Digsy

Flip, do you have *all* the Carry On films on DVD or something? :-)

Gareth, Yep, I got mine from JIC at about the same time as you got yours. My tyres were the same each time I saw the car, but I suppose that doesn't mean they couldn't have been swapped specifically for the SVA test. I would previously have thought that would be a lot of trouble, but considering that they practically had to rebuild your car after its SVA, I guess not!! :-) Alex, Hey! My lady's blonde. Hang on...so is yours! :-))

Ah... some major ribbing required next time I see her! Incidentally, the 2002MY Esprit uses Dunlop SPs Sport 9000 tyres: 235/40 R17 front 285/35 R18 rear Don't know if these are the same as the 2000/2001MY car or not...

Hi Alex, I'll check out the weight thing tonight (if I rememeber). In-house tyres? I wish! :-) We haven't had a tyre and wheel "sale" for ages... Talking of Frisbee's, didn't you meet my chums Julia and Charlie there recently??? He has a black FTO and she has a white MX5.

Hey Doughie. I reckon they are the second set of tyres on the car, but judgeing by the tread the fronts are definitely older than the rears (they looked brand new when I bought the car) . I have a pair of Goodyear F1s reserved at Frisbee's for fitting on Friday. I will probably be having all four wheels refurbed next week, so I'll give the rears a going over with a fine tooth comb then. I had planned to change all four rubbers next month anyway. Thanks for all the feedback, guys!!

Hi Simon, I have a 1994 NA as well. They do have ABS. The light is on the upper right hand side bulb panel (oppsite side to the Odometer) and should illuminate for a couple of seconds after you key on, then go out. The ABS unit itself can be found under the bonnet. It is a squareish box with a great many brake pipes plugging into it. I think it is on the right hand side as you stand in front of the car but I could be mistaken (help me out here someone). Its pretty hard to miss, anyway. If you have the box & pipes but no warning light, take the dash apart (instructions on the TRL Performance website) and check the bulb is not blown.

Thanks for the info Mycroft. I have been doing some digging on the net, and I don't think they are winter spec tyres. They seem to fall under the low-price low-spec end of the performance market. However I did find this on www.miata.net, which might explain a lot... "A low performance, soft sided tire with good grip and a comfortable, quiet ride." "I had these tires installed when I hit an object in the road and destroyed one of my tires. The others were pretty far gone and I didn't want to buy just one. This is not a tire I would have selected, it was what Discount Tire had in stock at the time." "A very smooth and quite tire [sic] with a lot of side wall flex. They really limit the handling of the car but they give it an incredible ride. I take a lot of long trips and although I would prefer a performance tire, the excellent ride is certainly appreciated on the highway. In spite of the soft side walls, they actually have pretty good grip and are very predictable. I would recommend them to anyone looking for a comfortable tire and a low price who is willing to sacrifice handling for comfort." My car has been SVA'd (possibly even ESVA'd) so hopefully they are approved tyres, albeit not teriffic ones by a long shot.

Well they certainly are the tyres that came with the car when it was imported. Insurance issues aside there is no evidence of cracking (touch wood) on the rears, and I'm getting the fronts changed to providing I'm not spot checked bwtween now and Friday I should be OK. The car has recently been stood for four weeks, but used each weekend in between, but I would be hard pressed to use more than both hands and one foot to count all the "hot" days since I got it in September 2001! :-) Interesting info about the J-spec tyres. I assume this is a different compound. There must be loads of us with Jap spec tyres out there. What are the C&U guidelines? Are they published anywhere so that we can check them through ourselves?

Hi AJI. Thanks for the reply. No, no kerbing that I can think of. The damage is almost symmetrical left to right so I'm thinking it must be somehow down to the general use of the car. It can't be mileage because the tyres have about 4mm tread left on them but I suppose it could be down to physical age because the car had only done 26000 miles in 7 years. The roads around here are a bit bumpy, but not enough to make you think you might be damaging your car when you drive over them. I'm having them changed on Friday so I'll be able to see if the inside walls are damaged too. Hopefully the new ones won't go the same way, and if they do at least I'll be able to take them back to someone!

Hi all. A bit p*ssed off at the moment because I have to replace my front two perfectly good (in terms of tread depth) Yoko AVID306s because the sidewalls are cracking like hell. The cracks are developing circumferentially around the tyre wall about 20mm outside of the rim. They appear to have started where the makers' lettering is embossed in the tyre wall. I measured the depth of one of the worst looking cracks by inserting a peice of paper. Looks like about 2.5mm deep - eek! Had a quick chat about it to friends and family, all of whom came to the same conclusion: my tyre is or has been run under-inflated. A check of the tyre pressure showed that all four of were down by 2psi (from 36 to 34 - I am running UK sized wheels and I believe this to be correct) but surely a small drop like that wouldn't cause that much damage? What do you think? The two rears are fine, so has someone previously given my front tyres some abuse, or could there be another explaination like incorrect geometry? Opinions please. Meanwhile i'm off to get some quotes from Mr. Frisbee.

I've been wondering this too. Watching this thread with interest...

Hi Alex. Offline reply for you on point (3). You have mail.

Couldn't have put it better myself Ian! Great minds think alike :-)

I don' t know what the hell made me think my temp dials didn't illuminate, because they do! My driver's side window switch is the only illuminated one in the door panel, so it looks like this is normal as well. (Even my ashtray light works).

Cheers for the reply Pete (sorry to hijack the thread Alex). What about the dash illumination level knob on the dash and the door lock and window lock switches on the driver's side door panel? Should those illuminate too? Mine don't...

Hi Alex, I take it you are talking about the backlighting and not the green LEDs? My temp. dial and fan dial do not light up at all (LEDs work OK thought). In fact I have been meaning to start a thread on exactly which dials and switches are meant to be backlit, because not many of mine are.

Aye up, Tony. If I may be so bold as to quote Pete Betts from his earlier thread: "The sidelamps are normal bulbs (I had the number at the weekend and have just fogotten it) but you can get these from any motor factor." As for the handbook terminology, parking lights would be the closest, but a parking light is usually just one sidelight (isn't it?). Anyway, its definitley not any of the others.

Cheers, Pete. So what does everybody do when they blow a headlight bulb? Modify the connector like Pete suggests?

Nice work, Pete. I've got a question about the headlights. Do the differences betwen the bulb holders mean that the UK spec bulbs won't fit? I know that one of the front bulbs (The sidelight or foglamp I think) is difficult to source, but you are talking about the main headlight?

It is indeed meant to illuminate for a moment when you key on.

As I understand it all J-spec cars have differing levels of undersealing, most of which are not up to the same standards as those sold in the European markets. Some owners opt to spend about £150 having a third party add a full UK style underbody treatment. This has in turn lead to the myth that all J-spec cars need a full underseal to protect them from the UK weather and salt on the roads in winter. I think the general consensus is that the level of underseal on the J-spec Supra is adequate for UK use "as-is". Interesting point: an importer (not JIC) told me that is I wanted them to underseal my car they would need to let it stand indoors at circa 20degreesC for a couple of days to dry out, otherwise the underseal might actually trap any existing moisture in.

Thats what the inbuilt knock control tries to do. Trouble is you have to build a little intelligence into it, and Ian's car is way to mad for that!

I think they come on with the rear screen heater.

When we are doing spark mapping, we usually have a guy sat running the test cell with a pair of headphones on and an oscillascope hooked up to the knock sensor, and the spark advance dial in his hand. He runs the engine up to a specific speed and then dials in the spark until the engine starts to knock. He literally listens and watches for the onset of knock and dials out the spark when it happens. I'm not sure what signal pre-processing goes on between the sensor and the oscillascope / headphones though...

This is starting to sound suspiciously like a common failure. Has no-one here has this correctly diagnosed and fixed?