Glort

HSV's have the pressure monitoring but not the filling given the $1000 apice tyres run Nitrogen instead of plain air. It is very interesting to see how the pressures change whist driving along. They can start out or all be the same at one point on the road and then you can have 4 different pressures when you get into it a bit varying by 3 pounds. If that's what happens with nitrogen, hate to see the difference on air!

Classic! Reminds me of my elderly neighbours sister who would come to visit her almost every day. She had this pale Blue 180B and always when she arrived, she would open the boot and take out her handbag and when she left she would dutifully put it back in there before driving off. I never understood what was with putting this small handbag in the boot instead of just putting it on the passengers seat or floor beside her.

Bah! I lost a finger at 18 months old and they couldn't re- attach it then. Been a pretty good source of amusement though. From pretending to pick my nose with my entire finger stuck up there with any new teacher at school to a bit of well placed tomato sauce at BBQ's and the right sort of yelling, I guess I have made the most of it. Funniest and sometimes scary thing of all is when people you have known often for years, suddenly spot the space on your hand where a finger should be and freak out. I was quite a drawback when I wanted to learn to play the keyboard as a kid oblivious to the flaw in that plan being so used to only having 9 fingers and never really seeing any draw back till then. Also took the tutor several lessons to figure out why I was so out of whack on the melody but could nail the chords every time.

WTF?? Didn't this guy have any martes that could drive him? Had to get old, old folks to give him a lift. What were the other family members thinking ? As well as getting lost, driving at 40 wouldn't exactly make the Journey any quicker.. And if they are like a lot of oldies, they probably stopped every hour for a cuppa and visit the bathroom and whatever for an hour at a time there. . Even though they got lost and did 500 km, the fact it took them 20 hours to do that distance says a lot. On open roads and going through towns, any more than 8 hours to do that distance is a worry in itself. I remember going places with my grandparents that were literally a full day trip and the day always started at 4am " To beat the traffic". I go along the same unchanged roads now and remember certain places where we always had to stop for a rest and laugh at how that spot was only an hour and a half into the trip or from the last stop. I can do the same journey now and always have been able to since I have been driving in 4 hours tops. My grandfather wasn't a slow driver, ( even had the mighty HD Holden with the big block 186 upgraded to X2 spec twin carbs!) 55- 60 Mph was the "right" speed to him on the open road. I have long since realised it was all that damn stopping and pulling out the primus stove to make tea and have the cake or scones my grandmother always packed that made the trips so bloody long!

I would say it's a fuel problem without doubt. it has all the symptoms my 4.2 has when something clags up on it. I only gave mine a filter change and clean up yesterday. I found when I first got the vehicle on mine the pickup in the tank had a lot of crud on it. The thing really dosen't have very big openings and wouldn't be hard to block with a few bits of crap. I drilled mine out a bit to give it more ability to flow and pass bigger bits of crud to the filter. I also wrapped it in a few layers of fly wire to increase the surface area of which the fuel is drawn from. I would start at the tank and work your way forward. Blow the lines out with compressed air and make sure they are not restricted. Check the soft lines near the tank and under the engine bay for cracking and leaks right up to the Filter and IP. I had some problems with the short bit of hose that connects the 2 hard lines under the bonnet. The hose was probably original and was cracked and hard. I missed it at first but due to putting the clear woven vinyl line in further up I could see I had an air leak from the bubbles in the line and traced it back. Also some 4.2's have a very fine gauze mesh IN the IP under the banjo fitting. I believe at some point these strainers were deleted but I don't know what year model. It is a common problem for them to get clogged and restrict fuel flow. Can be impossible to detect if you don't know they may be there. I know a guy that was told his IP was stuffed by a diesel Mechanic and he bought a new pump and had them fit it. He got the old pump back and a few weeks later stripped it down and found it looked fine. He had since heard about the gauze screen, pulled it out to find the thing near solid. Amazingly he did manage to get a worthwhile amount of money back off the incompetent diesel dim wits. The best thing is to remove the fuel inlet fitting and make a small hook out of some wire and see if you can pull the strainer out. If it has one you can either clean and replace it or chuck the thing. I'd do the latter myself. There seem to be a number of people that fit electric pumps to these vehicles. Perhaps the internal pump weakens a bit with age as clearences open up due to wear. I fitted an electric Walbro pump to mine under the bonnet and think it is extremely worthwhile. You can take the fuel line off at the IP, turn on the Ignition and see how much fuel your getting... or not. Also is very handy in priming new filters. I have also found that clamps on fuel lines tend to loosen up fairly quick when you replace fuel lines. I always go over mine about a week after I change them and often find what was once tight can now be spun round on the barb without too much difficulty. Once nipped up the 2nd time they tend to stay tight. Fuel problems arent difficult to fix but I reccomend if you haven't done anything much in the way of cleaning or replacing, start at the tank and work your way forward so you know you have eliminated all the possibilities of problems and know you have good flow. The beauty of mechanical diesels is unless something goes bang, 9 times out of 10 the problem is fuel related.

My old girl was loosing some of her get up and go so time for some maintence. Cleaned the Walbro Fuel Pump Strainer Changed the CAV filter Replaced the Water injection pump Fixed the WI switch to bring it on a bit earlier Filled the WI tank with 30% Meth Put 50L of Fuel in the tank. Gets expensive in winter, cost about $7.50. Noticed she is starting to blow a bit of smoke that smells like engine oil. I think she is starting to get a bit tired. I'm pretty sure one cylinder or injector isn't happy or pulling it's weight. Pretty dissapointing seeing it only has 565,000 on the clock.

OK, I couldn't ( and still can't ) see the pattern on the wood. Still damn clever though.

I reckon I have the ultimate faceache pic.... if I ever used it and needed a pic that is. A few weeks back I had to go to hospital to have some tests done. They wired me up like something from a sci fi Movie, I had electrodes on my face, my scalp, my body, legs, arms and then they wired me to this control box. Also had several tubes hanging out/ off of me. Went into the bathroom before they wired me up solid and damn near scared myself. Seriously looked concerning. So, thinking of all the people that always take Phone shots of themselves in the bathroom Mirror, I did too! Frankenstein meets Faceache. Spose seeing as I have no regards for faceache I should at least use it as a screen saver.

Is Facebook making people dumb... Do you really have to ask??

After my initial amazement at things like this, the next thought is how the hell did they figure it out in the first place and how many endless hours and stuff ups did it take to learn how to do it that well. The guy must have gone through a forest of wood practiceing that.

Don't tell me, you're buying a 4.2! Or maybe it's a forum takeover and you have done a deal with terry ??? You going to work for chipTwit??? I better not say any more in case I get in trouble for going too far and creating rumours again.

I have been looking into this and there is some good info on the net. Surprisingly, the air pressure at 100Kph is under 1/4 PSI. I would have thought it was heaps more but apparently not. The best practical design goal you could hope for would be to have a zero air pressure at the airbox rather than a negative one. With a snorkel, I doubt that is possible. Scoops on their own are pretty ineffective. They need the assistance of being located in a high pressure area on the vehicle. Typically these are the front air dam on cars that have them and at the base of the windscreen. For a snorkel, the best location would probably be with the scoop facing towards the windscreen ( IE, 90o to the front) and 3/4 the way up to catch the spill coming off the windscreen. If you put the scoop in the middle of the windscreen at it's top edge along the roof line, you may actually get the air being pulled out of the intake as the air shoots over th top and causes a low pressure area from the roof. IF a person really wanted to reduce the inlet pressure drop, one way would be to use a visor on the top of the windscreen and seal it to the rood and take the snorkel pickup from there. That would give a good high pressure pickup point. I have seen rally cars with this that vent the air back to the engine ( Mid engine cars) . With regard to snorkel scops I have also read of peo0ple facing them backwayrd and saying they work better. At speed this is highly unlikley. Anything in an airstream will typically have a high pressure area at the front side and a low to negative pressure at the rear due to the airflow being disturbed and creating eddy currents that try to fill the void. It is possible to get some useful pressure off a snorkel head but probably not going to be the shape that has the look most people want on their trucks.

If you don't have enough pipe to do it all in 4" I would put the 3" at the engine end and the 4" at the other. I think this would cause the least restrictio especially where the most bends will be and by putting the smaller diameter near the engine, You may give the air some speed into the airbox and into the engine. As for rain if you use a scoop, I really wouldn't worry. Any water that gets into the intake will hit the airfilter and be dispersed probably into vapor before it travels into the engine. I have water injection on my truck and run 300Ml a minute. A mate miscalculated when setting up his WI and ended up running 2 LITRES/ min into his 2.5L Diesel. It spluttered and coughed but it didn't hurt it. There is no way you are going to get that much rain in there and I doubt you'd even notice 500Ml going through that way which is still more than I could ever see you getting. I have been looking at a WI system for my Turbo Diesel and am going to have the spray onto the air filter. I have read this does no damage and on the old filter I have been testing with a water drip and a centrifugal fan sucking through it, I can attest to that fact.

That's what I initialy thought! I took it for granted that would be a universal type law in any ist world country and pretty much every other place as well. I remember a mate telling me about seeing Vending machines full of USED girls knickers on the subways In Tokyo. I couldn't believe he thought I could fall for such a story... until some time later when a stranger told me the same thing and others still confirmed it. They are one out there race of people the Japs, No two ways about it.

Rain I can handle. Wind Chits me. It's nothing but destructive and a pain in the arse.

Could someone do a write up on all this mapping stuff? I have looked at it and don't really understand it''s capeabilities or what you can do with it. It it free/ downloadable for free on the right sites?? what involved in making it work etc. I have no trouble with building computers, setting up servers or 30 machine networks and wi-Fi image transfers straight out of my camera but things like phone apps and these car computers I just don't have any knowledge of.

Been looking at seats myself lately. I'd like to know as well if anything from GU's fit the GQ's. I can get all the Subaru seats I want for Nix so I might have a look how they fit. Have all the tools to make them fit so I might find some nice leather ones and see what it takes. I'd like to upgrade the back seats for the kids so some Nice GU ones would be good in there if they are at all compatble.

Yeah, I'd be about as welcome as the plauge. Took them a week to stop bitching about me over there. Never realised I was quite so Infamous. I was thinking about going for a while. Big trip but it would have been cheap enough for me. As it turns things are going to be flat out and I won't have the time even if I did have the inclination. For those that do go it should be something. Maybe next year there will be enough people here to make a similar thing worthwhile.

WTF is the matter with these people???

No Global warming for you fella untill you pay your carbon tax!

Veg oil / Bio Diesel never has been a viable mass production fuel despite all the hype and the Millions Pissed up the wall in the green scams touting it could be. The thing is though, cars like the leaf and the volt and the thing Renault are coming out with are no environmental soloution either and anyone that thinks they are is a fool. From cradle to grave, these 4 wheel green scams will do a lot more DAMAGE to the environment and use a lot more energy and resources than what a new equivelent diesel or petrol car would. While the drivers of these POS things would probably shake their heads and mutter disparaging comments about my tank, the reality it's 100 times greener than their things will ever be. Veg fuel isn't a long term soloution the same as these things aren't actually doing anything to benifit the environment now of for the foreseeable future. Right now, today, for the minority of people that do want to do something really green in the way of fueling their vehicle, my way in the winner, not these electric things. Yeah, electric may be better in the future but today it's a detriment so why bother with them? I really don't see the point and think it is gross stupidity to make something you know damn well falls short of it's intended purpose and actualy causes more damage than it saves. The most environmental thing the purchasers of these things could do is NOT buy one. It's not about what comes out the tail pipe, it's the whole ball of wax as to the impact they have on the big blue bag with the marble in the middle called earth. As for electricity being so wonderful and clean, I'd love to see the numbers on the total emission created to get 1 Kw/H of electricity to the end user. I'm betting the generation and transfer process is pretty inefficent over all. Just because there is no emissions at the wall socket don't mean there isn't any crap at the other end. But the green do gooders will all cry out about renewable energy. YA!. Where does the power come from when the sun don't shine if your on solar? Where does it come from in a drought or low rainfall if your on Hydro? where does it come from when the winds not blowing if your on Wind power? The fact is that alternative technoogies all need the same amount of fossil fueled power generation reserve as the total demand as backup. They can produce less emissions but not eliminate them. You also have the fact that right now, all these things are doing is transfering the use of one fossil fuel to another. So the upshot is in 100 years we wil still have shiploads of oil but be out of coal. Brilliant. How about waiting to produce these things till there is sufficent renewable energy input to support them? That would be the enviromentaly responsible thing to do. At very least, sell them with a solar panel array to charge them up so they are eco friendly in the real sence instead of just paying marketing hype to it. Of course, if the sun isn't shining, like at night and you want to recharge on an eco friendly renewable resource, what you going to do? Apart from fire up your veg powered generator of course.

Holden Has the Volt on pre order ATM. At least with that thing you can drive from syd to Melb. If I remember right the first 80KM is electric and then the engine kicks in and you can drive till you need to fill it again and be on your way in 5 min not 8 hours. The volt can also be charged from a 10A powerpoint where as the Leaf needs a 15A supply. I'm betting it would also use it all so filing pins and making adapter cords probably wouldn't be the best idea. Dunno what a volt will be going for, dosen't really matter. It will be completely overpriced for the sake of being trendy. That said, I have seen people spend a lot of money to do that and save the environmnt etc With Veg fuel related things. almost without exception though, I have also noticed the people that spend the most to get the best equipment and are the most Gung Ho are alo the ones that get out of it the quickest. GM is apparently having a hard time shifting these Volt things in the US ( there's a surprise!!) so maybe they are trying to foist the things off here to recoup some of their R&D and questionable marketing Initive? It will be real interesting to see how long the things last. Those battery packs are going to cost a fortune so maybe they will be junked in years to come and the things just driven as anotehr petrol car. Why the fark they didn't at least make them diesel is beyond me. I have NO interest in being green, trendy or saving the planet. What amuses the hell out of me though is that my tank GQ leaves these other hippies for dead on emissions, running costs and cradel to grave enviromental impact. If these green minded twits were really so concerned and not just hypocrits, they would have no interest in one of these electric/ hybrid things made form plastic with deadly poison in their battery packs. . They would get off their arses and put the effort in and run their vehicles on veg oil. My repeated experience has been these green bandwagon types don't mind spending money to look trendy and concened but when it comes to actually getting their hands dirty and doing something real, then the idea loses it's cocktail party discussion gloss real fast.

I found that after adding my Walbro my Historical engine with it's mechanical pump was easier to fire. Sounds like the soloution for you too.

I'd be interested to see how much of an airflow drop these cause. The bends and diameter of the pipe would definately be a restriction even at and probably moreso at speed.

I have been wondering If toyota or Commodore Supercharger might be a cheaper way to go? I would be chasing an increase in torque rather than max power. Pretty sure the stock pump could provide a reasonable increase if I could get the air in.