Skoda Rally Blog

In short, NO! But “very nearly” covers it better.

There’s been a LOT to do since Friday. Firstly my original MOT was cancelled as the computer had gone down, which is a mare, so I had to re-book elsewhere. It failed, but on two minor things (loose CV boot, typical, and play in the nearside front lower joint), so a re-test will be a formality on Tuesday. Cosmetics aren’t something I’ve spent a huge amount of time on with my cars, but that doesn’t mean to say I don’t want it to look nice at the beginning of the rally if not shortly afterwards (especially if the weather keeps doing what it has been), so the bumpers came off, and were given a coat of “Signal Green”, this time with a primer, so I’m hoping the ‘complimentary jetwash service’ won’t leave us minus paint this time – certainly they seemed a lot better. They’re not the best job in the world, but time was tight, etc…. And they look a LOT better than they did, and all for a total cost of around ?15 for painting 3 bumpers (I have a spare rear).

An oil change was needed, and this seems to have found one of the issues – the oil that came out was like water, so I’ve changed to another brand (one that I’ve used for a long time in the cars before) so that’s another thing less to worry about. The gauges were removed as I didn’t fancy the longevity of the sensor arrangement on rough stages, and it breaking would be terminal. Plus I’d only be worrying about the gauges all the time, so better not to have them. Ignorance/bliss, etc.

However, on Saturday afternoon a disaster occurred. I’d arranged to borrow the service van I’d used before about 6 weeks ago, and phoned the owner to arrange picking it up next weekend. Only to find out he’s sold it and didn’t tell me. I’m hoping the new owner (who is in the hire business) will be willing to hire it to me at a decent rate, but I’m not 100% on this at the moment so I’m quite worried about this, leading to a lack of sleep last night!

Sunday’s task was firstly to sort out the cruise fuelling – the dyno session had set the engine up for full-throttle power runs, but setting up everything else was done with just some rough settings (and making sure there was no detonation anywhere), and this meant that the fuelling on cruise was rich. VERY rich. It should be around 15 parts air to 1 of fuel (by mass) on such light-load sites, and it was around 10 if not worse – at least 33% too much fuel. So, with the laptop, wideband meter, Paul and a clipboard, we set off to make some measurements of what was happening at certain rev/throttle positions, and I’d knocked up a quick calculator in javascript to work out new values for a desired Air/Fuel ratio. This was a bit long-winded (mostly because the old DTA software is a PITA), but a couple of hours saw a much cleaner-running car, and these light-load sites massively reduced in fuel – I’d estimate nearly 50% less in some places, and this means we should be able to achieve a huge 15mpg, which isn’t too bad given the low gearing.

This meant the lambda sensor from the wideband could now be removed and the plug put back in (and it was a mare to get out!), and then it was time for…. the sumpguard. Which took quite a beating on WRGB07 and Sunseeker 08, so it needed some welding. And once I had the MIG set up properly it went pretty well – the three main ribs were re-attached and the sumpguard is a LOT stronger than it was, so that’s a bonus. The rear mountings have been changed for female ones (so the knackered bolts can just be thrown away, rather than a stud which was captive needing fixing), and amazingly… it bolted STRAIGHT on. No mess, no fuss, just worked.

So as it sits on the drive, it’s almost ready to go. I think there’s an afternoon’s work to do on the insides of the car (sorting out camera controls, tidying things up, etc), and then I need to do the HID conversion (a couple of hours’ work, but easily done in an evening, inside, in the warm!), and that’s about it. I had planned to have those two things done by today (in my original scheme), but given the amount of problems I’ve had, I don’t think being half a day behind is the end of the world.

I just hope I can get the van sorted out, otherwise we’re really in the poo.

… but today I’ve driven it. And it goes, and the C/R box seems like fun. But most importantly I think I’m finally at the point where there will be no more major mechanical hoo-has. The MOT is booked for Friday, most of the jobs are done, and I’ve repainted the spare back bumper today as the original paint was rubbish and didn’t stick too well, so I’ve re-done it with some special plastic primer that’ll hopefully mean the car stays with nice green ones for more than half a stage.

The HID conversion for the pod has been tested, and it made a huge difference – the beams from the lights are usually narrow and not too clever, really. With the HID conversion it became a much broader light which is probably much more what I need. I’ve ordered another pair, so hopefully this weekend I’ll be able to get them all fitted and tested, along with most of the other parts of the car.

It’s getting close now. Real close. But all the pieces seem to be falling into place. Or rather be pushed into place with a great deal of effort and expense on my part! I may take up tiddlywinks after this.

This weekend has been…..long. And busy, hence me doing everything in one lump. It started on Friday afternoon…..

The previous issue with the car was the lack of oil pressure, and this was thought to be mostly down to worn big-end and particularly main bearings – certainly initial examination had shown this was very likely, and the lack of pressure (about 20psi down on where it should be) wasn’t good. Eventually the new bearings arrived from the Czech Republic, and they were firstly badly wrapped and secondly one big end was damaged. This would have been a disaster had I not bought a spare set a while ago, so luckily I didn’t need to worry, but when you send something as fragile as shell bearings, a bit more than a sheet of newspaper is needed for protection!

Next up was getting everything ready. Now I’d been told that this was possible in-situ without having to remove the crank, which meant it would be a lot quicker, but was a slightly odd way to do it. Anyway, I thought I’d give it a go, so got the sump off again, and then removed all the bearing caps (3 for the crank, 4 for the pistons), and found that it was indeed possible to get the main bearings out with gentle persuasion they would rotate around in their housings. And what a shock that was when I got the middle one out – it was absolutely knackered! A lot worse than the lower half that I’d already seen (which was already knackered), and the front bearing was even worse! The rear one wasn’t too bad (looked more like a normal high mileage road bearing), and then removing the ones from the conrods also showed a fair bit of wear (but nothing like what had happened to the main bearings). Here they are with the new ones as a comparison.

Next was getting the new ones in place – to quote Haynes, the reversal of the removal procedure. The front one was a bit tricky to get lined up properly (especially as the Skoda engine has a circular thrust bearing which needed to be protected), but third time lucky saw it all done. Then it was just a case of putting everything back together again (a la Haynes manual), taking care to oil everything as it was replaced, check the engine turned OK at each stage (not simple when you have 4 loose pistons to deal with), and torquing everything up. Once they were all in and happy, oil pump, strainer and sump went back on, but I had to leave it overnight for the sealer on the sump gasket to go off, as one of the sump bolts had sheared removing it and it wasn’t straightforward to remove it in situ, so i felt it was best left as is.

Next morning, the moment of truth. Spun the engine, no oil pressure. Span it again, nothing. Did this several times and I was starting to get really worried. I’d checked everything at least twice before moving onto the next stage, but maybe I’d missed something. To save the battery I pulled the spark plugs out, and the engine really whizzed round, maybe 500rpm or so. And suddenly, OIL PRESSURE! And not only that, but GOOD Oil pressure! Before it hadn’t had anything at 500rpm, it was registering about 40psi. I put everything back, fired it up, and it sounded sweet and had a right-on-the-money 3.5 bar at 1500rpm. Brilliant.

Now there was the next thing to do. I’ve been very fortunate to have had my diff worked on by the extremely helpful and thorough Steph Keldsyke, and he has rebuilt the diff for me, with a suitable amount of preload, and even managed to get it back to me in time for this weekend. If you want anything like this done, then I can thoroughly recommend him for a professional, prompt and knowledgeable service and work of the highest quality – email him here But I had a choice. Either just fit the diff into a standard gearbox, or go for an attempt with the close ratio gearkit I’ve been working with. This is a long story (and I won’t put it all here), but it’s the kit i should have had nearly 2 years ago, and no, I’ve not finally got it from Chris Bennett. Anyway, the main problem was that the standard Skoda gearbox means a top speed of 170mph. Well, more correctly, the car is geared to do that – it’s all set up for economy and relaxed motorway driving, which isn’t really much cop in a rally car. The other gearbox gears the car for around 100mph – fortunately Skoda homologated a massive range of options in this department, and these are from one of these sets. BUT they were completely untested. I couldn’t just ignore it though; I’m not sure how long I’ll be doing rallying for, but I know this will be the last time I do Rally GB, and I really wanted to have a ‘proper’ car, and the gearbox is a massive part of this. So I dedicated a couple of days to this, and found that there was some machining needed – one of the shafts was a bit over-size and one of the gears was too tall – when all the gears and synchros were built up, it meant 4th was locking onto the shaft and this would seem to have been the cause of the problems all those years ago with Chris Bennett’s box….

Once that machining had been done (thanks massively to Damien at Retel EMD), the box could be built up. I have a copy of the Skoda manual (thanks Ken!) and built it up, but it wouldn’t work. The gears all seemed to select OK, but it just wouldn’t turn smoothly, sounding as if something was catching. Long story short, 4 rebuilds later, I found the problem, and the easiest way of correcting it was to use a standard crownwheel and pinion, which handily doesn’t alter the overall gearing much (as it was only slightly lower on the S/C one), and is legal to do (and being a production ratio is obviously legal). However, I only had one in the box in the car (because I’d cleaned the damn garage out last week, I chucked 2 away!!!!), so today I’ve removed the box from the car, stripped it and used the parts from that to rebuild the box.

I’m OK at most mechanical things (although you’d never know it, given my history with R477 KRU), but gearboxes are the thing I detest the most. Firstly because they are a real trial to get in and out (particularly now on the Skoda – the engine needs to be dropped, adding a couple of hours to the process in total), and ‘cos they’re a pain in the bum to get back in place being heavy and awkward, and mostly because they have caused me so much trouble and it’s not possible to test one 100% until you drive the car. But this one seemed OK – every gear selected OK, neutral worked as it should, everything, and I’d fitted new bearings and shimmed them exactly as Skoda say. So I decided to go for it, put it back together with the LSD, and put it in the car. This meant a 10-hour day working on the car today, but although I’ve not driven it on the road (as I don’t have any insurance right now), I’ve spun it up, and it has 5 forward and 1 reverse gear, and they seem spot on. Perhaps, just maybe, things are coming together. I hope so, ‘cos I am beyond tired – like Ripley with the Alien, it’s been in my life so long now, I can’t remember anything else.

…. another bunch of stuff gets done.

Whenever you do anything it seems that 20% of the work takes 80% of the time – it’s not the big stuff that takes the time, like changing engines, it’s all the little things that do. And that’s been the case this weekend. I’ve been on it Friday afternoon, and all day Saturday and Sunday, and yet it seems like nothing has changed, but in fact I’ve done lots of little things. The exhaust now has a short flexi section in it to relieve some strain on the manifold, and obviously this took a fair while, but it’s nicely TIGed in place, and means fitting the whole system is now a breeze. The rear tailpipe mounting wasn’t particularly clever as it rattled a bit, and now that is also much more secure and doesn’t rattle. Nothing now fouls the exhaust, which is good all round. I’ve even made up a section to put in if the flexi bit fails.

I’ve made a bit more progress with the diff, and have cleaned up a casing ready to build whatever box I end up with into. The big issue is whether or not it’ll be worth using, and this should hopefully be resolved this week. However, stripping a previous box that I’d bought as a spare (and indeed taken to WRGB 2007) showed that it was totally useless. Clutch lever – bent and seized. Mounting studs – bent. OIl – cooked, so the bearings were probably toast. Diff – doesn’t look good either! Out of the entire thing, the ONLY things I saved were some shims for setting the diff and input shaft setup.

Which leads me nicely onto probably the most constructive thing I did on Saturday – a massive trip to the dump, dropping off a HUGE amount of old steel (conrods, liners, gears, allsorts), and a load of oil (from the many changes I seem to have done in the last couple of weeks), and suddenly I had a much more useful garage, which is a huge change (no pictures exist of the garage in previous Rally GB runups, but let’s just say “complete disorganised mess” would cover it nicely).

There was a list of small things to do, which took a lot of time – finishing the plate for the WRC tracker switch (now nicely mounted by the front of Paul’s seat), finishing the intercom helmet setup and testing them (and, oddly finding out that the connections are the wrong way round – mine goes to Paul’s and vice-versa, so I’ll have to re-do that, despite not having changed it since last used!), mountings for the oil cooler (which took hours), a mounting plate for the ECU (which finally can’t slide about, and is well insulated from vibration), and a bunch of other tiny little things.

I’m still waiting for the bearings. It’s really not reassuring when you offer to pay extra (I’d happily have paid for UPS as I could have got the car going already) and the guy says “airmail is the quickest way” – bearing in mind the last set took FIVE WEEKS to turn up. Obviously I can’t wait that long, I’m hoping they’ll be here by Tuesday, and then it should be all systems go. Also the oil pressure gauge had to go back as it suffered from poor supply voltage rejection (turning the lights on dropped the pressure reading by about 1.5 bar) AND poor calibration, so hopefully the next one will be OK – certainly it was good to have a reading rather than just a light, and I think they may become a permanent addition.

Anyway, car aside, the paperwork has arrived for Rally GB – amazingly, unsigned for!!! Anyway, we’re number 98. Which is nice, didn’t expect to get out of the 130s, really. We have the road books, recce numbers, schedule and all the other bumf! What is annoying is, as last year, the military Land Rovers will be tagging along behind the main field on three “National B” events. Anyway, that’ll mean I’ll get caught on long stages, as I’m giving away 8″ of suspension travel and about 180bhp….

Today I took the car for a first lengthy driving test, having fitted oil pressure and temperature gauges to get to the bottom of the oil light issue. The drive was to work, about 25 miles away, and involves some stop-start traffic as well as a couple of decent-speed thrashes. Towards the end of the second thrash, the oil pressure seemed to have dropped off a bit, as the oil temperature rose. This is not a good sign, but at least I had some (admittedly not that great!) instrumentation rather than just a light when it’s too late…

Some wise advice from the britishrally forum sent me back to my original idea – replace the shells. But to do that I had to find out what size they were, and that meant repeating what I did after the first engine died, dropping the sump, and in this case getting the oil pump strainer off and removing a big end and main bearing cap to find out what size bearings were in there.

This went reasonably quickly (took about an hour in all), and revealed a very nicely built bottom end, and also a crank that was on the original bearing sizes, so these have now been ordered. I hope they come quickly as it will mean I can still MOT the car on Tuesday, but I don’t want to put these ones back in only to have to do the work all over again for the new bearings. In the meantime, a picture:

On the left, a main bearing from a car that had done about 85000 miles – it’s mostly unmarked aside from a bit of wear at the edge.
Next up, the main bearing from the rally car. Now do you believe that rally cars have a hard life? This hasn’t done a lot of miles, and in the time I was using the engine it got an oil change every other event (I’m glad I did it now!), but you can see that it’s far more worn than the standard item, very polished, and has some scoring in it too. The crankpin that runs on this looked OK though, which is a relief.
Next, a new big-end for comparison. The scoring on this led to its replacement, but I thought it was worth seeing what they start out like
Finally, the big end from the rally car – not looking too bad, but still fairly worn and polished.

So, here goes…. although it’s only another couple of hours’ work to change these, I’m now a bit worried!

About 2 months ago, I drew up a “plan” – outlining what I’d need to get done on the car on any given weekend or day off. And managed to stick to this so far, despite last week’s engine disaster.

But today I’ve been fortunate enough to get Internet access at work (not usually the case), and have some free time (often the case where I am today), and managed to get ahead – I’ve rejigged the schedule as a result of this, and hopefully having spent a bunch of money today on paint, oil cooler parts, sumpguard mountings, a gear puller and other little bits and pieces should mean that this weekend will see the car pretty much ready to go, aside from the possible addition of the gearbox/LSD. My initial fumblings with the gear kit that I now have (long story) aren’t too promising – there’s a couple of parts that look to be wrongly sized…..

… take a long time.

At present, aside from the sumpguard needing a bit of welding and then re-fitting, the car is mostly ready. OK, at present it has a standard gearbox in there, but as I’ve still drawn a blank on getting new plates for the diff, this could be how it ends up (not something I’d be happy about, but there you go). But there are a lot of little things that are needed to get the car ready to use, and one of the first was sorting out the tickover – as the engine is using management which doesn’t control the idle setting then it was currently stalling even between slow gearchanges, and definitely under braking (when you’re dropping down the gears). Clearly this is no good. I’d spent a LOT of time looking at electronic means of how to achieve this, but the first circuit (the ‘classic’ PWM control) didn’t work well at all. No, that’s not right, it did work, but the throttle valve sounded unhappy about it – it was making a nasty whining sound, no matter what frequency I used. Next up, a variable voltage source, which worked OK, but wasn’t straightforward; I thought it would just be a simple case of a certain voltage would equal a certain throttle opening. It didn’t, and would mean a three-setting system – one to hold the current opening, one to close and one to open the throttle a bit. A bit complex, but doable. But I spent a bit of time looking at the throttle body and saw that it would be possible to drill and tap for a bolt which would hold the throttle open, and an hour or so saw the car’s throttle body modified like this as well as the spare which I have in the spares box (indeed a complete manifold with uprated injectors, etc., after last year’s problems). The next thing was something I’d not planned on doing for weeks – sorting out the sumpguard on the recce car, which took one really big hit on one stage and was quite bent – an hour straightening this and the chassis rail saw that bolted back in place and ready to go – all that’s needed now on the recce car is a change of tyres.

But the morning had already gone, and it was now chucking it down and freezing cold. Time for some electronic work, and in this case looking at more 5v supply via USB sockets for the Navigation system which is on the car’s dashboard (which can also record and track stages as we go, as can Paul’s setup which he uses), and replacing the original mounting from last year (which was a hurried job with, er, gaffa tape and cardboard!), and also supplying power for the remote extender which will allow control of the dashboard.

Sunday was time to sort out a bunch of other little things on the car, first of which was go for a reasonably long drive, and to set up the tickover, which makes the car a LOT easier to drive as you don’t have to concentrate on keeping the engine fired up as well as everything else. Everything else feels good; there’s still some mapping to be done on light throttle/midrange (for road sections) as it’s a bit rich in places, but that’s easily done with someone sat in the passenger’s seat; an hour’s work will see that taken care of. Next was adding a dimmer and on/off switch to the red illumination for Paul’s maps – I’d added this a long time ago, but the LEDs were too bright, so now it’s adjustable and switchable as well, so that should keep him happy. Making up a plate for the WRC tracker console was another thing that took a while, but finally it’ll be a straightforward “screw in” job rather than the afterthought it’s been in previous years. Adding the life hammer too – I’ve heard that this is a requirement since the addition of window film, but I can’t find it anywhere. Better to have it though, for sure.

There’s a short list of things to do on the car now – nothing major at all, really, just things like getting rid of rattles and so on, which is good, but all involve being under the car and so on, which isn’t an option today, but should be on Tuesday afternoon, when I’ll also be fitting an Oil Temperature and Pressure gauge as I want to investigate further the cause of the low oil pressure after a thrashing. I’m going to add the oil cooler anyway, but I want definite figures rather than speculation (which was all I had before!)

It’s weird – I feel like I’ve achieved nothing this week as I’m just “on schedule”. It’s funny how quickly the hell of engine death and replacement can be forgotten – I’ve done loads but I feel like I’ve slacked off. Anyway, I’m back to work this week, so things will no doubt become more hectic over the coming weeks….

… I sent off our application for Rally GB yesterday, as today is the deadline. Phoned IMS this morning, and they’ve got it, payment has cleared, we’re in.

Nice.

OK, so yesterday was mostly spent fixing things on the car, such as re-welding the towing eye in a more secure manner (which took hours as the MIG decided it needed repairing and I had to do it properly), checking EVERYTHING on the car, and then eventually (in the afternoon) going for a drive. And there was some good news – firstly Andy’s mapping worked OK on the engine – it was far more driveable than the previous incarnation, and secondly, it was running lean, which is GOOD as it was therefore drawing in more air, and as a result would make more power once it was set up properly. A short drive and then a longer 10-mile one revealed nothing other than loose tappets which needed adjustment. A number of little things were fixed – nagging wiring issues and so on. All these things take SO long and yet seem to make very little difference, but they should all pan out in the end.

Today, though, was a different matter. Aside from the weather being miserable (meaning I was glad I didn’t put off fixing the towing eye), it took a while before I got a chance to do the tappets, and was pleased to find a bit of slack in a couple of them, and a much quieter engine afterwards. The throttle issue was resolved as I found the throttle stop inside the car was the problem, fixed by removing it (the floor does a better job). Once the new cable arrives, I’ll make a proper, adjustable one which will do a better job again. Next up were final checks and then it was time to go off to Triton again to get the mapping done. Andy Vey has to be one of the friendliest guys I’ve ever dealt with – his company spend most of their time dealing with cars that are far more serious and powerful than my Skoda, but I was taken seriously at every point, and in a professional and friendly manner. Got the car on the rollers, explained what had changed, and then it was time to start mapping again. Firstly, correcting the fuelling low-down (where I’d been driving the car and I’d noticed it), and then increasing the rev range and making the right adjustments there. After about 10 runs the car was running with good fuelling throughout, and it was time to start adjusting the ignition timing. What REALLY impressed me here was that Andy’s initial setup was very close to optimum. The original ignition and fuelling maps looked like the Alps – dips and crests all over the place, and a right mess according to Andy. He started again and this setup which he came up with was only a few degrees off of optimum – a few more runs saw increases in power and then a small drop meaning we’d found the limit. By now the oil pressure was getting low at low RPM (fine above 1500rpm), but he had a setup that allows listening to the engine’s internals, and was confident all was well – the oil was clear and clean with no particles in it, so we did one final run and all was well. There were three end results:

• 1 – a mapped, well-running engine. Not something I’ve had on a non-standard car.
• 2 – 80.2 bhp. Not an astronomical figure by any account, but certainly enough to be going on with, and made with STANDARD parts, meaning it will be possible to carry spares (I already have a complete inlet setup with suitable injectors)
• 3 – a Happy Darren. Not something that’s been seen for a few days.

What’s NICE about this is that there’s a big RPM range between peak torque and peak power, so I felt the engine would feel good on the road, and be nice on the stages. I didn’t want to look like a total tool, and also didn’t want to jinx things (I took a pic of the car about 1 minute before the last engine died), so I waited until after the mapping to take a pic…

I have to thoroughly recommend Triton to anyone in Bournemouth/Dorset the area who has a Subaru, Evo or similar, and anyone who wants some mapping work done – it was (engine issues aside) a far more pleasurable and painless (and quick!) process than I was expecting – today only cost me for one hour, which was very reasonable at ?105.

The drive home confirmed my feelings about the engine – it’s not massively quick, but it’s a world away from the previous setup, and fuelled well everywhere – nice and driveable. The oil pressure issue had gone once the oil had cooled down so I think all it’ll need is dropping the sump and a check on the big ends – I think they may need just swapping out (and I have a set, handily), and the addition of an oil cooler should see everything 100%.

I’m actually going to have a night off – no wiring, planning or anything. Tomorrow I’m working in the morning, and then I’ll get the rest of the car’s electrics and other minor issues sorted out. There’s a lot to do, but hopefully the major work is done now on the engine. Next problem? The LSD, although I have some parts coming in the post tomorrow which should help find out what needs to be done…

Being a bit nervous, I don’t sleep well when I’m worried. Needless to say I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night.

Got up early, as the postman arrived. WITH A CLUTCH! This was amazingly handy, and I took it as a sign, so went out to get on with the car. Got the engine out, and then stripped off the bits I needed for the new install (water pump, alternator brackets, etc), and then cleaned the new engine up – and it came up very well. I swapped some of the covers over to keep it looking nice and clean, and then it was time to look at the clutch. Which uncovered a bit of a surprise. The clutch plate was a bit stuck on (although I’m sure it would have freed off with a bit of work), but behind it was a great sight – a dowelled flywheel and two extra bolts – whoever had built this engine hadn’t been messing about. I then realised that the flywheel had also been lightened considerably. Result! A bit of cleaning up had the new clutch looking pretty (I was too excited to take pictures, silly me), and then putting on the water pump and alternator brackets saw the engine ready to fit. Fitting gearboxes is always a pet peeve of mine, but doing it with the engine out is a piece of cake – a one man job – and it was ready to fit.

Fitting went fairly easily, as you’d expect given that every fastener has been undone since Saturday anyway, so no problems there and within a couple of hours I was going through the final checklist. I filled the engine with the right oil, but it’ll be getting changed after 20 minutes of warming up, as I want to flush everything out. Water in, gearbox oil in, everything torqued, and time to fire it up.

Firstly, with the coil disconnected to get some oil pressure, which came up after a reasonable amount of turning over (given that it would have been bone dry, this is fair enough). Then to see if it would fire. Connected the coils, turned it over. Nothing. Tried again. Nothing. Connected the laptop and saw there was no RPM signal, and a quick adjustment of the sensor position had it fire up and sound schweet (copyright Eric Cartman). Blipped it a few times and killed it, and checked everything again, checking for leaks, etc., but all was well. Fired it up again, and again it sounded good. Andy’s base map setting is obviously not 100% right for this engine, but it ran a whole load better than the original map, and seemed all good.

I’ve booked it in for another session on Thursday (giving me time to check it over properly and so on), and now it’s time to check everything over again, change the oil and so on, and go for a gentle drive to see if it’s happy. I have the LM-1 fitted in the car,so it’s easy to see if the mixture is wrong, and I’ll see how it goes. Hopefully it will go!