Digsy

Its not the fact that the car comes from JIC that makes the difference. All taillight "conversions" are technically illegal because whatever you turn into a foglamp (be it a brake light or reversing light) is too close to the next nearest brake light. Its the fact that JIC temporarily fit their cars with an aftermarket fog lamp just to pass the SVA test that I thought people might find interesting. I think many garages that deal in imports will be sympathetic to the fog lamp issue in an MOT. Darren

A quick note about JIC rear fog conversions that will probably interest myself, Paul Booth, and nobody else ;-) JIC use the offside reversing light (painted bulb) rear fog conversion. However, this will not get the car through its SVA test, so prior to that they fit a "Halford's special" using one of the rear number plate fixings (to avoid drilling an extra hole). The car is SVA tested in this state, and then retrofitted with the converted reversing lamp before the car is sold. The rules for MOTs are different to SVA, and that it depends very much on where you take your car for its MOT as to whether they pick you up on your reversing light or not. Darren

Guys, Forgive me for briefly resurrecting an old topic, but I finally managed to get through to JIC's "conversions guy" last week, and I promised I would post my findings here. So I am... JIC use an external garage for their conversion work. The guy there was very helpful and knowledgeable. I'll keep his name and number secret so that he doesn't get innundated with direct calls, but I'm sure Tim or Steve would be happy to refer you to him if you have a teachnical query that they cannot answer themselves. To cut to the chase, when dealing with a freshly-imported car, JIC will by default convert the speedo and odo to mph and miles respectively using a single speed divider unit. Officianados of Pete Betts' website and Ash fans will know that convering the odo in this way will also delimit the car, but there are a host of other side effects as well. These can be worked around by selectively re-applying the unconverted speed signal to the PAS, spoiler, etc. This was not discussed directly, but I got the impression that the "stock" JIC conversion does not do this. No mention of using a separate SLD was made. I was also told that if I only wanted the speedo converted and the car left un-delimited it would not be a problem. This would allow me to fit an HSK SLD myself later without having to undo the original work done by JIC. Obviously if JIC are re-selling an imported car with a previous UK history the conversion / delimiting may have been done differently. HTH. Darren P.S. I turned up one other morsel or information about foglights which is in a seperate thread.

http://www.japanese-car-imports.co.uk/current_range-toyota-page3.html Check it out! 2nd from top... Too bad there's no interior picture. Darren (Tim, if you are listening, you can knock the free advertising fee off my car's price)

Sounds nice. The stock dash isn't exactly awe-inspiring, is it? JIC had a Supra with a walnut dash when I was last there, but I suppose it could have been fablon.... Is the dash very hard to get out and strip down? Darren

It defeats the 180kmh limit on imported Japanese cars, thereby enabling you to lose your license even quicker than in a limted car. See the "Delimitng - How to" thread elsewhere in this forum for more details... My best guess would be that the gearbox ECU needs to know the true vehicle speed on the "wrong" side of the 180kmh limit for the kickdown to work properly, so the auto version of the SLD needs to talk to the gearbox ECU as well as the engine ECU. Ash, just a quickie. I'm sure you are really busy but would you be able to e-mail me those auto box HKS SLD instructions before the end of next week? I'm probably going to JIC on Saturday 11th and I would like to wave them under their noses to see if I can get them to fit one for me. Cheers, Darren

Nooooooooooo!! You'll never make me talk...! Oh OK, OK. I design engine parts for Lotus Engineering. There. I've said it. Lordy, now who's going to believe anything I say? ;-) Darren

I've read this too, but I think it was in the "myths" section on one of the many importer's websites. My information comes (in part) from the worldwide Emissions regulations booklet published by Delphi systems. I hasten to add that ECU mapping is well away from my area of expertise, but there are plenty of people I can go and talk to about it. To further qualify the case for 95RON, we have a job on right now that will sell into Japan, and that is definitely being calibrated for 95RON. Maybe its different for home-grown cars. Perhaps they have a greater range at the pumps than we do. I can't say for sure. It also may have been different in the past since we are generally talking about 1993 to 1996 cars when we talk about imports. Its certainly 95RON now, to the best of my knowledge. Alex, I was picking up on your other thread where you were talking about going back to a stock ECU. If you are keeping the MINES job, then you could well be right. Darren (Edited by Darren Blake at 4:37 pm on Aug. 1, 2001)

Alex, I was talking to our ECU calibration guys yesterday. No-one there is aware of anything that says Japanese cars are mapped for anything higher than 95RON. You shouldn't be running lean on SUL (98RON) (if that is what you are worried about). Darren

Okay, stop press on cat light up time: The whole point of having a pre-cat is so that your main cat can take all the time it needs to warm up (within reason). Therefore, systems with pre-cats may have slower light off times for the main cat that a system with just a main cat. ALSO, the reaction in the pre-cat CREATES heat, so it assists in the light off of the main cat. A main cat with a pre cat fitted will light off about 1 minute after the pre-cat (about 1.5 minutes after key-on). Without a pre-cat it will take longer. I would ask them to idle your car for at least two minutes before doing the emissions test. As a side point, I have just got my grubby mits on the emissions regulations for Japan and Europe back to 1993 to see how they compare. Unfortunately I cannot relate them back to the figures used for the MOT because the tests and units are all different, but it should be possible to compare the two. ...and a final note from another thread, I cannot find any reference to Japanese engines having to be mapped for anything except 95RON. Darren

I'm chatting to my friend (down the corridor, with the big brain) about cat warm up times this via e-mail at the moment. Pre-cats have to light off within 25 seconds of a cold start (these days, anyway). I reckon this time has come down over the years, but for a car fitted with pre-cats you could still assume that the initial light off time would be quick enough to beat the oil warm-up time. I don't have a typical light-off time for a main cat only yet. Watch this space...your nutter pre-MOT drive may not be necessary after all! Darren

Catalysts don't work until the brick temperature reaches about 300 degreesC. They work best between 400 and 800. How long it takes them to get that hot depends (mainly) upon the size of the CAT and the distance to the exhaust manifold, therefore the pre-cats will warm up much faster but because they are smaller they will also cool down faster too. Once the main cats are hot, which will take much longer, they will stay hot for longer. 60 degrees oil temp is certianly warm, but its far from hot. I would expect the oil in a rip-snorting Supra to be hovering around the 100degree mark for most of the time. I don't know how oil temperature maps to cat temperature during warm up but I'm wondering whether (from a cold start) the oil will reach 60 degrees before the main cat reaches 300? Also, modified fuelling will mess up a cat depending upon the type. If the cat is "three-way" (lowers NOx, HC and CO) then the mixture needs to be spot on (stochiometric) for the cat to work properly. Oxidising cats only lower HC and CO and require a lean mixture. I think I've confused myself now... Darren

I'm assuming that they do the test from a cold start? In this case, surely refitting the first cats would do the most good, since pre-cats are usually designed specifically to light off first from cold. Darren (car still on the boat)

To save Mr. Ash's modesty I'll point out that he has also posted an excellent description of how best to convert / delimt a MKIV in the "Delimiting" thread in this very forum. Darren

Phil, No odd behaviour from the car at all? Strange Auto box operation? Warning lights? Error codes? Nothing? I checked out the Smartgroups site the other day and someone else was complaining about a dodgy speedo conversion / delimiting job... Darren

So it sounds like JIC apply a "divided" signal to the ECU. That's what I originally thought but I'll call them myself on tomorrow. Without wishing to slander JIC, the concensus here seems to be that this is not the best way to delimit a car. Darren

That could be the best (if not the most risky and difficult) solution. Do let us know how you get on! No chance of JIC doing that for me I suppose. LOL! Darren

Ah! You are talking about swapping the coloured lenses around to separate the two tail lights? Sorry if I misunderstood. So would that put the reversing light between the two tail / brake lights, overcoming the 10cm barrier? How are the lights in a UK car arranged (including the fog light)? Darren

A bit pricey though, Paul? How much are a pair of UK tail light clusters? I suppose you gets what you pay for...

I've got no idea who these guys are (except they are in Ameriica) but a quick internet search turned this up: http://www.sherco-auto.com/minilamp.htm If you can get them over there you must be able to get the over here! Found another website (still across the pond). http://www.lightlens.com/coloredbulbs.htm Darren (Edited by Darren Blake at 12:11 pm on July 24, 2001)

Yes, Pete Betts has an excellent description of a braking light type conversion on his website. How do the birghtnesses of the brake lights compare to that of a fog lamp? If the fog lamps are brighter, then the other concern with using a fog lamp wattage blub in the brake light position is that it may overload the wiring. I dread to think that the "Halfords" fog lamp may be the best technical and legal solution! Darren

Thanks for the wattage info, Phil. Does anyone know if these red bulbs are proper off-the-shelf parts, or are they "created" by dealers using a regular bulb and some red gunk? Darren

I called JIC on Friday to get some feedback on my queries. Unfortunately their conversions guy has been off sick for a while so they didn't have any answers. I'll try them again this Friday... Does anyone know who they use for their conversion work? Darren

Thanks for the information Paul! Probably a bit too in depth for me to bother with, though. I did think at one point that I'd figured out how to do it with a couple of relays, but you would need some kind of whizzy-double-pole-double-throw-double-momentary (illuminated) swich (or two separate momentary buttons, one push-to-make for "on" and one push-to-break for "off") but I still need to give it some thought! As for the conversions, there seems to be three ways to do it: 1) Red lamp in offside reversing light a'la Phil. What are the comparative wattages of the reversing lamp, your red bulb, and a "real" fog lamp? 2) Inner brake light conversion. 3) "Halfords" fog lamp in the rea bumper a'la Paul. (2) is technically illegal because of the 10cm minimum distance restriction between the rear fog and the nearest tail light (or brake light, I can't remember). I suppose for (1) to be strictly legal you should disable the inner tail / brake lights or have them switching off when the rear fog comes on - using even more relays!!!! Consensus, anyone? Darren

I understood most of that. Any chance of a circuit diagram? I was thinking about this on the way home last night while I should have been paying attention to driving. None of the solutions I thought of would allow you to turn the fog lamp off again without flicking the tail lights off and on! Would your idea do this? ...and what's a PIC chip and why are they so much fun compared to a 555? Sorry its not a very sexy subject, but I'm not a very sexy person. Darren (What no reply from Ash? Is he ill or something?)