SimonB

What are you doing inlet wise Charlie, new inlet manifold?

The studs are supposed to be finger tight, no more. The nuts you should use moly assembly lube on and under, otherwise it affects the torque you need. Then you torque them in several passes to 65ft/lbs for aluminium heads IIRC. If you use ARP studs and bolts you could re-torque if you wanted to, it's just not necessary, and a major PITA to take the cams out etc for no good reason.

Bugger, beaten to it!

I can confirm that's wrong! The standard head bolts are torque to yield. In other words you torque them to a certain level (34Nm or 25ft/lbs) in several stages and then a further 90 degrees. They deform when you do this, so you should not use them again. So you should not torque them more than once. The correct sequence is: front exhaust - 12 - 8 - 4 - 2 - 5 - 9 - 13 rear front intake - 14 - 10 - 6 - 1 - 3 - 7 - 11 rear

Houx has numbered pitches, but like you say there are electrical and water hookups. We always get a block of 7 or 8 pitches anyway, and then organise ourselves within that, gazebo on one bit, tents on another etc.

No way of knowing, but the guns certainly work both ways. I've seen a car on a motorway bridge targetting cars heading away from them. Police cars don't use anything sophisticated like lasers. They just use a video camera and an accurate speedo and time how long the car they are following takes to go between two points, and how long they themselves take. They know their own speed so can work out the car's speed too.

Not much chance of that I'm afraid! The number plate cameras are very very good these days unfortunately. Police have being using them to track suspects for quite a while...

No, they are IR spotlights so the numberplate camera can see well enough to read the plates at night without blinding drivers. Same as you see on security cameras so they can see at night. That's probably where your alarm is coming from, as IR light will set it off.

Of course they can. Laser guns work both ways.

No it's not, average speed cameras work by a computer reading your numberplate at each camera. They know how far apart the cameras are, so use the time between each numberplate being recorded at each camera to work out your speed. Laser detection works by bouncing a laser off your car and using the time it takes to bounce back to the gun to work out the distance to the target. The trouble with laser jammers is that you would need one on the front and back, and if the police stop you and see them they'll probably do you for attempting to pervert the course of justice, or obstructing an officer.

Yeah, get some wobble bar extensions from MachineMart, they're pretty cheap, and a breaker bar.

I'll have the engine undertray, assuming it's in good condition.

Yep, I've got TRD anti-roll bars (please don't call them sway bars, we're not American ). They are not too stiff, so make a nice improvement in roll resistance without messing up the compliance of the suspension. The Titan ones are too stiff IMHO. I don't remember them being much heavier than standard if at all.

Ah, didn't notice it was a full remap, that makes more sense.

The boost will be spiking higher. So they're not the same, the TTC will be running more boost. If they were running the same level of boost the sequential setup would produce the same power and be much better low down too. That's why Toyota used it!

There's two schools of thought on this one: 1. Detonation can cause destruction of iridium plugs which go on to cause more engine damage therefore use copper. 2. Enough detonation to knacker the plug will cause engine damage anyway, so you should avoid det in any case. There's lots of hearsay but I've not seen very much (ok any) evidence to support either conclusion. If your engine is mapped correctly and you don't run stupid boost you shouldn't encounter det and it shouldn't matter anyway. If you don't work on your car yourself then you're probably not going to want to get your plugs changed every few thousand miles. You'd be better off with iridiums than not changing your copper ones. If you change them yourself then it's not so much of an issue.

How weird, three trombone players on the forum!

I used to play the trombone. Did my grade 8 and all that and played it for years in the uni symphony orchestra and various jazz bands. In fact I even appeared on Going Live once, at Arlesford station. I've got Gordon the gopher's autograph and everything... Haven't played it for ages though.

Yeah, forgot to say I'll be camping in Houx again as usual. Dunno what theme we're going for this year with the cars. We might get round to trying to do union jack flames - couldn't find anyone to do them cheap enough last time so we went for normal flames.

I'll be there again as usual. We haven't booked yet though. We usually go Wednesday and stay in Honfleur or similar, then turn up at the campsite Thurs. We leave Sunday and stay the night somewhere - Treuville the last couple of years, then head back Monday.

I had a go on one of these systems when I was at university. They're great for 5 or 10 minutes, but then you start feeling ill, you get motion sickness. I think that's why they never really took off.

Simple answer is A - yes, B - no. I've always thought it's one of the biggest cons with insurance. They ask the value because in theory there's a bigger risk the more it's worth, so therefore you are charged more. But they still only pay out the market value. If you go on somewhere like direct line and make up a set of details you can see what effect different things like declared value make on the policy cost using their on-line quote thing. IIRC most places use bands for policy cost, so 2-4k would be one band, 4-6k the next for example. It's part of the calculation they use to figure out what to charge.

Bummer. Welcome, I'm another local - I live in Christchurch.

Your local Toyota parts department will get them in within a couple of days. Can't remember how much they are now, but they're not expensive.