altezzaclub

They're lying in the grass at the Woolshed at Walcha... (some assembly may be required !) Decide how far you want to drive to get one & PM Insanity. We must have 6 or 7 up there we will never use.

You can calculate the current spring rate if you can see the top and bottom of it. That's because you need to count the 'active' coils, those that are not touching anything. So find out where the first coil lifts off the seated one and count downwards until you get to where the bottom one sits on the strut base. It could be 5 and three quarter active coils, or a number like that. Then measure the total spring diameter and also the wire diameter. Plug it into here- http://www.pontiacracing.net/js_coil_spring_rate.htm Alternatively you could take a spring off and compress it on the bathroom scales. Have a second person measure the length you start at (just lean on it a few Kg), then put your weight on it while they measure the compressed length and the number of Kg. You could try compressing it one inch, but its fiddly doing that.

Absolutely! The ask price is a dream... I am astounded at some Rolla prices on here too, and you only get an idea of reality from the way the price drops over the weeks.

I'd expect so- Check all the bulbs in the indicators, side lights and brake lights. Look for broken wires, corroded wires and bulbs, and twin-filament bulbs put in backwards. Then pull the steering wheel & indicator stalk off and solve the sticky indicator problem. I don't think it will be related to the brake light problem. Here's the KE70 circuit, it must be similar.

Without checking it.. stroke volume is 3.14x41x41x77=369.5 piston sticks up 3.14x41.41.0.3=1.6 gasket is 3.14x41x41x1.3=6.86 Let X be the head volume. So the BDC volume is 369.5+6.86+X-1.6-3.2 which is 371.56 + X The TDC volume is X +6.86 -1.6-3.2 which is X + 2.06 For an 11.3 to one CR BDC volume = 11.3(TDC volume) 371.56 + X = 11.3(X + 2.06) 371.56 + X = 11.3X + 23.28 371.56-23.28 = 11.3X - X 348.28 = 10.3X so X = 34.83 ..and can I have 25minutes of my life back please!

Fair enough. I pin the extractors to the head so they go on exactly each time, and I glue the gasket onto the head in a couple of spots to hold it in place.

ooohh shiny! You do bring them up nicely! Isn't there more to take out of the exhaust port to match the gasket? or doesn't that add enough flow to worry about?

We will wait with anticipation.....

Great lights and no styling there! We had them on Datsun 1600 rally cars...

That's no good! You borrowing a corner of some local garage and ripping it apart yourself? Did it back in the 70s when I first came to Aussie, the Beetle blew up on a trip from Canberra to Darwin....

Valve stuck open? (or closed) Do a compression check before getting too carried away. If the dud cylinder has compression it will be fuel or spark. See if the injector will squirt fuel into a cup. Might be the dizzy cap, a crack by that cylinder lead, but there's not much else if you've done plugs and leads.

Well done! So... more complicated job next time! What about a hot cam being fitted...

Its delicate! The solder lets go at the slightest force, so its a slow careful job really. Take the whole thing out and check it all, where those pipes join the heater core and the core itself, and pressure test it before you put it back in.

The speedo cable on the side of the gearbox just screws on. Grab a rag and undo it by hand, or a pair of pliers if its stuck. The clutch cable needs the circlips taking off at top and bottom to release the outer sheath, then take the hook off the clutch pedal and pull the whole cable out of the bottom drilling on the bell housing.

Either drain the gearbox or leave the driveshaft in the back of it! Otherwise oil will appear all over the floor! The cable is removed from the top and out through the bottom, not what you would expect, and must be taken out before the gearbox comes out. Hang it up and drop engine oil into it until it drips out the bottom. You'll have to line the clutch plate up with the spigot bearing in the crankshaft exactly, so the gearbox input shaft can go through the clutch plate and into the bearing. I can do it by eye, or you can buy a plastic clutch aligning tool. If you are a couple of mm out you will struggle forever to try and get the gearbox back in. Otherwise they are simple and strightforward.

Its surprising you can find anything any where near small enough in the USA.... not known for their small cars!

If you're going to motorsport the kit car, don't forget to look up Billzilla's page on how to turn the K50 gearbox into a close-ratio. It will be a challenge doing it in Thailand!

That seems right- Take a look at the rocker adjustment screws and see what 1.5mm would do to them. Are the rockers about horizontal when the valve is closed, that is, paralell to the block deck as the motor is slanted. or even pointing slightly upwards towards the valves would be better??.... skimming the head and valve stem length also affects all of this, and what you don't want is the rocker wiping across the edge of the valve stem or the rocker face.. Ideally I think they should start facing slightly upwards and go through the 'horizontal' to face downwards with the valve open. It will be interesting to see if you stick with 16thou tappet gap. Mine were noisy at that & I closed them back to stock.

blah blah blah.... You KNOW the big thing is in the handling from the new position of the motor!! ...I had a Lotus Europa in my youth.... Don't get runover by a truck. Those low cars are hard to see apparently.

I've read a couple of my daughter's Potter books & saw the first film.... but really, I find Terry Pratchett much much better. "Animal Farm" and "1984" should be required reading at school... They are great for pointing out what is behind our society.

All he needed as was a decent feed! If they can't produce food for someone of his stature the someone in the crew deserves a punch!

Power probably not a lot of difference, but the torque difference will be great! We rallied a stock 18RG with Webers and extractors and it didn't really rev past 6000, a real tractor motor. The 5K will out-rev it, but the extra half a litre will make the 18RG faster & easier to drive. How's the fuel budget? There's nothing economical about the 18RG. The 5K will be easier to work on, rockers instead of buckets & shims, easy to skim the head and find parts for while 18RGs don't like being skimmed & the parts will be fewer & expensive.

As far as I know they don't grind the 'nose' of the camshaft, as they want to maximise lift. The 'heel' gets ground away so your zero-point for lift is changed and the nose pushes the pushrod further up, as you are experiencing. The measurement you want is nose-to-heel across a stock cam lobe, and the same on the ground cam. The difference will be how much they ground off the heel. That should be the same as taking the stock lift at the cam (or at the valve, which is 1.5 times bigger) and the lift on the ground cam. The difference in lift will be what you need to machine off the rocker posts multiplied/divided by the rocker ratio. Wiki says the stock cam has 338thou lift at the inlet valve, and 356thou at the exhaust valve. Say you bought a cam with 405thou lift at the valve... For the inlet the valve is lifting an extra 67thou, so the cam has been ground 67/1.5 which is 45thou. If you machine 45thou off the rocker post it should bring your adjustment screws up by that much and back to stock level. That's my take on it, but I've never had a cam wild enough to have to do it.

Looks nice! Aren't those the Toyota equivalent of Mazda's 'hairdresser's car"?

Off to Glen Innes tomorrow?? First time a rally has been run on those roads for years, and it looks fast and smooth.