4722 replies to this topic

[CHILL Gone DUTCH]

You should be running as cold as possible But while keeping enough heat for them to self clean The pic you posted suggests a plug which is running to hot

[siztenboots]

I think the flash on the camera has made the residue on the plug show as white, not tan. During winter I drive part throttle short journeys, so water and oil temperatures remain low. Summer time is track days in south of France , around 40° ambient.

[Nev]

 

Spent the morning in the garage. Today's job was fixing the mild camber difference between the left and rights sides, followed by a full and thorough string box session check with the car parked 180 degrees different to last time (to iron out any errors). This turned out to be spot on (no adjustments required), horah !

 

Yesterday, I returned to the corner of road where the car threw a tank slapper and had a good look at the road. It was by a horse/farm gate and was absolutely covered in mud & muck like a veneer on the road. I had mistaken this for dust when I initially drove over it, so no wonder the car threw a wobbly.

 

 

 

Was that the same dust cloud that we went over weekend before last?

 

 

Ha ha no, the place that nearly spun me out was at Badminton, where they have the horse trials. Loads of bloody horse trailers make a mess of the roads around there due to dragging mud and muck off the fields onto the tarmac. I will have to be more wary near there.

 

 

Edited by Nev, 23 April 2016 - 09:59 AM.

[Nev]

Went for a tootle early this morning, can anyone guess where?

 

 

 

 

 

[siztenboots]

they have cleaned up the horse for the queens 90th

[Nev]

I think my fooking T3 stainless steel flange (between the turbo inlet and exhaust manifold) is starting to melt and let out gas yet again as it has started making quite a din recently. This is despite me using 12.9 bolts torqued up as hard as I could last time. Replacing it seems to be a yearly job, which is a right pain in the arse as it takes about 4 hours and there is always the risk of any the 4 bolts not wating to come out of the flange easily.

 

I've looked at stud kits, but TBH it look even more risky getting the studs out if one was to resist removal or worse still snap, so will stick with using rolled threaded and heat treated 12.9 bolts.

 

 

Edited by Nev, 23 April 2016 - 12:34 PM.

[Arno]

12.9 grade (or most high tensile carbon-steel bolts for that matter) are not really temperature stable at the kinds of heat-loads you put them through. You will basically anneal them and they lose their clamp load.

 

Either you have to view them as 'consumable' and replace periodically or start using inconel based nuts and bolts or studs to handle the high heat and retain the clamp load you put on.

 

Bye, Arno.

[Nev]

12.9 grade (or most high tensile carbon-steel bolts for that matter) are not really temperature stable at the kinds of heat-loads you put them through. You will basically anneal them and they lose their clamp load.

 

Either you have to view them as 'consumable' and replace periodically or start using inconel based nuts and bolts or studs to handle the high heat and retain the clamp load you put on.

 

Bye, Arno.

 

Funnily enough I was looking for Inconel bolts online today, but without any luck in M10 x 30 x P1.5, though I have an aircraft enginner friend who has hundred of out of date high quality aero fastners; I will ask him.

 

However.... I was in the garage today and put my hand near the T3 joint and no gas was coming out at idle (which it normally does when it leaks). So I started poking about a bit more and think I may have found a small hole in the black OEM rubber boost pipe that leads from the turbo to the IC. Will replace this first as it is easy and quite possibly the origin of the boost loss sound from behind my seat.

 

I just need get hold of a second hand one, am I remembering corectly that the Lotus Europa has a stronger one (but the same shape as the VXT)??

 

Edited by Nev, 23 April 2016 - 05:12 PM.

[cookster501]

I think I still have all the boost pipes that iv taken off my low mileage turbo if you need one nev.

[gingerjon]

Uuuuummmm there appears to be no rain in these photos Nev.....and yet i see a roof in place?!?!

[VXT Tim]

Correct Nev the Europa one is stronger, I swopped my oem for one. £40 ish iirc

[chickendippers]

Would it not be cheaper/easier/better to swap for a silicone and hard pipe set up, that way you can upgrade to 2.5" piping too?

[Nev]

Uuuuummmm there appears to be no rain in these photos Nev.....and yet i see a roof in place?!?!

 

Ha ha, busted! It was a bit chilly at 7.00am this morning, thats my excuse anyway!

[Nev]

Correct Nev the Europa one is stronger, I swopped my oem for one. £40 ish iirc

 

Was that £40 new off Lotus ?! If so that seems very reasonable.

Edited by Nev, 23 April 2016 - 10:11 PM.

[Nev]

Would it not be cheaper/easier/better to swap for a silicone and hard pipe set up, that way you can upgrade to 2.5" piping too?

 

If you look at the pipe it has some dog leg bends in it to avoid the wishbone support bracket, so making one out of silicone would be problematic as it would need a lot of bends/elbows and hence joins. A solid one might be possible actually, I might consider if my alu welding skilz are up to it, however it would have to have 2 silicone sections (1 at each end) to allow it to flex enough with the engine movement, this in turn would require 2 extra jubilee clips which are usually the weak link in a boost pipe (which Im not keen on).

 

All in all the OEM one is highly available and easy to fit, probably only a 15 minute job to fit.

 

Edited by Nev, 23 April 2016 - 10:11 PM.

[chickendippers]

Sorry Nev, completely misread, I thought you were referring to the cooler > tophat pipe, not turbo > cooler. Either way it should still be relatively easy to do. That's on the list of things to add to the store once we actually get round to having the car on the ramps for a few days without a deadline of taking it somewhere else. Use a couple of decent quality T-Clamps instead of jubilees and you shouldn't have any issues

[Ormes]

For some reason the part is shown as obsolete on deroure

[VXT Tim]

Yes, from Chris Neal Lotus.

[Nev]

Yes, from Chris Neal Lotus.

 

Thanks Tim.  

[Nev]

Yesterday I had a flipping brilliant run around in Wales, did 200 miles on some ace B-roads I know, due mainly to the new compliancy of the car and warm weather. I've been steadily changing it from "fast A-road" spec to "medium speed B-road" spec to match what I seem to enjoy driving on mostly.

 

Anyway, this morning I have decided to try out a bit more rear camber to try and keep the delta between the fronts and rear closer to "the norm". I have put the rears up to around -2.3 degrees (with the fronts on -1.0 degrees). Went out for a short test run just now and couldn't really tell a big difference in handling apart from some heavy braking on some bobbly tarmac which perhaps unsettled the car a bit more than normal. Also had the fun of coming up behind a BMW M1 doing his best, he kept putting his foot down and I could hear his engine noise but it hardly seemed to accelerate. I started to overtake just when he indicated right into an industial area, so I had to back off

 

I'm keen to get a couple of friends who have driven him before have another go and see if they notice the difference.

 

I have also discovered a rather worn (almost floppy) upper ball joint on the N/S/R assembly, reaplacing this will likely improve things I think.

 

My interim fix of duct tape and jubilee clip on the burst boost pipe seems to have worked, however I have a new boost pipe coming in the post from Allan (Cookster501) - many thanks for your generosity.

 

 

 

Edited by Nev, 25 April 2016 - 12:54 PM.