Jump to content

AK260

Member
  • Posts

    999
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    11

Everything posted by AK260

  1. They look utterly brilliant on that car and with that body colour!!! [emoji106][emoji106]
  2. Allow me to contradict my own post further up this thread .... https://apple.news/A_WTyIGgMQ9S62iVeM8c3Xw
  3. Fair comment, I’m not sure on the exact wiring differences between an early and later S30 but it worked out of the box on my ‘77. I am very fussy and don’t like the headlight relay harnesses available and plan to make my own with relays inside the cabin. So LEDs was an easy win in the meanwhile (3 years ago!!). The light you see is with 11.8v at the headlight connector and 12.6v at the battery. They do get slightly brighter when you start the car, so even on LEDs the voltage matters, albeit marginally. The way forward is definitely relays and in in my books x5: one per side per beam, one for the rest of the lighting and in a discrete box under the dash near the heater motor. That 0.8v drop is still quite a few Watts being dissipated in the car’s old electrics. In fact, I would wager that the wiring is still low impedance but it’s the connectors at the fuse box etc that need a good scrub! Which should be mandatory for us all given how much heat that can generate. I looked very closely at those Yazu connectors but haven’t bought them yet: has anyone used these and happy with them? Finally, if you do use the LEDs be sure to install them in the right orientation (it IS different to halogens, ask me how I know)! Halogens are up/down, LEDs are left/right. Most of them have a spinning head. Good luck chap. Ps. Mine are Vanssi branded cheapos (about ($60) from China as i was very unsure and it was only ever meant to be an experiment / stop gap, but touch wood in three years and a lot of night driving they haven’t let me down ... yet!
  4. My stock wiring with LED bulbs in H4 lenses... 1/3 current of halogens, no relays yet, transformed night time driving, ‘nuff said!
  5. My local station is currently selling at £1.17 / litre which is consistent with your US gal figures or $6.95 UK gallon. When I bought my first car in 1995, it was as low as £0.38 / litre. How is it we haven’t gone out with our pitch forks? Well, it’s the boiling a frog situation! Little by little it rises and people just swallow it. We did have protests back in the early 2000s when it hit £1 / litre but people soon forget and move on. You could argue it’s offset by wage inflation and car efficiency going up. But what kills me is that 70% of our fuel price here is tax! Also, every time I see an Arab number plate on a n illegally parked gold super car / Lamborghini in central London (clearly flown over on a private 747 for kudos) I can’t help thinking I own a small share of that car given what we spend at the pumps! Rant over!
  6. Nice find, but those prices!!!! :o
  7. Imagine what that would do to the price of precious metals if it was possible to get a fraction of it to earth!!?
  8. This is a great initiative! Well done you. Slightly off topic - do you know if they also do rear screens?
  9. VERY VERY nice garage!! I have total garage envy! That garage, if sold as a bungalow where I live would be worth $1.3m !!! I have to park my car to within 3 inches of the garage wall on the left to be able to get out of it on the right! ;) Also, very lovely car. Absolutely loving that colour too.
  10. What an utterly awesome story!!! I’m most envious (in a good way). [emoji106][emoji106]
  11. This is one of those moments / events I wish I could have been present at ....
  12. AK260

    COVID-19

    Be it corporate leadership, the army, a president, or me as a parent speaking to my children, humans like consistency in messaging and what is familiar. When reenforced consistently, it becomes the new familiar. There are always rebels / belligerent / bigoted or ignorant people anywhere, but at least there is now going to be a president who seeks to unite. Let’s hope enough politicians are able to get past party politics and work together / with him for the good of the people. COVID-19 doesn’t care for colour, religion or political persuasion. It’s the silent invisible enemy we need to battle together.
  13. I do indeed use them, Mr Clever Zed Head! [emoji106] They have been brilliant and stock a good range of stuff. If it was me, I would personally do what has been suggested - namely go to Z Therapy for them. The carbs I bought off them 7 years ago have been subjected to some serious under bonnet heat and abuse, yet the rubber lines feel as good as the day I bought them. In the UK we run E95 which 5% ethanol. The SAE30 R6 fuel lines installed by the PO about 12 years ago had started to break down inside and I was getting black fish swimming around in my fuel filter (and fuel smells around the lines). But somehow the ZT supplied rubber lines have survived so far. Off topic - As a matter of interest, for this reason alone, I have now run aluminium fuel lines all the way from the fuel tank to the fuel filter and the return lines, with less than 20cm of rubber fuel lines joining everything. The extra bit in the middle of the photo below is just allowing for a possible future electric pump, if ever required.
  14. As well as flexibility, it’s important to ensure you have ethanol proof hoses, especially given that they are sitting nicely over the hot manifold!! [emoji33] I think ordinary silicone is porous and not fuel / oil resistant. Happy to be corrected.
  15. Thank you sir, I’d forgotten that thing about rapid cooling. On that note I recall something about not leaving the ignition on for too long before starting a cold engine. But I still don’t get the not at 12 o’clock bit. If in theory you have the space for mounting it straight up, then why does it need to be a minimum of 15 degrees off vertical!?
  16. You know, I strongly suspect that many a girl has at some point explained that diagram to some guy! ;) On a serious note though, that’s a GREAT tip - i assume its to it keep the water droplets from staying inside and messing with things. But I don’t get the not totally vertical orientation. Any thoughts?
  17. What!? You’re selling your boobs!?!? Do modifications increase or reduce value?
  18. So DC871F (actually, having just been watching the Rise of Skywalker, your handle sounds very Storm Trooper!) - apologies for my insomnia rant. I figure I’ve taken you off topic a little as your post is really about driving classic cars not all cars. When I was working in India back in 2008/9, I could see all that you are saying first hand. So could they, as you couldn’t even take a good enough photo of the Taj Mahal in the summer given the haze of pollution. At the time, they started making some efforts by forcing the most common and polluting city vehicles (the three wheeled tuck tucks) onto liquid natural gas. In 2019 they launched their National Clean Air Programme - but as you point out, they have quite a hill to climb. China has “recently” realised that the cost of pollution is too high and unsustainable, so it too has made strides - without spelling it out, here’s a good read ... https://earth.org/how-china-is-winning-its-battle-against-air-pollution/ Their problem of course (much like the rest of the manufacturing world) is the heavy industries like steel are difficult to curtail as they bring jobs and prosperity. Obviously time will tell how truthfully all these initiatives have been implemented. I feel that given the stature of countries like the US and the likes of the European Union on the world stage they really need to be the leading lights on this issue and lead by example. One of many reasons why the Biden approach compared with his predecessor is very welcomed by those who are concerned for the future of the environment. As for classic cars, in countries that care about air quality, it is inevitable that our cars will become curtailed in the areas they can be used. But that’s just the way of the future for all ICE cars.
  19. Not mine! (Yet!) I know people who replaced their o2 sensors with cheap ones on their Audis and then came to Uncle Ali to get me to run diagnostics for them a few months later. (I have full VCDS for those who know what it is). But once replaced with the Bosch ones that cost 3 times as much, they never needed to come back. Incidentally, the Bosch one is what came with my Innovate! I’ve also seen YouTube videos of people reviving old ones by using a blow torch to heat them to glowing hot temps. Can’t be sure how long that would last but apparently it makes the carbon build up on the heating element let go. As for your eBay seller, I’ve had a few bad experiences on eBay but most of the time they have been very good at stepping in and resolving!
  20. Off topic alert - honestly who in this day and age allows mink farming!? I though the fur trade was illegal these days.
  21. This I always found a great read too ... http://atlanticz.ca/zclub/techtips/headporting/index.htm
  22. The planet is burning, respiratory diseases such as asthma have been rising over the decades and known to be linked to city / car pollution and yet, THIS is our concern!? https://www.aaaai.org/conditions-and-treatments/library/asthma-library/air-pollution-asthma There is nothing European about it, frankly it’s a world concern that simply some nations have been quicker at responding to. If lockdown showed us anything, it was just how polluted our air has been that we’ve gradually gotten accustomed to living with. Much like the leaded fuel case mentioned above. I heard these sorts of arguments from smokers in the 90’s when the ban came in on smoking in enclosed spaces such as restaurants etc. “How dare the government tell me what to do and take away my freedom to pollute the air around me? It’s my democratic right to damage my own health and those of others nearby”. While I’m a total piston head and bemoan losing the joy of a growling ICE, I think in 20-30 years we will look back on this era of our existence and laugh at how dumb we were to drive highly polluting cars near our schools, leisure areas and in cities; walking about next to them breathing all those dangerous gasses as if it were perfectly OK. Not that electric cars are any greener from cradle to grave of course. But for inner cities and areas with dense populations / poor air quality, they are a step in the right direction. So now we have to change the song to: Get your motor hummin’, Sneak out on the highway! Looking for a charge point, And supercharge on our way. Just after WW II, the world population was a mere 2bn. We are currently over 7 and rising. The trouble with existing on such a scale is that whatever we do will have an impact on our surroundings and society at large. So we have to move forward intelligently. I don’t like being forced to go electric soon, but in some ways the electric car will save the ICE car / classic cars - much like horses and steam engined vehicles were saved by the car and are now a thing of leisure and nostalgia. Simply put, we have to adapt. Oh and to make you laugh: my Q5 2.0TDi and A4 3.2 v6 petrol are way way cleaner and more fuel efficient than my Z - but the Z being a “Historic class vehicle” is low emissions zone exempt in the UK! Go figure ;) I guess we still like classic cars here.
  23. I had the exact same thought - then time and life got in the way ;) You won’t regret it!
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and Guidelines. We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.