rxsumo

You want to probably look at one around 8-10 pounds (remember you still need to add the counterweight weight to the flywheel). Buy a one piece steel one, with the ring gear cut into the flywheel, dont touch a modified original one, nor one that has the ring gear on standoffs.

Have a look at survivable (non caged), road rollovers, In my opinion most cars ar strongest through their B and C pillars, the weakest pillars are generally the A pillar. In most cases the roof will collapse at the front rather than the rear. The main advantage of the half cage is for older cars where there are possibly hidden structural "issues". I'd be a starter for a half cage in a early convertible, if you look at most of the convertibles from the 60's the windscreen is a bolt on affair, and I rather have the protection for my head.

I think you will find this depends on the cage itself, you may have to register/certify the car as a 2 seater, but so long as the half cage is unlikely to cause injury to the occupants then I cant see why you would have an issue. Personally I cant see much point in a half cage. It does FA for vehicle strength/flexibility, and while it may stop a full roof cave-in in a rollover, it isnt going to protect the occupants like a full cage. If it was my car, I'd rather have the anti-intrusion, and the forward members of a roll cage. Most race tracks out there have an awful lot of concrete walls and armco, which are generally more robust than panel steel when hit at speed.

Cage spec's for NZ Motorsport Regs are within the schedule A document: http://www.motorsport.org.nz/Pdf/M33%20App2%20SchA.pdf If you are only intending to do track work once a year, a cage is a waste of time. To use the car on the road and keep your Motorsport Authority Card alive, the vehicle must appear at 3 events. Motorsport Authority Card gives to the ability to pass WOF's with rollcage, harnesses, lexan windows, and exemption from the interior impact requirements of a standard WOF'd car. The other thing to consider with a cage... For a road car, a cage is potentially a killer, typically the rollcage will intrude into the air space that your head may require for movement in case of an accident. The rollcage padding is designed to work in conjunction with your crash helmet, if you aint wearing a helmet there is a fairly good chance of doing some skull damage regardless of having rollcage padding.

I think the long range fuel tank was optional....similar to the Charger. There was a "Bathurst Spec" tank, that would be found on the Aussie cars, and perhaps some of the road cars, but as the cars werent used for long distance racing in NZ, the cars may not have been spec'd with them. There are a couple of them that have been setup for Racing in Wanganui, and I sure that I heard that the engines were punching over 300BHP. The engines are a little "fragile" but it isnt bad for a dirty old holden six.

EA's are known for Head Gasket issues.....might pay to check that out

Silly question time.... I'm not a Mitsi expert..... Did the car that the new engine come from have an oil pressure light or an oil pressure guage? In my experience, Japanese cars that have guages generally dont have pressure lights, so........ The reason the light might come on and stay on is that the sender unit is in fact a guage sender and not a on/off switch. We had this problem with my KE25 when we put the 2T-G in it. Have you tried putting the original switch back in?

Any loose wires floating around under the dash? Are there any wires around the pedal box? Somebody may have taken a feeder for a radio off the ignition directly at some stage and the wire shorting to ground. Does the fault only occur when the car is moving or does it happen when the car is stationary as well. (is the problem related to the movement of the car deaccelerating, or is it the movement of the pedals the cause of the problem) Remove the power feeder from the brake light switch....does the problem still occur. If it doesnt occur, restore the power feeder and remove the stop light bulbs....does the problem occur? If yes I'd be looking at a wire thats been frayed/welded etc. If no, restore the brake bulbs one at a time and see when the problem occurs. I've had a Narva bulb with an internal short...damn near killed the all the lighting switches and wiring in my RX7. Whats the engine earth like?

If these are the Blue tinted Halogen bulbs, we found them to vary depending on the type of driving and the shape of the Headlamp. In our old MX5 with round 7inch headlamps the performance was pretty good, except it didnt have the long range punch of a Xenon on full beam. Around town performance was good, and it had better reflector pickup on low beam. In the father inlaws L200 ute with square headlights, they were crap. The lens shape must have very sharp range cutoff, so the high beam performance was dismal....worse than normal 55 watt halogens, and around town it was only barely better than sidelights. With the Escort having the nearly square headlights could be part of the issue. I would suggest that you should get some relays else you might experience the death of you light switch or your High/Low beam switch. We melted the light switch in one of our old Angleboxes...sorta funny watching the knob drooping in the dash as all the guts of the switch were melting!

So what are they guaranteeing? Will they guarentee the chip will work with HP gains and driveability, and what happens if it doesnt work? Refund monies, fix damage?(and of course you want it in writing rather than verbal!) The last specs for a E34 535 that was chipped claimed a 30bhp increase. Once you saw the dyno sheet, it was a mid range HP increase and there was only a few HP at the top end. The dyno sheet also showed that the delivery was a bit erratic. I've heard a few horror stories of chips only increasing fuelling and upping the red-line, so all you really gain is a bigger fuel bill and a shorter engine life. One of the ex Mechanics at Page European was trying to sell me a chip for ours, here was making all sorts of HP/torque claims, and when grilled on the subject, got down to it works really well on emission control 525s (like ex Japan cars). When it came to show me the dyno sheets for my model car, show me the benefits of my $900 spent and what are you prepared to guarantee, he wasnt quite as noisy on the subject.

It wouldnt be too hard to convert it back to a dizzy if required. You need a "conversion" or repair nut and the front cover and dizzy assembly from an old motor.

Talk to Richard Gillies at Chequered Flag in Lower Hutt. He recommends a "vampire" ECU setup that clips onto your existing ECU, rather than "chipping". He runs a Dynapack Dyno, so its sort of a 1 stop shop. He reckons he's had fairly good results from the setup on Falcons and Commodeore V8s

not that I'm aware of, the 7's and the 5's run the same offset

The front bumper is on, and the 735 rims are on.

If we are discussing the tyres..... Motorsport Scrutineering doesnt actually check everything on the car anymore...its audit only, and its very rarely (except in the case of sanctioned series with control tyres) that tyres are actually checked. If the tyres are new (as they appear), and have no obvious safety defects, then you can run the tyres. Age or style of tyre play no part in scrutineering. There are still a heap of people with Dunlop A2s and old Formula Pacific Slicks that they choose to run on their cars, I personally wouldnt because your grip is majorly compromised....but its their call. If we are discussing the wheels...... Modifications limitations: (a) Steel Wheels may not be modified from the original specification of the manufacturer. So unless they were originally made like that (and you can get some documentation to support that), they dont meet Schedule A requirements... Cant run them at a MNZ event.

If they are as old as I think they are, about the only thing they will be good for is holding a car upright (or for shows), and being crossply slicks they will be generally pretty porous, and will go flat over a couple of weeks. As for drag racing....nah, while they might have been soft and grippy when new....Id be guessing you will still be wheelspinning at the end of the quarter on these.

Look to be circuit wets, being wide 13 inch one....Formula Pacific? Definitely arent for road use (and the side of the casing will tell you so) And they are probably crossply (rather than radial), so you will probably need a set of crossply fronts, otherwise it might be interesting to drive. Id be checking on the age of the tyre as wide 13 inch tyres arent really in too much demand now (racing wise), and they could be fairly old, and may have little or no grip, and there may be issues with the tyre construction staying together.

http://www.oldschool.co.nz/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=5523 hows the twin strombergs too,as im about to pick some up(hopefully),any big change in hp? you would be better with a larger single SU rather than the Strombergs. The SU has an accelerator pump so will give you better pickup. Some of the tests done in the UK in the old days had some of the SUs flowing better than a DCOE Weber

Yep the parts are still around BMW thru their division called Mobile Tradition, support any BMW from the Dixie thru to any model 10 years or older. There is no guarantee that all the parts are available, and some of the bits are FN expensive, but its a heap better than the Japanese parts supply. I've got a good BMW auto factor in Germany that has heaps of NOS for cars older than 3 and 5 series

Now the weathers finally cleared up, heres some better photos The upholstery, the rear stuff cant go in until BMW decide whether they are going to sell me some new C pillar trims.

Lower door cards are completely stock...black Carpets are Rare Spares black loop pile, with cut pile over carpets. Loop pile is standard...cut pile is easier to clean. I wouldnt recommend the Rare Spares Carpets....they are generic 808/RX3 units and bear very little resemblence to the factory items in shape.

The photos are crap but a "teaser" The car is finally back from the panel shop The upholstery is back, so that needs fitting. The final assembly needs to happen over the couple of months. Waiting for some C pillar chrome to come out from Germany So the ultimate plan..... 3.5 engine with triple webers, 5 speed gearbox, and a LSD Wheels will probably be a set of 15 x 7 , 7 series X-Spokes, or the factory alloy wheels (on the front at the mo).

Silly question time....... Have you checked the engine earth? The reason why the rest of the electrics work except for the starter, is the body earth is okay....the engine earth being cactus will mean you are trying to start the money using a choke or accelerator cable etc....not too flash. How many spade terminals are on the solenoid, and if there are multiple are you plugged onto the correct one? The Bimmers and my old Hunter have a additional spade connector on the solenoid, it is a straight battery feeder for feeding power to engine components. If you have plugged onto this nothing much will happen when you flick the key. The other alternative is the battery could have a dead cell, the battery might have enough ergs to run the easy stuff, but when the load goes on like the starter motor, it craps itself. A test for this could be to see what the headlights look like....if they are crap then I'd be checking out the battery.

Well theres the... 2500A 2800 3.0SA 3.0S 3.0Si The triple webers, the 3.5 engine and the 5 speed are going on the S I'm picking the S up tomorrow, get the Uphostery back on Saturday, will post up some pikkies if the weather is fine. The 535 aint gonna be happy... I havent clean up the garage so the 535 gets to live outside.

If you want another option....I've got a few sets of BMW ones...apparently the same as early Porsche, and I have the matched 2 pot rears..... The pads might be easier to get than the Princess ones