Lucky's Series 3

[codge]

....why IS there a window in my carburettor?

Yep, Good Old Technology......Sight Glass as Steve says, you could see at a glance if it was fuel or spark.....that was the 1950's theory when cars used to stop mysteriously on a regular basis.

[Lucky]

lol, makes sense, though I prefer the answer I'd come up with, which is it's there so you can check the Petrol Pixies are working hard enough shovelling go-juice into the boiler

Just out of interest I stole Beth's kitchen scales and investigated the weight saving we managed yesterday (it's the next best thing to cleaning parts in the dishwasher, I suppose)





So that's a clear five kilos of redundant cack I didn't need to be dragging around with me everywhere lol. It'll be almost a featherweight racecar at this rate Not...

Went out for a good long drive today and the coolant level doesn't seem to have budged an inch, so that's all good. Fingers crossed. It was sucha different day, Hurricane Barry has blown on through and the sun was beautiful so I stopped for a bit of pic whoring on the top of Steyning Bowl







Lovely!

[RamoNZ]

Awesomeness!

Didnt see a picture... i'm guessing you ditched the wedged coin/coolant blockage idea?

If you are looking for cheap mods, there is a couple of things you can do:

Advance the timing by 2 degrees - This is still within tolerance of any kind of detonation on 95RON fule and will make the car more perky all over the rev range. You need a timing light to get it right though - The silver S2 I had went 3 degrees and all good

Modify the carb for mechanical secondaries - at the moment, you need a certain level of vacuum to open them - going mechanical gives more 'under the curve' horsepower rather than peak. The trade off of is not being able to give it full throttle from low engine speed - need about 3k rpm to prevent stutter, but you can feel extra power from then till about 5k. If you get an extra accelerator pump gasket, this gives you extra volume to squirt in on throttle dump which will help overcome the stutter and give a touch more go in the same rev range (3-5k)

Swap over to an electric fan - there is a lot of internet chat about whether this makes any differnce or not, but im in the 'for' camp.

DFIS - Direct Fire Ignition System: Get a T2 ignition coil and run wasted spark on the leading plugs - and bypass the distributor contacts

You might need a few more car pass days but would be well worth the effort

[ian65]

cars shaping up well now Nik.... you're certainly putting your stamp on it.... good advice from Ramon as well..... these cars have lots of potential for more power over the standard setup without breaking the bank.
Your wheels really suit it..... do you have any plans to lower it?

[Lucky]

I think I might have to become Ramon's acolyte and learn at the altar of dark knowledge I kinda vacilate between thinking it'd be nice to have a bit more go and thinking it's a daily workhorse and I've got a 430bhp FD if I need a fix of bonkers. I expect more power will always win hahaha I don't want to spoil it or bugger up the driveability though.

Yes, Ian, I definitely plan to lower it! I'm well aware the ride height is slightly comical. Got a set of Racing Beat springs in the garage, but I ran out of money for front and rear shock this month (not to mention ran out of days off). I should get the fronts next month and then do the whole shebang, shocks and springs all round.


...and yeah, I bottled the 2p coin siliconed into the mani face wheeze. Just couldn't bring myself to do it after spending hours scraping all the old gasket off and cleaning everything up religiously. It reeked of... bodgery

[Lucky]

This week I have mostly been suffering for my art, like all true misunderstood geniusses... err, genii ... erm clever blokes

Car bites man shock


Bloody thing, it's vicious Anyway, worthwhile shedding blood and swearwords for the cause of my increasing streamlinification of the car. Spot the difference;




Spotted it? How about now?





Much better. Bit of a faff as the stockers use threaded captive inserts and the aftermarket ones use bolts through from inside. And none of the holes quite line up either...


I think I've a new career as a proctologist now I've mastered doing up invisible nuts through a 4" square hole upside-down and back to front. I've also invented some new swear-words. What an utter PITA of a job. Never mind, only one more to do lol

Still, much nicer without the ludicrous "cricket bat" things, and I haven't got to scour eBay Antipodea for aero ones and have my kecks pulled down.

[ian65]

those are much more retro and sporty looking.... i can imagine that being a sod of a job..... even removing and refitting standard 1st gen mirrors is a pain. When I swapped to aeros, the smaller field of vision took some getting used to for me..... how are you getting on Nik.....those mirrors look quite a bit smaller than Mazda aeros?

[Lucky]

Yeah, the field of view isn't spectacularly triumphant, to be fair, though it's OK for general driving. Parking's where you really notice it; I always back in and it takes a bit of getting used to. They do a version with a convex lens, they might be better overall but I hate the blind spot distortion on the wife's Focus where it goes all convex at the end, and decided flat glass was for me.

I'll let you know, if I smack the back end up parking then you can tell me what a muppet I am

[Steve-A]

They look good Nik

I've never used mirrors without flat glass, imagine convex mirrors must take some getting used to. I'd go with less field of view and keeping the flat glass too

[RX7SA]

Great work Nik, really like what you are with the car, have always had a soft spot for those type of spoilers. Proper retro wing mirrors, I want to change the mirror on my SA for something a bit more keeping with the car instead of the ridiculous cricket bat, maybe even wing mounted