geoffbeaumont

I paid about £230 for AirBagMan ones (also made by Dunlop, but slightly longer than standard), direct from their EU importer in Ireland. It's more hassle fitting the bladders than complete units, but it's still only a days DIY work.

Are you talking about Pay & Play or a competitive event? It's not hard to get motor insurance which will cover you off road for non-competitive use. As far as forming a club goes - my feeling is that clubs of this type tend to work best in a relatively small geographical area, and even if you ignore the fact that this is an international forum with members all over the world we still have a good proportion of members who don't live in the South of England. If you decide you're prepared to take on the burden of running a club, would you be prepared to organise a decent number of events up round Aberdeen and Inverness for the members up there? I'd be concerned about forming an elite of 'proper' paid up club members, too - I know that's not your intention, but it may well be what would happen over time.

Could be. I haven't (so far) had any other wierdness, other than a rough idle which seems to be much worse on petrol than gas, so I'd put it down to the ignition timing being a bit too advanced for petrol at idle. It's getting worse, though, so can't be that. Scrap yard time, methinks.

Now what? Driving back from a youth event at West Brom tonight I lost power to the gas kit (or so it appeared - lights went out on the switch and it was definitely running on petrol). Figured I'd got a loose wire on the battery - not the first time, they're a bit fragile - but when I stopped the LPG light only was flashing when I turned the ignition off...wierd... Decided to disconnect the battery when I got home, and the LPG kit wires appeared to be secure. The fuel guage has been wandering up and down - anywhere been completely empty and two thirds full - all week. Thought at first it was using obscene amounts of petrol, then got suspicious when it started going up the gauge. Last night I was sat waiting for someone with the ignition on (but not the engine running) and watching it go up and and down... And sorting out the engine earth hasn't entirely fixed the alternator charge light either - it was on faintly this morning - so there's still something not quite kosher there. These are all electrical problems, all new this week. I'm thinking they might just be connected...? Any ideas? I don't even know where to start with this one And I'm supposed to be back at West Brom tomorrow morning

LPG is also not going to suit the type of use you describe. Most, if not all, current LPG conversions are designed to start on petrol then switch over once the engine reaches a predetermined temperature (the key point being that the engine coolant which is piped through the LPG vapouriser is warm enough to stop it freezing up). I find I do the first half to two miles on petrol, depending on ambient temperature and whether the truck has run already that day. If the engine's already warm it switches over straight away. That's fine if you do mostly longish distances, but if you do mostly short runs petrol will account for a significant percentage of your fuel use, and that's obviously going to push your fuel costs per mile up quite a bit. I think I just registered a vote for diesel. That's twice this week

I think valance is a US term for the wing (which would fit)? Doubtless one of our friends from the colonies will correct me

If it's just going to be an off road truck, go diesel. You won't need the V8s better high speed performance and you won't care that much about the noise if you aren't doing long distance driving in it. Plus you get to laugh at all us V8 boys when we get stuck in puddles

There were quite a few other changes from 3.9 to 4.0 - a completely redesigned intake manifold for starters - I've read the 'badge engineering' was at least partly to differentiate that from the earlier engine.

They are when they're running on LPG... That said, I ran my old engine for months without a working vacuum advance - it noticeably affected acceleration on petrol and very noticeably on gas, but it didn't cause any other problems.

That was my plan - unfortunately prices on eBay are not good at the moment. Might need to hang onto them 'til summer comes and people get to work on their projects I'm planning on writing it all up as I go, so pretty much, yes.

I'll leave that to fridge then

That would definitely be pushing it - I'm about to start installing mine, so much of this is currently second hand experience, but I'll have a stab. Fridgefreezer will doubtless correct anything I get wrong If you're building the vehicle up from scratch you might as well leave them on the shelf, barring a few odds and ends like throttle position sensors. You could use the wiring looms if you have them, but you'll have a much neater job if you make your own new ones. Does one of them have a serial port (common on old laptops, very rare now)? Ideally, that's what you want, although you should be okay with a USB to serial converter. Ask on the megasquirt forums which ones are known to work. Now you're making me jealous... You've got two options: buy all the bits and build it from scratch - if you're into electronics it would be an interesting and perfectly manageable project. buy a ready made one - in the UK, talk to Bill Shurvinton (I'll PM you his email later). It's not that much more expensive than the parts, and will save you a lot of time and potentially agro. I'll have to check what I paid Bill for mine - including all the EDIS distributorless ignition bits apart from the trigger wheel. It was very reasonable, though. I'm going to fit the Ford EDIS distributorless ignition system, controlled by megasquirt. This has been tried out on at least one V8 Land Rover and ran quite happily underwater (there's a novel idea... ). In theory it's pretty straightforward, but ask me again once I've done it... If you ask on here there are a couple of people already running megasquirt - fridgefreezer is known for his enthusiastic evangelism of the system I'll be sharing my experiences with the megasquirt and EDIS conversion as I go (bound to be some bloopers for your entertainment). There are also a lot of very helpful people on the megasquirt forums - they're busy, so if you're asking about a particular subject like EDIS try to ask on the relevant specialist sub-forum. They prune old threads, so if you get a particulary useful answer copy it somewhere on your own machine. No, megasquirt will run quite happily without them - it'll just run the fuel maps you give it without any correction. Hope so... Now you're definitely getting beyond my experience, but I don't see why not - if you browse round the megasquirt forums you'll find people have converted just about everything under the sun to megasquirt - including far more exotic engines than that.

No, it is generally okay - but there are two things you musn't do if you value your intake: Start on LPG (well, they do tell you not to... ) Connect your plugs up in the wrong order...yes, I did, and that's what blew the intake pipe apart It's far from ideal, but when it's looked after it is okay - certainly not bad enough to justify the cost of converting to injection if you already have a venturi kit. Of course, that's the story as far as the smaller V8s go - I'm not going to venture an opinion on the bigger ones as I've no experience to base it on (and I'm certainly not going to dispute with your far more knowledgable sources). Like I said though, if I was starting from scratch, I'd go injected every time. I wasn't disputing your comments at all LPG is inherantly more demanding on the ignition (very simple cause - it's harder to ignite), it's just that RV8s are prone to poor ignition anyway, and it'll be far worse on LPG than it is on petrol.

Oops You didn't want to do that, Jules... MPlayer was quite happy with it too. Pleasant surprise

Yep - they're about thirty quid and dead easy to change. Could do - I ran without vacuum advance for months. Not sure it affected the fuel consumption much but it definitely lost power at high revs.

I'd say they're overkill... A set of decent Mallory or similar (or even new OEM) should see you good. Just steer clear of cheapo leads. Lund engines will do a set of Mallory 8mm leads for about two thirds of that, assembled to your spec (so turn around might not be so quick, but the ends will all be done for you). Direct link here, but it's a frames based site, to click here if you want navigation (it's under engines -> ignition). Plenty of other places do Mallorys as well. I'm not an expert, but I thought the current was carried on the surface of HT leads?

Landi on the injector emulator and vapouriser is Landi Renzo - same make of LPG kit as I've got on my classic, though it's definitely not the same model - both units look different to mine. A quick look at Landi Renzos web site suggests that only their venturi (non injected) kits use separate injector emulator units, so I'm afraid it looks like you've got a venturi kit. Do you have the inlet manifold, Les? Is it modified for a second set of (LPG) injectors? Can't quite make out from your photo's whether the wiring for the injector emulator is still in place - there should be a loom running along each bank of injectors - it plugs into each injector then an adjacent plug takes the original injector plug on the OEM loom. David, are venturi kits much more problematic on the higher capacity RV8s than the 3.5s and 3.9s then? Mine's generally been okay on a 3.9, although it's definitely fussy about having a decent spark, and has flashed back and blown the intake pipe apart If I was fitting a new kit I'd definitely go for injected, though.

Mine tends to backfire if I start on LPG (common on all venturi type setups, I think), but the only time I've had a really serious misfire it was ignition timing. Ironically I ended up limping home on gas because once it had blown the intake pipe apart the petrol ECU was too confused to run. In fairness, though, that was a really serious ignition timing problem. Some pillock (that'll be me then) had put the ignition cables on wrong, despite rechecking them several times...

Please do - I'm afraid it'll probably be beyond my means at the moment, but we'll see...

Nope, not too late - only fired her up again for the first time last weekend. Got to go back over to Rob's and finish the job off this weekend then drive her home. Unfortunately the MOTs up on the escruft on saturday, so I'll have to put her straight back on the road without doing all the jobs I was hoping to get out the way The snorkel is still at the planning stage - although I do have one or two ideas Really need to get megasquirt on there first so I don't have to worry about routeing it through the air flow meter.

My reading was that it was anything but okay for AJL to do it, and he didn't see that it was a great deal safer with a police driver behind the wheel...

Speaking from painful and recent personal experience, if you don't know whether it's already been done, strip the front end and fit new timing gear While you're in there, do the oil pump as well (it'll be well worn and the parts are only about £15). Head gaskets, if they haven't already been done, are probably on their last legs, and the camshaft and tappets will need replacing if you want the engine to last and/or give it's best. Supposed to do the rockers as well, I think. I got told all this six months back - didn't listen and it cost me my engine Of course, you're just loving hearing this after you've put it back in daily service... If you can get a decent one at a good price, might be less hassle just to swop the engine. Depends on what workshop facilities you have at your disposal and how long you intend keeping the truck - dropping in a 100k engine will give you another 40-50k, properly rebuild the existing one and I guess it should be good for another 150k (might need to do a few extra bits like crankshaft bearings for that, but if you've got it in bits anyway...).

Ignition, ignition, ignition. LPG requires a stronger spark than petrol, so it's much more sensitive to ignition trouble (which the RV8, as I'm sure you're aware, is particularly notorious for). It could be fuelling, but a search of the archives on this site will tell you a lot about the relative likelyhood... If plugs/dizzy cap/rotor arm/leads and copious quantities of WD40 don't cure it, try thoroughly cleaning or (preferably) replacing the earth belts from the body to the block. Wish I'd listened to several forumeers advice on that much sooner Coil is also a possible trouble spot, but try the cheaper bits first.

Yep - Haynes lists all the official service items.

What mileage has it done? Are we talking time for timing gear/camshaft/head gaskets or definitely just in routine servicing territory? Dizzy cap/rotor arm/leads if they need doing. Cap and rotor arm just pop the dizzy cap off and take a look. Might get away with just cleaning them up with a bit of fine wet and dry. Air filter. Might be worth changing the coolant if it's been sitting around? Anyone more knowledgeable than me want to venture an opinion on that? I'd be inclined to stick some engine flush in the oil before draining it too - cleaned up my last engine beautifully. It's a V8 so it'll still you let you down...