Lara

don't bother unless you have 400 REAL bhp or more one good one will work fine! Unless you really are a tart Lara

Lend you a big knife if you want Lara

Hi Steve, You are right, it is most certainly not a percentage, You get a fairly steady power loss figure from say certain gearbox or axle etc but this power loss does go up as you put more power through it for obvious reasons, but generally not a great deal. Tyre types and pressures make a hell of a difference and so does vehicle weight and even strapping it down or not! Modern autos don't sap that much power nowadays although it is usually more than a similarly good manual. Lara

Fixed Lara

Pete. I filled my air-filter with muddy goop after inhaling it in through my snorkel wondered why it would only drive at 1500revs and no boost I blame the ITG Filter Lara

Hi Streaky, What you are doing is great and NOTHING is better than hands on back to back testing! so don't let us put you off! What people say is sometimes and often either misunderstood or complete carp (including me I am sure) so try to temper everything you are told with the question "does that theory hold water" a 50% power loss on a powerful engine does not in my opinion unless you have trans problems but as you say, Wheels power "is what it is" so use that as your main concern for the moment. Keep it up! Your ram pipes. I did considerable tests on our Superflow Flow Bench and found that you can bring the "roof" down to as close as 15mm to a 48mm id trumpet while pulling circ 350cfm without affecting air flow in any way what so ever. However! as soon as you get close to the side of the trumpet, 15mm and closer, airflow drops like a stone. This we found on all sorts and shapes of trumpet. We also found that a very large radius is a lot more efficient than a small "steel weber DCOE type" Lara

I agree but would have to say that I would be looking to find a serious fault with anything that reduced power by 35bhp on a standard engine! We did some tests on Ced's TD5 90 with a very long aprox 2.5m, 2 1/2" OD snorkel that passed through his cab, this made absolutely no difference to power on his engine that was giving 185bhp. Surprised me! Also checked mine with the same result, even with a 120km/h fan blowing at the intake area. P.s. How do you equate 4.1hp on the wheels to 8 at the flywheel? Lara

Generally you will get back from the insurance company the "book" value for your vehicle in your condition before the crash. "However" you do not "Have" to accept the offer, you are actually insured for replacement and that means that they strictly speaking have to supply you with a vehicle of the same condition, colour, year etc if you insist on this. And you do not have to find it! that is also strictly speaking, "their liability" (they do not like you doing this and will squeal like little piggies if you insist and deny it etc, but it is true! and it is a good bargaining / beating stick) Whether you or her are in the wrong, it is "your" insurance that pays, they claim it back from the other insurer at a later date so they will still try hard to pay as little as poss. If you like you can try to negotiate it not to be written off and settle for a lower payment but you are probably going to pay more for the repair! Good luck. Lara

I think it's a good idea and quite salable, money? 500 or so plus a compressor etc, fitting? depends on what's in the kit! Technicalities are your problem and not for us to suppose in my opinion. Things I would want or not. My present CVs and drive shafts , Reliability, No hanging or vulnerable pipework, Ease of maintenance. Reading with interest, Lara

With 38" Boggers just forget LR axles and either go for some of Mr Ashcrofts new 9" stuff or go Spidertrax etc, you are only throwing good money after bad with LR stuff on this size tyre! Even 101 axles, by the time you finished you could have bought custom stuff. These fancy axles have not been developed for nothing! they were needed!! Buy wise, Buy once!! Lara

I would bet a lot of money that it is only the valve guides, unlikely to be rings if it does not smoke under load and breath heavily, unlikely to be turbo if intermittent smoke although possible. Turbo shaft up and down play is normal as the shaft runs in double floating bronze bearings but end to end play is not, easy to check. Lara

To try to answer your actual question! Passing an MOT every time is not so difficult if you just give it a good look over, and to tell the truth people although stupid in doing so can fool the MOT inspector fairly easily when rot is concerned, the poor bloke can't see everything all of the time and they do not use xray specs! So no reason to plaster him with dodgy dealing. The car has certainly been inspected by DVLA since the pickup conversion and "probably" therefore the "Bob" and been given the all clear! Do the regs state chassis mods inside the wheelbase as a need for SVA or do they say nothing? I can't be bothered to read but maybe you would find it worth while as it does seem that your Bobbed vehicle has no problems, however a check with DVLA may be worth the insurance of having everything correct. Do so by letter and keep copies, that way if all is well you actually have "proof" all is well. Good luck, Lara.

Mate of mine in Reading fitted a 426" Hemi into his 90 about 20 years ago, and although it was MEGA powerful it was total **** off road! I think the engine weighed so much that it just plowed the fields, This was on 7.5" SATs though those were the days Lara

Strange but true! Lara

We used to have this problem with one of our engines running a Scintilla Vertex Magneto, NGK BP7ES plugs breaking down every 1500 miles or so, we put it down to the very high voltage that the mags produce, We changed to Bosch Platinum W3CS and never had the problem again. Lara

www.wide-wheels.co.uk Used them, helpfull guys. Lara

Hope all goes well with the project Simon, I would not want to be doing it! I am sure it is a lot more complicated than your post suggests! When it all works as intended I wonder how long it will be until you start wondering "IF I JUST" It's not what starts you thinking it's what stops you thinking, bet you can't! Lara

Hi Simon, That answers my question on regenerative breaking but are you intending to use capacitors etc in order to harness as much energy as possible as obviously the batteries will not be able to take all that power in such a short time? Very interesting project, Trying to find out, How "techie" are you getting or is the idea "just" to make a simple electric vehicle? ("just" meaning I know it isn't "that" simple ) Lara

How about this for the ultimate nasty neighbor Silencer Lara

I had an attempted break in at my workshop about 5 years ago, They tried to smash the alarms off of the walls with sledge hammers but missed one of the workshop ones and the one on my house, This caused the Alarm to go into "sabotage mode" this means that the alarm at central control goes off and the police get instant notification, and then only the police attending can switch it off (for personal safety reasons they must attend and physically check the house and workshop) Police came almost instantly (impressive at 3 in the morning) Funny thing was though is that while I was making the coffee and the police were walking round checking, a neighbor (nearest is over 200m away) came to complain about the noise that was keeping her awake, not, was everything ok? I and the Police were gob smacked Neighbors Lara

Interesting Simon! Why don't you rig up a big alternator arrangement to engage and spin up when braking in order to charge the batteries somewhat while driving, A bloody big alternator would also save on your brakes too! and you could always connect the alternator up to a high speed flywheel and one way clutch that engages when you touch the brakes, to give you even longer charge period by using more of the kinetic energy available from braking. Just to make things more complicated for you this project was obviously far too easy as you have almost finished Lara

Cheap = Buy quality "Once" Lara

Im sulking Truth hurts you know Lara

Hi Aragorn, (cool name by the way, I love Lord of the Rings) Nothing too special about my engine other than an awful lot of torque very low down. But aside from that the Auto box does exactly what Bishbosh says, It just plain makes things so easy, especially accelerating up steep hills, You know, the ones where you couldn't possibly just crawl up due to lack of traction, need just the right amount of momentum but not a big enough run up to manage third in your manual and you know that if you managed it in 3rd you would need second by the time the speed was dragged off at the top, you can't use 2nd because you would need to pull 7000 revs, what do you do? Auto!! Engine breaking? Your tyres don't know what is slowing your wheels down! is it the engine or the brakes? it's whatever you do it with and it is all the same in real life! And you don't have the chance of stalling either, which is much more of a problem when stood on your nose vertically and in the middle of pooing your self!!!!!! Great on the road too, always shifts at the right time, just a little time needed to get used to it, that's all. Lara

Top build thread EVER!! I love it!!! Lara