Turbocharger

I'm hoping to see curves like this when I fit my VGT: The thin lines are the current 300Tdi performance (from the satnav "rolling road"). Upper lines are torque, lower lines are power. The thick lines are my guess for torque (green) and power (yellow). You can see that peak power isn't really affected because the boost at 4000rpm is still going to be 1 bar. However, the usable torque at 1400rpm could go up to 220Nm from 160Nm at the same engine speed. The figures are a bit arbitary, but that 40ish% increase will feel like 150bhp (a 40% increase from 111bhp) even though the peak power is unchanged. Who regularly drives their Tdi at 4000rpm anyway?

Out of interest MOG, what did this cost you (or your insurer)? My screen's probably the 1984 original and it's a little scratched and manky, although nothing specific which might make the insurance want to buy me another (and I wouldn't want to suggest it to them for fear of my premium rocketing). For £50 it might be a reasonable investment to be able to see where I'm going when the sun's low.

I'll put in a vote for the grubscrew and boss - I bought a new one but it still moves occasionally on the shaft. Above 70mph it wipes right across the screen ... but tightening it is probably safer for driving around town.

24bar peak on cranking for a 300Tdi with 19.5:1 compression ratio. The boost pressure's higher on a 300Tdi but that shouldn't affect dry cranking?

^^^ he means half inch, I promise.

Why do people not just pull the handler arm off and put a Manitou into the RFC/Ladoga etc then? (Or even leave the arm on to sabotage other teams )

For better comparison if/when Rodney gets some data from his engine, does anyone have a laptop & GPS setup, and a standard-tune Td5 Ninety with a winch and cage, ideally on 35" Simex? Otherwise, just a stock Td5 Ninety would be fine but you need the GPS (or a friend with a similar setup, or to be near London to borrow mine in January...) edit: or a Td5 110 would be fine too - the spec's not too important as long as you can estimate the weight really...

Heh heh... Rodney and I have been PM'ing about using GPS to get some power and torque figures for this machine. Hopefully I'll make some steps forward with my VGT setup over Christmas too.

I guess by putting the diff into the front of the axle case you'd keep the castor angle - I reckon it'd be pretty twitchy with the axle upside down; even with the steering locked, the play in a LR box is legendary!

I shall be going, but haven't booked any ferries etc because I'll be going to Barcelona too for a few days of "cul-cha", but I'm not sure about holiday dates - depends if I go before or after the offroading...

I'd suggest getting a bucket and letting the fluid drop into it. Brake fluid is hygroscopic and should be changed every 5(?) years anyway. Nobody does (I don't) because they don't want to touch a system that works fine anyway and will probably leak afterwards , but I'd treat it as a good opportunity to get some of the manky old stuff out?

What do you know about dogging Jules?

Tornado Motorsport also offer castor-correcting for your axle casings - this seems to be the 'proper' way to do it to me, rather than stretching somewhere between castor and diff angles. He's done some at lunatic angles and it can push the trackrod quite low down, but oversteer is no longer a problem... You could also run standard radius arms, which must be stronger without any bends in them.

More "testing" at the weekend - I added less than half a litre of water from cold (replacing what gets pushed out by expansion?) and drove ten miles Bristol to Bath with water temp bang on 88 degrees, with a mixture of hard dual-carriageway driving and round town. Late in the journey the temperature needle dropped to 60 degrees and stayed there, and it wouldn't get any warmer on the return journey (after 5 hours stood on a frosty night). At the end of both journeys, the header tank was full, and revving the engine produces a flow across the header tank (with a stream of small bubbles). I didn't check to see if the thermostat housing was empty again, but I suspect it was from the low indicated temperature. I'll pull the head at Christmas but I'm erring more towards a de-gassing problem because it's not using water...

Looks like a royal indictment of Defender door seals to me...

For the revived event, can I provisionally enter a "standard" Milemarker plus ZF74 pump? It's essentially the 'off the shelf' Milemarker. I have a plasma rope and plenty of time...

Diff - you're right, there is a lot of thread showing. I bought a solid aftermarket drag link but it was unbranded, and it seems to be a funny length. It was a concern when I fitted it but I'm satisfied that there is enough thread inside the bar (not just the nut). The drop arm doesn't point ahead when it should though...

I'd be interested to hear if you see any tangible effect from this mod - good info to have, cheers.

Two Ford Escorts are at the traffic lights. One owner has spent £2000 and two hours bolting on a supercharger, one has fettled his own suspension from unobtanium and spent unknown hours adjusting it to be just right. The traffic lights change to green, the supercharged Escort leaps ahead and leads by two lengths into the first corner. By the third bend the lowered Escort has squeezed past and taken the lead; they accompany each other over twelve miles of varied straights and corners, passing and re-passing each other. As they enter the next town they're actually line-abreast, with a huge grin on the face of both owners. Who won?

If they're wraparound guards, wedge a little bit of wood or similar between the guard and the casing - I have these on a Ninety and they rattled like hell on certain road surfaces. Of course, I chose to ignore it and it seems that after a few heavy bashes offroad I've adjusted their natural resonant frequency...

A bit late to the party but I've got a Disco arm on a Defender 4-bolt box, I swapped them after getting sick of changing drop arm BJs. Some people reckon there are clearance issues with the chassis but mine's fine. The damper relocation is a bit of a pain since the QT bracket (shown) is designed to fit a fatter arm, so I've packed it slightly to clamp properly. It's shown leaning over because it had bottomed out on the damper - I slid the clamp along a little to restore full travel (and yes, I've clipped the winch pipes up properly since then)

Umm... dunno! I thought it was a belt-and-braces type approach that good old British engineering was so good at. Why does the same location on a bus crankshaft have a woodruff key then, despite being a taper fit on a 'rounded triangular' crank nose? It's about 100mm major diameter, 80mm minor diameter so looks more like a 3-lobe cam. I take your point though, why bother otherwise? In case it comes loose?

Use thinner material and put it where it's needed. My Gwyn Lewis bumper uses huge tubes but quite thin-section material - I can pick it up with one hand and I'm not a big chap.

Probably me, it's Friday. Large-text version: The schematic wheel is made of a disc (with holes in it for wheelnuts, hub etc) welded into a hoop which carries the tyre. Mangels make the 8-spoke in a range of offsets, I had a set from Sinton which were silly, 750 SAGs were outside the bodywork on a Series!