Tommyboy12

We have made it quite far today. Started at John O Groats. Then onto Durness and round to Clashnessie which is where the Montego broke down the first time round last year. No major incidents to report. I ran out of fuel on the way to Inverness as I failed to notice it was reading empty. @sharley17194 has tried to drown his Escort in a deep puddle. Definitely didn't move the bollard to get next to the sign...

This morning we passed through the Cairngorms. On our way to John O Groats now.

He had it down for a while but then chickened out! We have made it to a big red bridge

We have made it to Berwick for lunch. It's raining (obviously).

Its Tuesday morning and we're ready for the real off from Nottingham. The cars are lined up and were about to set off for the first stop which is Dunfermline north of Edinburgh. Should be about 5.5-6 hours which will be more than enough for me 😅

The proposed route is to run up the east to John O first and come down the west side past Fort William. We usually go the other way round but it's nice to change things up!

Well it's been a year since this: So let's do it again hey @sharley17194?? We set off today! My noble steed for this year's trek up nooorf. @sharley17194wae meant to be going in this... But it currently looks like this after a failed attempt to swap the crankshaft in doubly quick time. So instead he is going for something far too modern... 1,500 miles in 6 days. What could possibly go wrong??

This looks awesome. I bet it's pretty nimble as it's so light.

The 1098 is indeed a long stroke 998 and is the longest stroke A series engine. Longer even than a 1275. The 1275 uses a 997 stroke (997 is considered *the* worst A series) and a 1070 bore but the block is very different to either engine. They had to offset and siamese the bores to fit them into the tiny A series block and the block is slightly taller than a 'small bore'. @Matty The 1098 is a low revver so what you say is pretty normal. Doesn't really like anything past 5.5k but has great mid range. The 295 is a great head but I think the limits are probably your camshaft, carb and exhaust. A 1.5" is too small past 60hp. I modded mine a fair bit to help get there. A 1.75" SU or twin 1.5s is a good start. Will probably give you another couple of hp once tuned. The single 1.75" is always a good option as it's easy to tune and they have good airflow as standard. A matching camshaft would help too. A Kent 266 or a Swiftune SW5 is a good choice for a 1098. It would move your peak power up maybe 500-1000rpm and give you a good smooth torque curve. A free flowing exhaust manifold would help a lot too. 3 into 1 is fine for lower power but everyone fits a LCB exhaust (long centre branch). You can get some quiet systems that still give great flow if noise isn't your thing. I'd guess you'd probably have to look at a moggie based system or something custom though. With those I'd say you'd gain 5-10hp and shift the power band up the rev range. You would need a reinforcing centre strap for the centre crank bearing if you're really giving it some beans though. In theory with an in-line you can do all those mods with the engine in situ.

I treated my Mégane to a pair of new rear lights. Its a bit chavvy and the murder spec lights it came with are absolutely horrible. It looks so much better on standard lights. As the purpose of this car is to hoon round the track I'm not too worried about looks but the lights really were horrible.

Well I suppose it's time for an update! Since last time I have spent a lot of time on my Minis which are my truest passion to be honest. The turbo went on a road trip round the peaks with some friends. I absolutely love the power but it's hard to use when everyone else is running a third the power output! 😅 The white Mini went for a Dyno session a few weeks ago. It was tuned by a chap called Peter Baldwin. He is apparently very well respected amongst the old school tuners and I would say he was a very knowledgeable bloke. He managed to squeeze just short of 60hp out of my little 998 and over 60lbft of torque. Standard it was 34hp so a sizeable improvement! I built the engine knowing it was primarily for hooning about at low speeds so the camshaft, distributor, exhaust and carb are all appropriate for solid mid-range. I'm really chuffed about. It pulls really nicely for a small bore A-series and is really nice to drive now. It stacks up well against stock 1275s now. I treated it to Stanford Hall Mini show with some friends too. We put on our best effort and just abandoned the cars when we arrived. In other news the Mégane is fine. It gets used so rarely that I am only course to put 6,000 miles on it in a year. Also the Volvo went... Great car but I couldn't justify it sitting there doing nothing 😢

The A-series is pretty tough so itll go for a while yet. I had a cracked block and bearing faces that resembled sandpaper and the engine still ran fine and held 'most' of its oil pressure

If its still rattling then it probably has deeper timing gear wear. Probably the cam buckets or the chain. OR.... The valves have worn grooves into the rockers and you didn't actually set the clearances. This is quite common if you use a blade type feeler gauge.

A shame to see it go. I felt similarly about the Montego. It was a shame to see that go too and I had hoped somebody on AS would pick it up. But you kept it going when others dismissed it and unfortunately you definitely cant keep them all.

Does washing cars class as an update? The weather was good the other night so seemed rude not to. Its all very boring apart from that. Everything is working as it should which is most unlike me! The White Mini was treated to a new MOT the other day. Needed a few shims taking out of a ball joint, the handbrake adjusting, and I had to rewire the numberplate light. Other than that it was a pretty easy pass.