The new news 24 thread

[stuboy]

Nipped up to the local car themed pub, was supposed to be max power 90s theme, didn't see anything really, These where the best there..

[richardmorris]

Wrexham 1963 according to the local history page on FB. any ideas what it is? ( truck not the tree!)

[Momentary Lapse Of Reason]

4 hours ago, richardmorris said:

Wrexham 1963 according to the local history page on FB. any ideas what it is? ( truck not the tree!)

Morris FG or FM

[RichardK]

Just paid a deposit for another car. This cannot possibly be a bad idea *swears at BMW engineers and Autodoc*

[Split_Pin]

No idea why the pictures are sideways. 

Anyway, my wife brought this back from France for me. Another country other than Scotland to tick off my World Tour of Single Malts. I don't know how old it is, but the pale colour suggests under 10 years, probably less.  Can't wait to try it at the weekend.

So far I have 'visited':

Wales, Sweden, Japan and India

Hope to try more!

[High Jetter]

Busy weekend, @stuboy?

[adw1977]

1 hour ago, Split_Pin said:

 

Anyway, my wife brought this back from France for me. Another country other than Scotland to tick off my World Tour of Single Malts. I don't know how old it is, but the pale colour suggests under 10 years, probably less.  Can't wait to try it at the weekend.

So far I have 'visited':

Wales, Sweden, Japan and India

Hope to try more!

You know there are English whiskies?

[Split_Pin]

25 minutes ago, adw1977 said:

You know there are English whiskies?

Yes, next on my list!

[Ghosty]

Been doing some research and thinking today.

I'm pretty sure the Golf is misfiring/pinking because of E5. It's probably set up for 4* or 95 grade E5 from before the E10 changes - I really doubt an 8v carb Golf ever needed 97 grade premium unleaded, so it's pinking and chucking out unburnt fuel. If I lean off the mixture it should be fine, but a carb rebuild would be academic especially if it's been run on E10 for any amount of time (I don't run E10 on carbs on principle).

As for the radio - pre-ISO VWs don't have a switched live on the radio loom, and didn't until 1991. This explains why only older head units work - they take the +12v feed from the car and internally distribute it - the 'switch' is the physical switch on the volume dial that negates the requirement for a 12v switched feed that came in with ISO. Newer ISO compliant units have 12v constant and switched feeds going to separate rails in the head units  - the latter of these has had no input as it's physically absent from the car, and it's the switched feed that actually powers the head unit. This hadn't occurred to me, and I've just been putting the constant feed in: this is only powering the 'memory' functions of the radio so it doesn't forget presets etc, and not actually giving the head unit any power - hence the symptoms I've had. The fact the +12v gave some radios a weak signal that was enough to turn them on but not give any output was a red herring, and probably a quirk of the head unit design.
To sort this I can just branch a wire off the ignition barrel to the ISO loom as that's inherently 12v switched, and in theory that's problem solved. I need to change the ignition barrel housing anyway, and the part is on order - the housing contains a needle bearing around the steering column, and this has a load of play in it. Can do that at the same time!

In Civic news, I've completely neglected to mention it, but the clutch was knackered and the HG is leaking oil down the block, so I've been taking the opportunity for an engine swap with some choice parts I've been amassing no expense spared for quite a while - at the same time there have been some long ongoing interior, styling, and handling upgrades too, again with nothing but top quality stuff and rare Japanese spec accessories. The long and short of it is that when the time came I found a low mileage D15B - 130bhp 1.5 single cam VTEC from a JDM CRX del Sol auto, so that's going in with an upgraded clutch while the gearbox is off, and I'm doing the whole carburettor VTEC thing again like I did five(!) years ago as I still hate wiring and ECUs. I missed a couple of tricks last time though - when you retain the vacuum advancing distributor for the carbs on a block designed for injection, it needs modifying to fit, but the angle it sits at throws the timing out and you need a vernier pulley to bring it back in by about 4 degrees. I did think it was a disappointing drive last time round - I was puzzled but kept it to myself. Done it right this time - and also looked into potential further upgrade paths for the intake.
~
A 130hp carb SOHC VTEC engine runs at about 120bhp (there are a few variables but this is where I'll roughly be at): I can keep it as is, but the groundwork for running the D15B on carbs involves adding a low pressure fuel pump to the car as the standard one is driven off the camshaft.
This means that upgrading to quad bike carbs is logical, danST Engineering offer custom made manifolds for this, and they can supply a kit with the carbs, manifold and some other gubbins for about £600, or a bit more with nicer trumpets added. However, this includes some stuff I don't need like a fuel pump, so I'd just want the carbs and manifold, if I needed anything else it'd be cheap.
They'd be good for about 130bhp and I'd keep the lovely induction noise (I have trumpets on the standard carbs).
They also offer an ITB kit- however ITBs are pointless as the kit costs about £1500, and the relative power gain would be questionable, what, 140bhp? That's before you take into consideration that to run ITBs I'd also need to add an OBD1 ECU to the engine (£400) - I have the engine loom and distributor for this, but it'd need a fair bit of work. I also have the standard D15B intake manifold for that setup and a base figure of 130bhp and no fun induction noise. Given the outlay for this is a minimum £2000 if it's DIY, and the work involved, it'd make more sense to just put a B series in there for the effort. I'm not doing that, it's just not what I want - injection, a load of ECU crap, hydraulic gearbox conversion on all but the earliest cars, 282mm brakes (the knuckles for these alone are £500) and a massive four figure outlay, for a starting figure of 160bhp. There are no decent B series engines left out there, most need a rebuild that are for sale, it's overdone, risky, expensive... I want something I can build and maintain myself that isn't overcomplicated. All the legwork for a B swap just hurts me head (and potentially wallet).
I was talking to a chap I'm acquainted with at RRW recently, he has a B swap Civic that Speedhunters have just done an article on. Nice chap, he likes my Civic ('this is how I'd do a daily!' he said). He told me he regretted B swapping his, and has regular electrical issues.
I don't want more than 150bhp, it's not really that usable in a 900kg Civic imo - I've been investing in rigidity and maximising delivery of the power I have rather than shovelling more in as with that much power you quickly hit the grip limit. I'm not after a road going track car: I want a driver's car I can use to its full extent - retaining some comfort while still sporting, and most B swap cars just aren't really that - plenty of straight line power, but that's about it. I'm not going for a 'scene' build, and not numbers for the sake of it, I just don't get why people build them up to 300+ bhp as it doesn't really serve a purpose. To a degree I get the prestige of it, but I'm not building a show queen - yes I take it to shows, but to enjoy the drive there as much as the show. If I wanted a B series car I'd look for a UK spec 1.6iVT (given my outlay on the Civic I could have bought one with change) or save up for a SiR (I'd not be far off), but I don't like the nose on either of those (it's different and less boxy), and I don't get the joy of personalisation or building it like I am doing.
I digress. The point is, B series ain't it, and spending an equal amount of money on ITBs has only one justifier, which is doing it to say 'look at me' - everyone would ask why you didn't just save the money and do bike carbs or a B. Given bike carbs give pretty much the same effect for a fraction of the cost, they make more sense.
So, bike carbs, right?
I said above that I didn't need to buy the full carb conversion kit. I don't. The thing is - when you buy one of these kits, they see what sets of carbs are in stock, you don't really get to choose, they could be from a GSXR, CBR... who knows. The manifold they send is one made to match.
Obviously I could source my own carbs (CBR sounds good, keep it Honda) and I could just buy the matching manifold, as they're all available on their own, and I'd probably save a bit too.

But here's the thing.
One of the personal touches on the Civic is a set of door decals that were usually on JDM EF2s, that read '16 valve dual carb'. But there are four bike carbs... I was thinking of modifying the decals to read 'quad carb', as that'd be clever.

Among all the bike carb manifolds on danST, there was one option that I hadn't noticed before. And I could keep the door decals reading 'dual carb' that way for ultra mega OEM+ points...

They do a flippin DCOE manifold. There are a couple of bike carb Civics knocking about, and a couple of D15B swaps (none in EFs mind), but nobody I know of has put twin Webers on a Civic  
I reckon 32/36 or twin 40s are probably going to be as good as anything else for power, easier to service, more tuneable, and just generally fun. They'll look bloody cool, and still be cheaper than one of those bike carb kits.

Done bloody deal!

I'll have to post some pictures of the whole car soon. It's had a hell of a lot done to it since I started last February, with a completely standard and battered but solid car bar a set of BC coilovers - I've replaced pretty much everything except the shell, fuel tank, three windows, and the carpet.

[wuvvum]

Got very little fettling done over the weekend, mainly because the weather was a tad changeable and I therefore didn't want to start any major jobs that might get rained off half way through.

So I didn't get the valve clearances done on the Renault 6 as I'd been hoping, but I did do a fair bit of preliminary work unbolting stuff, so it should now be a 10-minute job to get the rocker cover off once we have a dry weekend.  I think I can get away without disconnecting the radiator top hose by rotating the bracing panel around it to lift the gear lever off the 'box, which would be good if it works.  I've found I can also remove the rocker cover with the throttle linkage still attached, I just need to pop the rod off the ball joint but the rest of it can stay put, so that's saved some more buggering about.  It continues to surprise me how easily things come apart on this car given what it is - all the bolts undid easily and the gear selector came apart with just a gentle pull, I was expecting it to be at least partially seized.  I do still need to fix the bonnet lock as well before the car is properly usable.  Oh, and get the hole in the passenger floorpan welded up.  It is starting a lot better now since I reattached the choke cable bracket though - I have a feeling it might have been loose for years and I just didn't notice.

I also had a look at trying to adjust the power steering motor on the Z4, to try and cure the sticky steering, but that proved to be rather more awkward than I'd hoped - I can just about get my shiny new Torx spanner up to the bolt, but there is about 5° of movement available before the spanner hits bits of dashboard, and the bolt head to spanner alignment isn't within those 5 degrees unfortunately.  So that's going to need a rethink and I'm going to have to live with the sticky steering for a bit longer.

[High Jetter]

2 hours ago, adw1977 said:

You know there are English whiskies?

No. Whiskeys. Knock off, tho...

[Ghosty]

Was thinking to myself, if the Golf is so well sorted servicing wise, someone really cared. Would they do all that work and then leave a Pierburg on it? I went to look at some Google images and see what the carb was supposed to look like, searching for 'Pierburg 2E2' gave me a picture of a carb that looked like the one on my car. Clicked on it, and it led me to a page selling Weber 32/34 conversions for mk2s, and it stated that they fit under the factory airbox. Weber conversions are £4-500 alone...

Ran outside to check.

 

Would they leave a Pierburg on it?

No, no they bloody wouldn't. Someone already put a 32/34 on it. Get the absolute fuck in. This really is the gift that keeps on giving.
 

[Zelandeth]

3 hours ago, Ghosty said:

Been doing some research and thinking today.

I'm pretty sure the Golf is misfiring/pinking because of E5. It's probably set up for 4* or 95 grade E5 from before the E10 changes - I really doubt an 8v carb Golf ever needed 97 grade premium unleaded, so it's pinking and chucking out unburnt fuel. If I lean off the mixture it should be fine, but a carb rebuild would be academic especially if it's been run on E10 for any amount of time (I don't run E10 on carbs on principle).

Isn't pinking usually a sign that either the mixture is too LEAN rather than the reverse?  So leaning it off is likely to make the situation even worse.  What's the timing set to?

I know on my Saab I had to knock a few degrees off to make it happy when I got it.

[Coprolalia]

3 hours ago, Ghosty said:

Was thinking to myself, if the Golf is so well sorted servicing wise, someone really cared. Would they do all that work and then leave a Pierburg on it? I went to look at some Google images and see what the carb was supposed to look like, searching for 'Pierburg 2E2' gave me a picture of a carb that looked like the one on my car. Clicked on it, and it led me to a page selling Weber 32/34 conversions for mk2s, and it stated that they fit under the factory airbox. Weber conversions are £4-500 alone...

Ran outside to check.

 

Would they leave a Pierburg on it?

No, no they bloody wouldn't. Someone already put a 32/34 on it. Get the absolute fuck in. This really is the gift that keeps on giving.
 

Good spot on the ISO wiring. I meant to respond earlier as I had exactly that issue on my Scirocco. There should be spare switched live outputs on the fusebox (I assume CE2) which might be a cleaner solution as then the stereo system is on it's own circuit.

If it's pinking and someone has done a Weber conversion then you need to get it properly tuned. The Weber might not be fuelling quite correctly, and you don't want to cook the head gasket long term by running it too lean and hot (ask me how I know).

[Ghosty]

4 hours ago, Zelandeth said:

Isn't pinking usually a sign that either the mixture is too LEAN rather than the reverse?  So leaning it off is likely to make the situation even worse.  What's the timing set to?

I know on my Saab I had to knock a few degrees off to make it happy when I got it.

It’s overfuelling if the exhaust is anything to go by, the idle is too high as the choke serves no purpose and it’s putting out unburnt fuel. 
I’ve already timed it. 

[Split_Pin]

Collection day today, after work!

No thread for this one as it's a 15 minute drive from my house.

Anything on here that piques my interest, is cheap and local, I will probably buy it 😂

[Mr Pastry]

1 hour ago, Ghosty said:

It’s overfuelling if the exhaust is anything to go by, the idle is too high as the choke serves no purpose and it’s putting out unburnt fuel. 
I’ve already timed it. 

Its probably too far advanced if it is pinking under load.  Trial and error with current fuel but you have to get the timing about right first, as that is effectively what the carb responds to.   The mixture screw only sets the idle mixture - beyond that you are into re-jetting.  So it could possibly be rich at idle speed and weaker at full throttle.   I'd give the carb the benefit of the doubt, and assume it is jetted correctly for that engine.  Back off the timing and see if that eliminates or at least reduces the pinking, then set the idle speed and mixture.  Then a plug cut will tell you what the mixture is like at full throttle.

[SiC]

7 hours ago, wuvvum said:

So that's going to need a rethink and I'm going to have to live with the sticky steering for a bit longer.

How bad is your sticky steering?

Mine only does it on a longer journey and only noticeable when driving on a straight bit of road for extended time. Basically about an hour in on a motorway journey, especially if hot. I've learnt that I can do a little, fast jiggle with the wheel that unsticks it for a few minutes. 

That said it's annoying and would love to fix it completely. I did see that BMW bulletin about turning the motor a tad but I believe you need to drop the column for access?

I've also read that lubing up all the exposed joints in the steering shaft helps wonders. Not sure how that really works as it doesn't sort the root cause of the sticky gears in the EPAS motor. 

[Ghosty]

58 minutes ago, Mr Pastry said:

Its probably too far advanced if it is pinking under load.  Trial and error with current fuel but you have to get the timing about right first, as that is effectively what the carb responds to.   The mixture screw only sets the idle mixture - beyond that you are into re-jetting.  So it could possibly be rich at idle speed and weaker at full throttle.   I'd give the carb the benefit of the doubt, and assume it is jetted correctly for that engine.  Back off the timing and see if that eliminates or at least reduces the pinking, then set the idle speed and mixture.  Then a plug cut will tell you what the mixture is like at full throttle.

It’s not at load, it’s an idle misfire. As stated it’s already timed, which is why I was thinking it needed leaning off. 

[Mr Pastry]

9 minutes ago, Ghosty said:

It’s not at load, it’s an idle misfire. As stated it’s already timed, which is why I was thinking it needed leaning off. 

Ah.  Pinking isn't the same thing as misfiring.

[Momentary Lapse Of Reason]

Check that the Strangler Valve (choke flap) is fully opening.

( i.e. that you do not have the effect of the choke being pulled out all the time )

[Wack]

Nissan Pixo's come with 2 little robots that watch you drive 

[Snake Charmer]

14 minutes ago, Wack said:

Nissan Pixo's come with 2 little robots that watch you drive 

"I'll have the arrabiata."

[Ghosty]

2 hours ago, Momentary Lapse Of Reason said:

Check that the Strangler Valve (choke flap) is fully opening.

( i.e. that you do not have the effect of the choke being pulled out all the time )

It does do that. When I got it they told me 'it runs so well you don't need to use the choke'. They showed up in a T25... couple of young lads, they had a few VWs. Don't think they realised quite how much engine work this one had had though - they would have mentioned the Weber conversion.

[wuvvum]

5 hours ago, SiC said:

How bad is your sticky steering?

Mine only does it on a longer journey and only noticeable when driving on a straight bit of road for extended time. Basically about an hour in on a motorway journey, especially if hot. I've learnt that I can do a little, fast jiggle with the wheel that unsticks it for a few minutes. 

That said it's annoying and would love to fix it completely. I did see that BMW bulletin about turning the motor a tad but I believe you need to drop the column for access?

I've also read that lubing up all the exposed joints in the steering shaft helps wonders. Not sure how that really works as it doesn't sort the root cause of the sticky gears in the EPAS motor. 

Mine's pretty bad, especially when it's hot (or, ironically, when it's cold and I have the heater on).  There was a chap on YouTube who managed to do it without dropping anything but he must have been lucky with his bolt angles!  I was able to crack off the more accessible of the two bolts but the other one I'm going to struggle with, unless I can get at it with a Torx socket and extension by going over the top of the steering column.

[SiC]

34 minutes ago, wuvvum said:

Mine's pretty bad, especially when it's hot (or, ironically, when it's cold and I have the heater on).  There was a chap on YouTube who managed to do it without dropping anything but he must have been lucky with his bolt angles!  I was able to crack off the more accessible of the two bolts but the other one I'm going to struggle with, unless I can get at it with a Torx socket and extension by going over the top of the steering column.

I think I found that video. I might give it a go. 

You can get ratcheting e-torx spanners. Might be a job perfect for them. 

[richardmorris]

[richardmorris]

[meshking]

On 26/05/2024 at 20:06, richardmorris said:

I was hoping to go, but haven’t had the manifold gaskets done yet.

 

On 26/05/2024 at 20:52, brownnova said:

Very jealous! Wanted to go, but alas at over 6 hours drive it was just a bit too far on a bank holiday weekend with the kids! Glad it was good! 

Shame you both couldn’t make it, would have been nice to meet you both in person. Let me know if either of you plan to attend other events - not sure I’ll get to the national this year.

[brownnova]

32 minutes ago, meshking said:

not sure I’ll get to the national this year.

A shame, I’m definitely aiming for the national this year! Currently wondering if we can get two 2CVs roadworthy in time!

Be good to meet you at some point!