FridgeFreezer

Had a very similar experience on my 109 - came home from a site day and the gaiters were filled with silt and one had pinched and split.

The "extracted" PDF's are just in folders in the RAVE install, they're not locked or anything they've just got somewhat cryptic names - workshop manuals are usually wmln12345 or something, electrical ones start el.... service bulletins are something like ts12345... etc. But they are also definitely out there on the internet for free too.

@smallfry - the short version is modern diesels are a fair bit more involved to run ECU-wise but of course anything's possible... the problem is the R&D process requires at least one or two sacrifices to the dyno gods which stacks up a bit quick as a home project, buying 3-4 good TV8 engines just to hopefully end up with one running one starts to feel quite expensive. The 4HP24 controller has come up a few times and I'm absolutely sure it's a very simple thing, if someone had the info on what exactly happens when & what the ECU is driving (how many solenoids at what power rating) and what it needs to "know" (RPM, load, throttle...?) or maybe just an "up" button and a "down" button and call it done - that would likely be a pretty simple project.

I think the Pirelli P-Zeros on my Jag did ~40-50k on the front and basically forever on the back, and were surprisingly cheap for 18" low-profiles, less than £100 a corner and the tyre guys didn't have anything more expensive (but plenty cheaper options). Came out to <0.005p/mile I reckon.

We used foil-backed closed-cell foam (from ebay.co.uk/usr/car-insulation-uk) under the trans tunnel & seatbox and it massively cut noise & heat coming up - sealing any little holes or gaps makes a big difference too.

Freelander twin-fan relay lets both run at low-speed then high speed, I picked a couple up for about a tenner each, posted.

The Waeco has a freezer section but the fridge bit is so efficient we have to turn it down as it will freeze things at the back of the fridge section. You can pull the freezer shelf out and gain fridge room too.

Well I hope they've had the 2-week intensive training course on correct usage of steps

I find a £1 see-thru filter on the return line (which should be near zero pressure) does a similar job

Interesting that National Luna quotes about twice the current draw for that 50 litre as the Waeco CRX50.

He's moved the radio antenna, pay attention.

Than a V8 disco? I somehow doubt that. Nothing wafts along like a RR or Disco with a V8.

Why wait a while? It's only diesel, it's not going to do a hollywood explosion if you start welding it Biggest issue will be getting it all clean enough that the weld ends up fuel-tight.

I nearly bought a TD5 Disco as a daily until I saw the MPG, may as well have the V8 there's so little in it - and the TD5 doesn't appear any more reliable and is more complicated. @muddy driving at 55-60mph is what does it (and accelerating gently) as air resistance goes up exponentially as you get faster. I can get 22mpg out of the ambulance (4.6 V8, ~3ton, huge frontal area) if I stick in the slow lane, dropping to ~16mpg at 80mph.

@pete3000 what's the story with the ice maker? 24v-> 240V is always going to lose efficiency. Also bear in mind 100W panels will make maybe ~60W flat out on a super sunny day and more like ~25-30W the rest of the time.

As it happens I've heard very good things about the Suzuki Swift, mate of mine sold an AMG A45 Merc and went for the sporty Swift, reckoned it was at least as much fun and a hell of a lot cheaper all round too. Fiesta or Focus ST get good reviews too, plenty of them out there. I went for the Mini as it was cheap and you know there's going to be a big aftermarket / knowledge base out there for support & parts.

Ed - you can do anything especially with time & budget but making something that's as complicated (or more complicated) than the original doesn't really appeal to me and will limit the number of folks who would feel able or willing to contribute. In the early days of MS loads of folks chipped in because the codebase was small, simple, & fairly well-documented / easily understood and you could compile it with free tools. Also TBH you can achieve incredibly fine timings on a bog standard £5 STM32 with the built-in timers/interrupts... the issue is arriving at the timings in the first place and making a bulletproof (and fail-safe) codebase & hardware that you'd trust not to grenade your engine because you plugged the USB cable in at the wrong moment and caused an interrupt... making an ECU that works on the bench is a lot easier than making one that will survive in an actual car & work reliably. I assume the Speeduino brag about optimisation just means they've re-written a few bits to avoid using the noddy standard Arduino libraries that aren't up to mission-critical applications beyond blinking an LED, and perhaps made use of hardware peripherals rather than bad habits like bit-banging with blocking delays and the like. Supercharged V8 is no issue to run with standard MS or whatever, it's only diesels that are difficult.

Please tell me the solution is to issue platform boots to the shorter technicians?

If it's petrol, take yor pick of aftermarket ECU's from Megasquirt 1 upwards, MS2 would be my choice. Ed - generating a good solid 120v rail inside the ECU adds a problem / cost, and as I understand it anything that doesn't have a mechanical injection pump is likely to be doing multiple carefully-timed squirts per "event", that's how modern lumps are so much better and smoother than older ones. With spark you just need to fire the thing at the right moment (and can do it wasted-spark too), with diesel you need to fire the thing at the right moment AND for the right period AND potentially do that multiple times within each event and do it per-cylinder not banked/batched as you can with petrol. Put it this way - to run a V8 pretty well an MS1 has 2x 12v-capable injector drivers and 4x 5v logic coil drivers and can run well enough on a very slow 8-bit micro with ~0.1ms resolution. For a TDV8 you'd need 8 injector drivers that can do 120v into a seriously chunky inductive load and I'd guess you're going to need <0.01ms resolution for decent control. I'd be tempted to look to the states where they have a ton of aftermarket / tunable diesel ECU's and see if one can be made to play nicely with a TDV8. Anything's possible but there's a reason the diesel Megasquirt project never really got off the ground. Again, I'm certain it's possible if someone wanted to pay the R&D costs, I'd quite like to give it a go TBH just for the curiosity.

R53 supercharged + someone's tweaked it up near JCW spec with a smaller supercharger pulley and whatnot - @miketomcat seemed to enjoy it

All I know is modern diesel control is waaaay harder than petrol where you just have to squirt roughly the right amount of fuel in and light it at the right moment. Also modern direct diesel injectors are way harder to drive (=expensive electronics) than the simple 12v solenoid that is a petrol injector. You'd need a very good understanding of the exact ins & outs of it all (timings etc.) and probably bank on damaging/exploding at least one engine for R&D purposes when it goes wrong.

From the Mini? No idea - my commute has dropped to <5 miles so it's hardly worth measuring what with all the cold starts and the like... and the fact I don't drive it in a Christian manner

If yo can measure it up on the floor & drill & tap on the bench it will be 1000x nicer than trying to do it under the truck with chassis & bits in the way. Ask me how I know.

I drove mine back from Russia with no PAS, towing a trailer, on 37's, it was fine. It's just heavy when parking.

You'll find most of the fridges are using the same innards and they're just putting a different box & front panel around it. I would be looking hard at the power consumption figures - our Waeco CRX quotes ~1.2Ah at 25C ambient which is about half of a lot of others and lower than the older CR model by a fair chunk too, means we get cold beer for longer from the same size battery. If the manufacturer doesn't quote power consumption figures, be suspicious. Edit to add: I think the CRX just added a smarter control board that varies the compressor & fan speeds to make the unit run more efficiently, otherwise identical to the CR. I'm sure cheaper copies would just use an on/off thermostat and run both full power.