Black T2 convertable Reading

[bill shurvinton]

Been seeing a Black convertable G 796 OOD ish number plate heading into and out of reading. Passed me last night ( I was the loony on the racing bike) and popped a nice little blue fireball out the back.

Bill

[Prof]

Just found this forum - sorry I didn't reply earlier !

You still running in and out of Reading ?

[Brett]

Bill no longer uses this forum, bu being in the reading area there will be a lot of rex's travelling to and from the specialists in the area!

[Prof]

I just wandered if he still did that run into Reading - as that was me, and I seem to see a biker quite often on the way home - who likes to have a good look !

I am thinking of membership, I am just very bad at getting around to things - like painting the car for one.

I own a T2 Convertible - have done for just coming up to 4 years now, and I know the specialists you refer to - I am a regular there! Actually they are just about 2-3 miles from where I work in reading, so they are well handy, and they know what there doing.

The motor has a coolant leak at the moment, and its not from a hose or the rad :(

...still, it was running well up till then - I have a few mods on the car - Exhaust (racing beat), intake (hks mushroom), the ECU I got from RHD in Japan - a Blitz Access (tuned for exhaust and intake on stock turbo, also defeats the fuel cut and rev limit), did the shocks, brakes, wheels and tyres, also strut bars front and rear, and fitted HID's and front fogs). Still have a lot of work internally - reverse indiglos to fit, finishing by custom boost gauge/turbo timer/exhaust temp meter.

And the best thing about 16 year old Rex's - the look on the face of the bloke you just flew past who's sitting in his expensive Merc/Beemer and thinking you were a fiat x19 or TR7 !

[Brett]

LoL! Do you have any pics? You should take a look at some of the posts in the 2nd gen section, we will make you welcome :) :wave
have you had any lean-ness issue's with the Jap tuned ECU?

[Prof]

It's funny you should say that! - Leaness that is.

I had some engine trouble just after the Air intake mod - and that was before the Jap ECU was in. I was using a mixture of Optimax and Tesco's Super (then 97 RON), and the turbo (stock) was overboosting - It was producing 8-9 PSI with the duty solenoid host pegged shut, and about 12 PSI with it connected. With the fuel cut still in place on the stock ECU, this meant bad news for the engine, but it was bloody quick off the line !

Rotechnics did a lot of work to find the problem, which had probably resulted in one of my 3 engine rebuilds ! (First one at 77K miles - water jacket split in the freezing cold, 2nd one after 12 months - down to seals failing early - probably down to lean issues and a bad oil pump - 3rd one after 2-3 months same issue).

Now with the Jap ECU, I run it only on Optimax or the new 99 RON stuff from Tesco's, although I had a dirty load from the one in Camberley the first time I used it. I also changed the fuel pump for a Walborough, which helps ensure the fuel stays flowing at the higher revs/boost.

I must get it Dyno'd sometime when I find my Round Tuit! :rollin

BTW - the best mod to date was the Matt grey Superleggera's with Eagle F1's - I went up a size on the wheel - 17", 1 inch deeper rims to take the bigger 225/45 tyres (same as on the Audi TT). It has made the car a hell of a lot more sure footed in dry and wet, and the car doesn't lurch on the road furniture like before with the Falken's it had on. Whatever acceleration was lost with the wheel/tyre change was probably gained back with a much lighter wheel. :cool

[Brett]

MMmmmmmm sounds nice :D Pics are now needed on moral grounds :)

[Prof]

Here are some pics - shows most of the visible mods !

The water leak turned out to be the water pump gasket - it was pi**ing out all over the fan and spraying all round the engine bay.

Still it's back and running again so I'm a happy camper :) :cool

The HID's were a dual bulb H4 Kit, so Hi-beam is a Halogen bulb, and dipped is the HID - I only use the Hi-beam for flashing now, as the HID's are bright enough to see half a mile down the road (it's like having your own personal sun). I disconnected the dipped dim resistor, and used the relay to switch the little 4W side bulbs in the sealed units - unfortunately the bulbs are blue so they need changing as well. The wiring harness allows quick reversion to the old H4 bulbs should that be needed for an MOT test. It did fail on the lenses, so I have to swap them out for next time :rolleyes:

The alloys are supposed to be matt grey silver, although they are covered in brake dust so they look a little darker at the mo!

And the centre stealth gauge is to become my custom boost/turbo timer gauge - with 20 leds graded from blue thru green, yellow, orange and red. It will have a small 4 digit Alphanumeric led display in the centre, and will show peak boost, exhaust manifold temp, battery voltage (cranking) and a time display when the ignition is cut. The turbo timer will use the boost signal to work out how hard the car was driven, and the exhaust temp signal to decide how long to run the car in cool down. I was thinking of adding a warm up timer function as well, to avoid that nasty flood problem if its cut off too early (only did that once :rolleyes: )

Pics and circuit diag can be made available when I get it finished.

[Brett]

They are nice and bright :cool If you are not busy, theres a car meet in the Horsham area on the 25th, you would be more than welcome :)

[Brett]

Moving this to the 2nd gen section :)

[Prof]

They are nice and bright :cool If you are not busy, theres a car meet in the Horsham area on the 25th, you would be more than welcome :)


What time and whereabouts do you meet ?

[Brett]

Its on the A29 between Pulborough and Billingshurst.

Clicky linky thingy (http://www.retrocarclub.co.uk/rcc/southernmeet.htm)

Meet starts at 1pm, the cafe owner is gonna keep the cafe open for us too. Should 3 or 4 rexes turn up, maybe more :D