Bill Shurvinton

I'll see if I can find my notes on TC efficiency, I think you will find that at cruise, where input and output shaft are close to the same speed that they are in fact very efficient. NOTE: none of this takes into account that a lead footed loon might mess things up by giving it large when a gentle application of throttle would do the same!

Interestingly I had a long chat with a transmission engineer a while back who said he had never seen any evidence that a lock up gains you anything in real use. You need power to keep the TCC applied which in many cases is greater than any saving you have over leaving the TC unlocked.

Quick note on lean and what that means.... maximum EGTs in an engine occur when there is just enough fuel to burn all of the air. excess fuel cools it down, not enough fuel and obviously less heat is produced. For a homogenous charge mix this magic point is around 14.7:1 (the stoichometric point). this is the point that you need to be for a standard catalytic converter to work. Sadly this is not where the engine wants to be Just to confuse the issue petrol engines rarely have a homogenous mixture, so to burn every last bit of air you need to add more fuel. Generally best power occurs around 13:1 AFR, with some helpful cooling from fuel you don't actually use. best economy occurs at the leanest point the engine will still run. 16:1 is usually the limit for that. LPG by its nature generally IS far more homogenous, but EGTs are higher. There is just no free lunch

I am astounded that the heads will breathe at all well at that RPM. Other than the brabham stuff with 4V heads not a lots revs that high. Real steel or wildcat heads?

Sh*t. I'm used to Bike engine based V8s revving that high, but not sure I would want to take anything based on a car engine that high. Surely its not rover based?

thats going nowhere, but we do have code on microsquirt for auto boxes. currently written for the GM range, but some squirreling going on in the background to make it work with the ZF boxes as well. for GM boxes I do have the code for the factory ECU and you can tweak shift points using that very easily. You have to burn eproms, but the ECUs are cheap. (like £10)

There is at least one case of someone racing with a T16 turbo. If you can build engines or know a good builder they have certain advantages (esp in the sub 3.5 class where you should be 100HP up on everyone else). I love V6s and have a couple I would love to try in a truck. The nissan/renault 3.5 is nice as you can get Th350 adaptors. The GM 3800 is cheap as chips, but would need a special adaptor. iron block, but the supercharged ones have a good power curve. 3 litre ford/mazda/jag is another option. If only I had playtime... Having said all that, if vapour mode was off and I was doing it for real I would have a hard job not doing exactly what SteveH did.

being devils advocate (and since no budget requirements limit choice) I still would say a sequential dog box would be better, not least as you don't have a gearbox that needs 20HP to drive it. Interesting the 'kinder on the transmission argument' As you have a higher peak torque with an auto are you really saying that shock loads are higher with a manual cos mad dog behind the wheel has the mechical sympathy of a lump hammer?

Piece of string is 'that long' of course!

sequential manual and V6 would be my choice. 250HP nissan lump. But I am not normal

ROTFL. There is an awful lot of product placement in PPC as well. Just that the readers rides are more interesting.

That was fun! I must apologise to Dave for proving that it doesn't matter how many diffs you can lock if you put an idiot behind the wheel...twice A splendid day and hats off to the SLRC organisers. Bill

Plugs can be funny things. Given their only job is to create a spark kernel all sorts of odd things can happen. Given that Nige is running a somewhat breathed on motor it could be that perhaps the current plugs are too hot and 7s or 8s would be better. Also the EDIS gives a big, fat spark (I think you had a bit of electro-convulsive therapy off if once Nige?). If the gapping is sed for a weedy dizzy setup then you will chew through electrodes. Sadly unleaded makes reading plugs a bit less interesting than it used to be, but a close up pic of the old ones might give a few pointers.

I do miss visiting Finland in the winter.

I must also add my thanks to the shire team. After a ****ty week at work and worse weekend at home a couple of hours in the mud was exactly what I needed. And I got to take part in my first recovery. Best sunday in weeks!

alternatorparts do a range of uprated alternators. I know the CS-130 type will fit a rover v8 as that's what the buick 3800 V6 used in my old people carrier. Interestingly they now do a 420A diode pack which I might try one day. what I cannot say is if their uprated iceberg diode packs do the job as I fitted one to the car after it fried its 4th normal alternator in as many years and then found that wasn't the issue. I developed a profound hatred for 3 wire alternators at one point though!

you got that video up anywhere yet John?

for an engine where you can arrange the scavenging properly...like a flat plane crank V8 or a 4 pot. For most V8s (unless you have a lotus or AJP engine) then you don't have a hope in scavenging as the pot that you are trying to scavenge from is on the other side of the engine. So pick whatever 1) fits (which included not being ripped off on the first rock) 2) allows a free flow of gasses out 3) you can afford

If all you have is a tank of cold/iced water, then yes, it's only good for a drag race, but if you have the time to engineer a proper solution it can be much better than air:air intercooling. Like everything it's a compromise, but the fact that you have a lot more flexibility on where you put the rad can help. And of course you can have multiple rads. A lot of turbo petrol cars use a pair of oil coolers one on either side, so they minimise disruption to airflow through the main rad. more tricky in LRs but still possible. and wherever they are they can still fill with mud...

Depends what you mean by powerful as well. A lot of the modern common rail engines that are more complex than any petrol (5 injection events per cylinder per combustion event) produce lots of power in a small car. Would they last lugging a 2 ton truck with 3 ton trailer? Probably not.

I'd question anyone who thinks I'm a specialist !

The isuzu common rail V8 that GM sell as the duramax is a stonking engine. Nearly bought my friends pickup to have shipped over here for that engine. Problem with it is eating transmissions. Chevy fit it to a 6 speed Allison auto which is superb but massive (in the sense of having lots of mass). The cummins I6 engines are also good. Banks did a bonneville pickup with one of those a few years back which did 200MPH, then towed its own trailer back. Same issue with transmissions. In the Dodge pickups they seriously downrated the torque as the box wouldn't cope. Put that same I6 in a motorhome where there is room and mass budget for the gearbox and its very impressive. IIRC 250HP...everywhere. TC locks up at 1500RPM As no longer needed. Whilst very drunk in the US with same friend with pickup (who also had motorhome) we worked out that peak torque was just under 1000ftlbs stupidly low RPM. great for the intended purpose. For a LR derived vehicle I am not so sure. It's a lot of weight...

For far less than the carb conversion you could replace the Prince of Darkness ECU with something better that. Fridge has almost got it plug and play...

You would have thought for the purported cost of the frogs they could drive a few miles on the road...

they's worked that out 2 years ago. Went through the monkey enclosure behind a 110. they ate 3 of the filler strips! They like to drink out the washer jets...I was naughty and helped them. Oddly the pump can squirt it out faster than they can drink it... The silverback died a couple of months ago IIRC.