, perhaps I should change mine and grow a big pair myself. Great to see the work being put into the Dolomite, it should be good to see it live on for a long while yet.

Wow, I would definitely have some tickets for the Mini.

Already marked as sold. Are you on your way to collect it yet?