Sheffield Area's December Meet Will Be On Thursday The 6Th.

[399Road]

This month's Pub meet will be on the 6th this time.

We meet from around 7.30 onwards at the Toby Carvery pub which is located just off the large roundabout, right at the top end of Dronfield. It sounds like a Paul and Mick have bought new cars in the last month but everything's top secret at the moment. I've had a couple of repairs to do on the Ascona recently when I got the exhaust bottomed out and cracked one of the tubular manifold's primary pipes. This Manifold is a bit of a home made/adapted one and used to be one of those Ashley Red top ones but had an Ecotec flange welded on and all the primary pipes cut at an angle to allow the manifold to clear the LHD steering column. It cracked across No.4 primary and as I'd wrapped it previously wilth that heat wrap, I couldn't quite see how bad it was until I'd removed it. I ended up cutting No.3's primary pipe off to allow me to weld all the way around No.4's pipe and then welding No.3 back in place. It's held up for a couple of weeks now so it should be ok. I've also been playing with ignition timing and the car's running a Ford wasted spark system with an external crank position sensor and 36-1 trigger wheel. It's got Vac advance too, so it's pretty economical. The last time I had it rolling roaded they said that more power would come with a little more advance at the top end of the rev range and with the Vac disconnected. I had a go at this and it pulled really well, but pinked it's head off! It also made the engine sound really good, with a harsh bark like one of those BDA's! I've now set it to be a little more retarded than it was before I started and this has made it really good low down with no pinking, but it's not quite as fast as it was before and the fuel economy is down a bit. It could do with this good power low down and more advance higher up the revs so I'm thinking about a newer, better, mappable ignition set up and I've started looking already.

Darren's Cavalier Mk1 GT/E is still going strong, he's fitted a new battery for the winter and nicked the Alternator off his GT/E'd Kadett saloon. The Kadett's got a fancy CIH fitted with a Kent cam and solid lifters and I think this motor is destined for the Cavalier soon. He's modified the Cavalier's exhaust to try and get a better sound and has fitted a Stainless back box that came off my old GT/E. The Cavalier's got a bit of an oil leak from it's distributor that needs sorting as it's leaking all over the Alternator's rubber mounts and making the belt slip.

That's about all there is to report from round here, so I'll see you Thursday evening..... Luke.

Edited December 4, 2012 by 399Road