non French - spark plugs

[jgra1]

hmmm..

I like a risk Mike

I have cut the hol short from cornwall to the New Forest..

and others are relying on me.. I will have recovery too...

if I could choose, I would pull the engine out and clean and rebuild it.. I may get that chance ..

question for anyone... I have two seperate temp gauges .. if there is a serious lean condition, they should tell me?

[jgra1]

I am back

the van spluttered up the first hill 1/4 mile from home, enough to make me pull the engine cover and undo some small changes at the side of road

then it got to the first stop, a garage 10 miles away, showing no problems.. £30 in the tank..

another stop at Chichester and £30 in tank, everything else fine

made it to the New Forest at 7pm after leaving here about 2, but all was great if a little windy! had a nice eveing in the middle of forest without hookup.
next day it didnt want to do a cold start, some more adjustments fixed that.. moved to a hookup pitch..
an issue with a hydraulic powersteering pipe on the way back meant that the pump / resevior was empty.. in the end I replenished the system and it never dropped the level again.. seems a lot of time spent at full lock in the morning had caused the fluid loss.. for the rest of the journey home I tried to avoid tight turns.. not easy in a 23foot truck..

came speeding up the M3 at 65 with plenty of power left.. and got home without incident... I did notice the diff was hot, guessing that is normal?

finally, on the same hill near home, it seemed to struggle, and when back home it ran-on for the first time ever.. maybe the plugs will now show up as being very white.. will pull them out later

very happy though , the chevy lives on

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_2fj8MH_LeQ0/S ... thorns.jpg

[MikeT]

I'm glad it made it there and back and it seems you enjoy the challenges it threw up along the way. I'd be very interested to see the plugs now.

[CitroJim]

Hi John,

Pleased you made it back home OK Strange on the PAS. Must be a perished pipe that leaks under the pressure of full-lock. It'll bear a close inspection and hopefully in slower time an outfit like Pirtek will be able to fabricate a replacement.

Brought back a lot of fond memories to see Setthorns again. So many good holidays spent there when the girls were little. Not been there for two, maybe three years now

Whats the story of the sliver Xantia there?

Heres a shot of our old rig at Setthorns in 2005. That's Siany (our youngest) with Kyra the Springer when she was just a pup and my old 1.9TD.. Look at the state of those wheels after a long, hard tow!



It'll be interesting to see the plugs..

[addo]

If you blokes have MMT or similar in the fuel it will skew plug readings. Besides, they are far less dependable in the post-lead days.

A different solution that costs more to establish, yet gives more accurate results and better amortisation, would be a wideband oxygen sensor of the standalone variety. I'd be looking at one bung in each side.

You do have fabricated (cheap) shorties on it, right?

As to LPG - it's long been a "performance" fuel option here, being that you can make a more streetable super high output motor with it, than premium unleaded. Its ability to charge cool is a strong point!

[jgra1]

You do have fabricated (cheap) shorties on it, right?

addo, manifolds right? no completely standard

Mike and Jim, sorry I didnt get in touch Sat, it would have been nice to have you over for a tea.. my brothers Rotary mazda was there, plus my friends silver xant and the 106..it was busy and the Forestry Commision are.. you know..

plugs out tomorrow eve

[addo]

You'll find the aftermarket supports GM bent eights handsomely. A set of headers to suit won't be hard to find; just make sure it clears any steering bits.

Here's a roughly filtered search of one website.

edit: Sorry about screwing up the URL embedding!

[jgra1]

hmm,,, changing manifolds will remove the now-defunct air injection nozzles, which disrupt airflow out of the engine..

[addo]

What year is the motor? If it has AIR nozzles in the casties, then it probably runs a "smog" cam and timing set. Especially if it's a California delivered vehicle.

Ugh.

That widens your shopping list to a multi-keyway true roller timing set, also. In fact, I might do that before any of the other mods besides checking plug gap. A "torque" or RV cam kit (cam, lifters, timing set) is another option to work with standard compression ratios and provide a little more power.

[jgra1]

Addo, I think its a 50 state engine, 99% sure of that...approx 1984

I have got an new unfitted set of aftermarket distributor advance springs and arms..

3 different curves..

[addo]

Seen these?

http://www.jegs.com/p/JEGS/JEGS-9-Keywa ... 0/10002/-1

Similar ones are all over Fleabay. Worth doing.

[jgra1]

I cant see ebay at work

look at ebay uk 260467358502 for headers a few miles from me? any good? cant see pic

maddog seem to do some cheap RV torque kits...

[addo]

They're block huggers, as the advert says. More for T-buckets and whatnot. I suspect they could be made to fit, but engine mounts would determine that. You'd need a universal DIY kit to fit them, with the flanges, and sections of pipe to cut and weld.

Manufacture looks decent enough, but they're plain steel with aluminised silver paint.

[MikeT]

If you blokes have MMT or similar in the fuel it will skew plug readings. Besides, they are far less dependable in the post-lead days.

MMT? Could you elaborate a bit more on this, I don't understand what readings you're referring to. Different fuel brands can alter plug colour but it doesn't stop us from reading the important bits AFAICT.

A different solution that costs more to establish, yet gives more accurate results and better amortisation, would be a wideband oxygen sensor of the standalone variety. I'd be looking at one bung in each side.

Again, I'm not sure what you mean; are you saying that reading the average gasses from four cylinders (plus any exhaust leaks present) is more accurate than reading each cylinder independently? I've heard/read stories from people who have used widebands that report rich yet still suffer multi-cylinder detonation. In jgra's case it might be ok as he seems to have pretty even distribution but considering the cost, wideband is not something I would recommend over plug reading.

As to LPG - it's long been a "performance" fuel option here, being that you can make a more streetable super high output motor with it, than premium unleaded. Its ability to charge cool is a strong point!

Agreed and even works well for diesels (though it will increase exhaust temperatures). What I'm realising is that most kits (available in the UK) are built to substitute petrol, making for little extra power but great for economy with the advantage of intake cooling lost due to the vaporiser. It's hard finding power kits for LPG and even harder finding them for diesels. Why is the UK so backward on this??

[KP]

For diesels could you not just use the old style vapouriser's and plumb it into the accelerator cable so that as the engine is pushed harder more LPG is thus injected and thus more power for the bang???

All the DIY kits as well seem to be a bit daunting and mean that the car would have to be off the road for a while, there doesn't seem to be any that are one, fairly priced, and two allow installation in stages, IE tank one time, injection bits another time that can be blocked off allowing then the ecu and cabling to be done another day and then the big one of the piping to be done another day....