Ask a Shiter

[Stanky]

Thanks BFG, comprehensively and clearly explained - thankyou.

[steveo3002]

Yes, it's super-stupid question time 

 

Smog-era yanks. Can they be 'de-smogged', or were the restrictions designed into the actual engines?

 

Basically, I have a soft spot for 80's mid-range saloons and would quite like to cruise round like William Petersen in To Live & Die In L.A., but I suspect that a wheezing 100bhp lump would get rather annoying very quickly. Are there usually straight-forward ways to make them more driveable, or should I just stick to euro barges?

 

depends on what car , but alot of it comes off - fit a carb kit /headers /cam etc to restore to normal 

[Bfg]

.

^ I would tend to agree ..aside from cam profile, engine capacity, compression ratio, and possibly piston crowns - the internal guts of an internal combustion engine tend to be very much the same between any car builder's standard saloons and their more sporty ones.  Much of (pre-catalytic) de-smogging boiled down to recirculating (..& therefore burning) crankcase fumes, and carburation (to avoid unspent fuel and carbon from getting into the atmosphere).  Along with a fair degree of smoke and mirrors to stop the driver hoofing it, such as longer accelerator pedals ! and the final gear ratio being different.   

 

Just a suggestion but.. perhaps the safest bet in finding superficially smothered performance is to look and see which particular examples of those '80s mid-range saloons' were popular on their race tracks.  Inevitably there are tuning kits still available for them ..to release their potential !

 

[steveo3002]

good chance a 70s car has had it all removed and messed with already

[TataBobu]

Does anyone know a car I am likely to find in a breakers that will have heated seats which are heated both on the base and on the back? Bonus points if they are fairly comfortable seats too.

 

I don't know about comfort, but there are some Golf V/ Beetle/ Jetta/ Audi A3 with both backrest and cushion heating.

[steveo3002]

I don't know about comfort, but there are some Golf V/ Beetle/ Jetta/ Audi A3 with both backrest and cushion heating.

 

or ebay seat heater kit for 30-60£ to fit to any seat

[steveo3002]

got a car in the family with factory xenons , seems it needs a new d2s bulb , now ecp and the like want 60-120£ for a bulb , ebay has no name ones for a fiver all the way up 

 

is there a semi trusted brand /seller of something reasonably priced or do i have to go grab a used one from a scrapper

[SiC]

Don't bother with scrap. They dim with age, so if the car has done a lot of miles, they'll be a lot dimmer than new. 

 

I have seen reasonable reviews from here: https://www.autobulbsdirect.co.uk/d2s-xenon-hid-bulbs/

 

Watch out, there are loads of fakes around.

[steveo3002]

Don't bother with scrap. They dim with age, so if the car has done a lot of miles, they'll be a lot dimmer than new. 

 

I have seen reasonable reviews from here: https://www.autobulbsdirect.co.uk/d2s-xenon-hid-bulbs/

 

Watch out, there are loads of fakes around.

yeah mine field...kinda what im getting at should i pay £5 knowing its fake vs £30-40 for a fake in a philips box lol

 

what sort of life should they last?   is it gonna stand out if i replace one ?

[SiC]

yeah mine field...kinda what im getting at should i pay £5 knowing its fake vs £30-40 for a fake in a philips box lol

 

what sort of life should they last?   is it gonna stand out if i replace one ?

Put it this way, my 2007 Civic in 140k miles has never had any replaced from the factory, my 2010 A4 in 164k miles has never had any replaced from the factory and my old 2005 Laguna II in 100k miles never appeared to have had any replaced! All genuine premium bulbs. Basically they usually dim over time or fail outright. Often its the drive circuitry that goes first. The burning when on doesn't shorten the life, its the switching on and warm up that really wears them. Not saying that they never die or fail, but they generally last a very long time and far longer than a filament bulb.

 

Make sure the lights are off before you put any hands around or near them. They fire up in the kV range and drive them at high voltages.

[steveo3002]

fair enough cheers...might be worth stumping up for a known brand then if its gonna last the life of the car

[Bfg]

Does anyone know a car I am likely to find in a breakers that will have heated seats which are heated both on the base and on the back? Bonus points if they are fairly comfortable seats too.

 

The first car I had with heated seats was a Volvo 145 estate - very comfortable.. It also had a very slick gear knob overdrive switch for three of its four gears. Best overdrive I've yet known.

 

In recent years I've been driving an '04 Chrysler Voyager which also has heated seats (for me - essential with leather) which are a very different style to the squarish armchairs of the Volvo.  In the Chrysler - the electrically adjusted seats are compromised by poor ergonomics in its driving position (even I find them an inch too high).  The fabric seats of my previous '96 Voyager were manually adjusted, much lighter weight, softer, more comfortable (..for me), and generally warmer anyway than the later model's top-of-the-range leather ones, but both have imo too short a seat squab (not enough length to support my lengthy legs).  

 

The squarer style of Volvo armchairs, or the else the surprising rounded and very much more modern looking but shorter Chrysler seats - may be determined by what fits into your project. ?

 

Fabric seats tend to offer more material grip for fast cornering, without the necessity of having huge side bolsters to keep you in place. However, leather seats do look nice, are easier to slip into, and as long as they are fed every so often ..tend to be longer lasting.  For my old Citroen - I'm planning to have the existing seat frames recovered with leather side bolsters (which makes slipping in and out of the car very much easier) and fabric centre panels for warmth, general comfort, and grip.

 

Btw., I've noted that lady friends often do not like heated seats.  

 

Hope that helps

Bfg    

[rantingYoof]

Saab did a 3.0T in the older shaped 9-5s.

 

I tried to read up on this 200hp engine and found out it was a typically quirky Saab engine and I was quickly out of my depth understanding how it would all work.

 

Could anyone who knows about it dumb it down several notches?

 

It must be a silky smooth V6 with a lovely torque curve, but I'm surprised it hasn't got more than 200hp.

[Sigmund Fraud]

Wasn't it just a Vauxhall V6 engine?

 

Fundamentally yes, but the turbo version was unique to SAAB. The reason it's so low on power is that it has a miniature turbo considering its capacity, which is interestingly only fed exhaust gases from one cylinder bank ! Presumably something they did to improve torque at lower rpm ?

[Bucketeer]

This listing appeared on eBay yesterday afternoon - https://m.ebay.co.uk/itm/citroen-ax-race-parts/253247054827?hash=item3af6b363eb:g:irMAAOSweZJaAbtz

 

It's described as Citroen AX race parts, which was more than enough for me to wazz a bid on. I've tried to find out what's included in the haul of parts. The description is simply 'i am selling ax race parts off a race car that we have cut up as it was not good to race no more'.

It looks similar to a pile of scrap to me but can anyone help with spotting good/useful/noisy/worthwhile items in the images before I spunk all my money on (more) rusty useless shit?

 

 

 

[320touring]

Solid discs and 3 stud hubs say "cooking AX" to me, rather than race.

 

Usual swap is to 4 stud and votr/s brakes?

[dave21478]

Three stud hubs, oe looking exhaust, miscellaneous oily shit, road tyres....race parts? Maybe the steering wheel?

Verdict - worthless shit.

[castros_bro]

That'll be this AX racecar then.      

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBFjHjm0O5M

 

 

I could probably flog you a 106 1.5D if you want a real* race car? 

 

 

 

[panhard65]

I suspect the only racing that AX did was banger racing it all looks standard stuff just about worth the tenner if you want spares

[sierraman]

Looks like a pile of shit to me, about the only thing I’d spare the tip would be the wooden mallet on the first picture.

[Bucketeer]

Thanks everyone, you've all confirmed what I thought. The exhaust is of interest as mine is like a lace doily but other than that it would just be spares that are probably worse than what's already on the car.

[SiC]

Still not too late to retract your bid.

[Bucketeer]

How do you do that? I'm an eBay newbie/amateur/moron.

[SiC]

http://offer.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?RetractBidShow

 

Usually entered the wrong amount is what people enter.

[Mally]

Fuel tank £50 new, but that ones not new.

Steering wheel £35 new. I'll give you a tenner if it's 15" and not bent.

Lump hammer could be useful

[SiC]

My MGB has 2 sealed beam units on it. One Lucas, one Unipart. On them there is a number - one of the form like "74 03"

 

Is this a date code? I.e. year 1974, week 3.

[wuvvum]

A couple of weeks ago the engine on the Movano ran away.  As far as I can ascertain it's the turbo seals which have gone - I don't think it's oil getting past the rings as the engine doesn't breathe enough for that to be happening.  I'm now worried to drive it anywhere as I would imagine it will do the same thing again once it gets warmed up.

 

Would the problem be solved by removing the outlet pipe from the intercooler and putting some kind of cone air filter on the end?  Obviously the engine then wouldn't be getting any boost and the van will be slow as feck, but it should avoid the engine nomming its own oil vapour, shouldn't it?  Or am I missing something obvious?

[Dave_Q]

If it is running on turbo oil as you describe its more liquid oil than vapour, a fairly large volume of it.

 

As such all of this oil leaking out would be your main concern if you did that, both in terms of oil leaking everywhere and the engine running out of it.

 

Turbos don't have oil seals as such, they seal by having higher pressure in the inlet/exhaust than the middle bit.

 

Likely causes for turbo oil leaks are an inlet restriction such as a collapsed pipe or blocked filter, or a blocked/kinked turbo oil drain pipe.

 

Alternatively, the oil could be coming from the engine into the inlet via the breather system.

[Guest Hooli]

Could be worth flushing the intercooler out too. They fill up with oil n gunk from the EGR over the years.

[Guest]

Saab did a 3.0T in the older shaped 9-5s.

 

I tried to read up on this 200hp engine and found out it was a typically quirky Saab engine and I was quickly out of my depth understanding how it would all work.

 

Could anyone who knows about it dumb it down several notches?

 

It must be a silky smooth V6 with a lovely torque curve, but I'm surprised it hasn't got more than 200hp.

It was an Isuzu design originally IIRC, and had loads of issues- drinking oil,diesel in the oil, overheating and head gasket/liner problems. I'd avoid...