SimonB

Not seen that one round here before. Think I might have seen you the other day Sarah going round the Stony lane roundabout though, I was in my commuting Merc though not the Supra! You'll probably see me around at some point in the Supe though since I live in Mudeford - gunmetal, carbon bonnet, ridiculously loud...

Does applying for it commit you to accepting VR? Whenever VR has been offered by companies I have worked for you applied, then your application was considered and could be accepted or turned down by management (depending if your role was considered essential). Then you received an individual "quote" if you like stating what the terms were (normally just what you had already worked out yourself). At this point you had a further period of time during which you could accept it or turn it down. So you may be able to apply tomorrow anyway and then use the extra time to look around, apply for other jobs etc before having to make a final decision. I have sort of taken VR before but not in the normal way - the company I worked for announced they would be shutting our site and making everyone redundant in 6 months. If you found a job earlier than that and wanted to leave early (as I did) you could apply for VR which would be automatically granted. You still had to apply, then get an individual statement, then accept that before it became official though. I was lucky in that I walked straight into another better paid job with 6 months tax free salary from my previous employer!

Yes. Although most aftermarket ECUs aren't capable of using the stock idle control valve so you may well find it's controlling the idle by using fuel and timing adjustments alone. What ECU is it?

Yes it will, there's no sensor in it, just a stepper motor that steps in and out. The ECU doesn't know what position it's in, it just steps it in and out to maintain the correct idle.

Cheers, the Shell at St Leonards is the one I was thinking of, that always used to be the cheapest. It's a trade off between cheaper fuel and having to sit in the A31 traffic instead of going up the A35 like I normally do. Normally laziness wins... Less than a year for me. In any case I factored the conversion cost into the price of buying the car. I wanted a commuting car that was actually comfy and had some toys since I'd be sitting in it for the best part of 2 hours a day. So I could buy a tinny horrible diesel or a big fat luxury V8. Big engined cars are now really cheap because nobody wants to run them. The price of the Merc + conversion was still less than an equivalent "economical" car.

Yes you do, and no it shouldn't normally provided it has been done by an approved installer that's UKLPG registered.

Yeah, fuel in general is expensive round here. Think the cheapest LPG is 75.9 round here at a Shell but it's a bit out of my way.

It's true you can't use the Eurotunnel, but you can use the ferry no problem. Also worth remembering that when petrol duty goes up so does LPG in proportion. In fact it tends to follow petrol prices but a bit behind. So when petrol went up recently so did LPG. It's 79.9p per litre at my local (expensive) station now.

It's like anything else, there are cheapo poor quality conversion kits and decent more expensive ones. Remember there is what is basically a piggyback ECU that controls the fueling when on LPG - just like with normal ECUs the cheap ones are limited in their functions and reliability which makes it harder for the fitter to map it correctly. Same with the injectors, the decent ones are quite expensive but very reliable, cheapo ones aren't! My Merc commuter car has been running on LPG for 18 months. It runs no different on LPG than petrol really. You do lose some performance, and the other thing to remember is you lose MPG. So the Merc for example used to do 28mpg on petrol and does 22mpg on gas. You also still need to put petrol in every now and then because it starts from cold on petrol for the first mile or so before switching to gas. So it works out something like 2/3rds the price of petrol. The main thing you pay for is the expertise of the fitter. Just like if you had a normaly piggyback ECU if the map they put on is rubbish it won't drive properly on gas. Think mine was just shy of £2k but it was a V8 and therefore needs 8 injectors. If you convert a 4 or 6 cylinder engine it obviously will be a bit cheaper. Some cars are harder to do because squeezing the kit under the bonnet or mounting the tank is more difficult and you'll get charged more for those.

Another vote for the X-eng one, that's what I use...

Depends how you did it. The correct way is using a relay so that switches with the FP wire in which case the pump will run at 12V all the time it is running rather than switching between 9V and 12V as needed (which is pretty pointless actually). If you have bodged it without using the FP wire I would undo it before you find yourself upside down in a ditch with the fuel pump still running and pouring fuel everwhere because it hasn't switched off with the engine!

The fuel pump won't run if you just turn the ignition on. The first time you key on after a period it will run briefly then it won't run again until you are cranking the engine. If you want to check the pump is working bridge the FP and +B terminals in the diagnostic connector under the bonnet with a wire and then turn the ignition on - the pump should then run continuously.

You're going to need a flywheel as well then since the twin carbon has a flywheel as part of it. If you don't want noise then you're going to want a stock flywheel and an unsprung clutch disc.

You want sprung if you have an aftermarket solid flywheel such as the RPS one, unsprung if you have a stock flywheel. The springs have nothing to do with the torque capability of the clutch, they are there to remove some of the shock from the drivetrain which you introduce with a non-damped flywheel. You don't want springs and a damped flywheel.

I'm pretty sure pull fans are more efficient, but I can't find the link I came across saying why now!

For the FPR and MAP you can use the stock plastic filter/damper thingy - that has 1/8NPT thread IIRC. The others you can just use 6mm or step down with a hose joiner if needed.

There is a spec in the engine manual for head bolts - you measure their diameter and if within spec they haven't stretched too far and you can re-use them. Having said that if going to the trouble of rebuilding I'd probably change them anyway. The ARP studs are cheaper than the stock ones, so if you are going to change them you may as well use them.

Mine made 625bhp when I had my Arnout cast manifold. That was with a T67DBB with .68 exhaust housing, standard intake. I can't remember the boost level now, think it was 1.6BAR. It was on Owen development's dyno though, which I think may read a bit high compared to SRR. Nice result btw! Oh, I had 264 ex and 256 in HKS cams incidentally.

While it's true there is no difference in picture quality, you can't just use any length of super cheap cable or you'll get no signal whatsoever. For example I bought some a super cheapo 5m HDMI cable from ASDA and it couldn't cope with a 1080p 60fps signal from a PS3. I had to buy another (still cheap) one from an online place, can't remember where now. Think it was £10-15 or so. Also, the place I got it from had some low profile flat cables that were ideal for running under carpets etc if you need to. 3m you'll probably be fine with just about anything, but when it starts getting longer you want something a bit better made.

Nothing will hold without a bead or something on the pipes. If you have aluminium pipes then you would have to do the clamp up so tight it would bend the pipe to get it to hold otherwise. The bead doesn't need to go all the way round. You can do a temporary job by drilling several holes at the end of the pipe and using rivets - the bit of rivet that sticks out acts as a bead.

5.2 litres for a change according to the manitenance manual for the N/A.

I did exactly this when rebuilding my engine. You don't really want it sitting idling for ages with a completely new engine, you want at least the first 50 or so miles to be at varying loads. If you subscribe to the running in method where you seat the rings by using full throttle (or at least 0 boost in a turbo car) then snapping it shut and coasting then you want to do that in the first few miles. Either way the easiest way of doing it is to remember that you are allowed to drive to and from a pre-booked MOT. So you can drive around on your way to the test centre and you will get away with it even if you are pulled over. So I put the first 50 or so miles on on the way to the MOT, then went back home after the test and did the first oil and filter change. I also made sure they knew to take it easy and run it for the minimum amount, and it was a test place I trust so that was fine. The emissions test is done at idle and "fast idle". How many rpm the fast idle is varies with the engine (they look it up). Dunno what it is for the 2JZ but it won't be more than 3000rpm and you only need to hold it there for 30s so it will be fine.

Indeed I do, although we're really only concerned with keeping them apart from each other, not them falling to bits... We do have to deal with trying to get them down safely once something has fallen to bits I guess though!

Hmmm, difficult one this. We have a similar safety culture at work where anything that cause a problem is reported and investigated and there is a no blame culture. This is in the interests of discovering potential problems that aren't currently known about though - at the end of the day people have safety accountabilities which they sign up to and if you fail to follow the correct procedure, know it is wrong and don't report it or act negligently then you're going to find yourself in trouble. Don't know if anyone remembers the Uberlingen mid-air collision over Germany a few years back. There were a whole series of things that went wrong there (as there usually is with acccidents). The air traffic controller involved (who was only partially to blame) was stabbed to death by one of the relatives of some of the people on the Russian plane a short while afterwards! Three of the managers at the air traffic control company were convicted of negligence and given suspended jail sentances IIRC - there were a number of systems failures but mostly it was process failures.

Here's the blade off test of the A380 engine from a discovery channel programme. Basically they set an explosive charge that releases one of the compressor fan blades at full power and check the resulting carnage is contained by the cowling. It's pretty cool Technically you should be able to land one with no engines, although definitely not recommended! It's never been done as far as I know with anything big although the 747 that flew through the volcanic ash (I forget where now) had total engine failure and was looking like it was going to have to. In the end they managed to restart some of the engines after gliding for quite a way. Didn't help that the pilot could only see out of an inch gap in the windscreen - the rest had been scored by the ash so you couldn't see out of it.