I would like to thank Rob for all the help through my troubles over the last couple of years. We finally managed to get the car to a Dyno shoot out and a future feature in a magazine on the news agent shelf, although the last couple of days did not go without its dramas
First thing to happen was on Tuesday night. After resolving some issues with firmware, I went out on a test run to make sure everything was ok. Everything was going well. I was on my way home when i noticed a lack of power. It wasn't sudden loss, but it was deffinately down on power. Got it back home and the idle was pants, but it idled, just. Got home from work on Wednesday evening and had a look over it. Started to mess around with it, it looked like it needed more air and was also taking more fuel at idle. something has changed on the engine. Long story short, I checked it all out on Thursday evening with a friend from Norway, Andre (Miniminor63) and found that the crankshaft trigger wheel had retarded about 20 degrees due to the crank pully bolt coming loose (even though high strength locktite was used). Fixed that and tuned the idle back aain as bast we could in the time, then went for a test run, All ok
On the dyno Friday morning to pick up where we left off the last time. I had changed the inlet cam out this time which gave a matching pair of cams rather than the lower duration lower lift inlet/ long duration high lift exhaust, as fitted before before. We were down 7bhp
Interestingly, we removed the air filters to see if it made any difference, it was worse! Those filters must generate some sort of ram effect
.
On the way home not far from the dyno, the engine just died. We rolled to a stop on a busy national speed limit road with nowhere to pull over, opened the bonnet and found the problem, a fuse for the ignition coils had vibrated loose. Re fitted the fuse, but did not re fix the bonnet straps, just in case we needed further investigations. Turned the key and the engine started, we had a chat about what was going on and totaly forgot about the bonnet straps. Pulled away and at about 60mph the bonnet flew up, ripped the mounts off and hit the roof gutter totaly destroying the bonnet
Any way, I freely admit that it was my stupidity, but what to do for the photo shoot the following morning
Andre managed to bash alot of the shape back into the bonnet and with a touch up paint can and another friend with a Vinyl Sticker Cutter, cut out a large VEMS sticker which cuvered up the crease in the bonnet nicely
A man on a galoping horse would not notice
DRAMA!!!
Saturday went very well with no blow ups on the dyno, which is always a worry when you have ancient old 1300 A series engine producing 238lbft and 255bhp
My turn on the dyno, and I had been thinking the from the day before. We originaly advanced the ignition 1 degree at MBT and we lost power, we then removed that degree and the power returned. I suggested that we try and remove another one degree and see what happened, and would you believe, another 4bhp appeared
The photo shoot went well also.
Thanks also to every one else who may have given information or helped me on my way.
Colin
