Rolling Road Questions

[HarryW]

I have just discovered (OK found then) that I have a tuning specialist near me, actually within 10 minutes .
The problem is I have never heard of this place before and have been asking around locally, it seems that they do a lot of Max Power and Cossie stuff with the occasional Tiv.
I have the option of just getting it put on the road to see what’s what so to speak and for an extremely reasonable price a tune from that point on. The guy reckons that 1.5 hours is more than adequate for this.

I hope that I'm not giving the impression that it's dodgy as there was a Masser Ghilibi (sp) being done when I went to have a look this afternoon and the owner drives a Westie Seight, so I felt quite happy they do tune more than just Sado's and Festers.

Some questions now...the machine apparently was a Bosche (spelting?)(200?) and by all accounts, well the guy said so, is one of the most accurate available, with the next nearest one being at Power Engineering in Smoke? Anyone care to comment on that claim by the guy? he could be talking total B*llocks for all I know on that one
Also any comments on what to expect and look for in a rolling road session, as apart from today I’ve never seen one before

I will not divulge the name of this place or the costs as I have an idea up my sleeve, suffice to say it's very close to a pub with a large car park overlooking the beach with loverly views over the Solent
I'm booked in for the lets have a look at the current state of play go on Tuesday I'll report back then.

Harry

[2 Sheds]

Before you go, ad a couple of extra psi to the rear tyres, over 1/2 tank of petrol, new spark plugs if not recently changed, otherwise they will fit new plugs "on the rollers at going rate per hour.check that all fluid levels are correct, if not recenntly serviced, as your car is about to be driven at 140mph pay more attention to the wheel figures and the shape of the power curve, this should be fairly consistent on any machine. Power at the flywheel will vary from one rolling road to another,and no doubt be less than expected, ask if they calculate for atmospheric conditions, as this can effect power output by up to 10%, Enjoy your day out.

[HarryW]

Cheers for the response Tim, the car was serviced last month so I'm not expect too much in the way of 'service' items to be at fault (famous last words ). Probably worth taking a few new plugs along all the same, anyone else got any tips from experience? Can they do anything to these ECU’s, fuel mapping etc, without re-chipping?

Slightly O/T, took the car for a blat this afternoon in the sun, loverly , had a bit of a misfire for a couple of seconds that I drove through, then all OK again. A few miles later, whilst going up a twisty hill with solid white lines both sides it died , popping and banging no power, dipped the clutch now completely dead, zero revs ;(. Managed to pull over into a semi lay-by, cranked it over, fuel pump primed but not firing checked all leads etc, all tight, sparking from King lead to distributor, however no spark out of the distributor though , popped the cap off and the rota arm fell out in three pieces . Great I know what’s wrong and have an RAC card and mobile phone so I'll give them a ring......er no.......no bl**dy signal . I had to walk about a mile up the road to get one, finally RAC source and fitted a replacement so I'm back home to tell the tale .
Thinking about the popping and banging as it died, it was probably neat fuel burning on the Cats and spitting flames, just hope it hasn't cooked them ;(.
The moral is add rota arm to the list of consumable to carry in the car, along with a HT lead, throttle cable..…….no I'll stick with the mobie and RAC card .
Never a dull moment having one of these cars's, moving or static

Harry

[johno]

Harry,

Had this happen to me in different circumstances... Late for a meeting in Reading and trying to make up time I came onto the M26 in Kent on the slip road absolutely flying as I hit about 5000 - 5500 rpm suddenly face on windscreen and lots of big big big big bangs and then nothing.

Felt like the engine had completely let go and had car recovered by a matw.

Turns out the rotor arm had disintegrated and was a mass of nits in the cap !!

Much relief

Cheers

Mark

[HarryW]

Had the session today to see 'what’s what' with the car . All the preliminary checks and emission values done on the diagnostics machine were spot on, the guy commented on how very balanced, smooth and even the car was for a tuned V8 rover lump at tick over .

Now hooked up to the machine, I asked how they corrected for temperature and atmospheric pressure, no problems the machine does it with an inbuilt barometer and a temp sensor that was hooked up to the air filter, happy .

First run on the dyno, what will it tell me it came out at 165 bhp at the wheels, and automatically corrected it by the run down measurements showing 196bhp at the flywheel but the gizmo logged it as invalid due to wheel spin more strapping down needed me thinks .
After a few more runs trying extra weight (me in the passenger seat ), extra strapping, tyre pressure up, tyre pressure down he could not get a run that didn't suffer from wheel spin . The problem being that being slightly 'cammy' it always slipped when it came on cam (quite markedly ) around 3k - 3.5k rpm.
The best figures that came out were 175bhp at the wheels corrected for 208bhp flywheel and 289 lb/ft torque (there was one torque reading of 330 lb/ft but even in bar room banter I don't think I could claim that one ).
Probably the best result was that the power curve (ignoring the slipping bits) was always a nice smooth shape peaking at 5500rpm .
Even given the results there was definitely more to come with a peak Co2 reading of only 4.8% (under fuelling sound familiar).
Right what does that Mark Adams chappy do to the ECU fuel mapping then .

Harry

[shpub]

Give him lots of dosh and he will reprogram the mapping for your engine. May liberate some more horses, may not.

Takes a couple of hours (usually). Costs around 125 per hour and about 350 for the new ECU chip.

Budget 750 and you will get change. Budget 500 and you may ened up paying a bit more...

steve
www.tvrbooks.co.uk

[HarryW]

Steve does he (Mark) not have the ability to update the TVR fitted chip to the latest software release and re-map without having to change it?

I wonder if travels as the rolling road down here is the same or very similar to the Power Engineering one (Bosch FLA 202) but they do not have much in the way of TVR V8 experience no code reader either, but a comprehensive Sun SCA 3500 analyser that can tell if all is running well. For those with V6's they are pretty hot on them and any max power or cossie type thing friendly to boot.

They were exteremly reasonable at £55 for the 2 hour's I was there , with no adjustments in the end, and £26(9?) for a quick diagnostics check on the SUN machine and one pass on the rollers 1/2 hour or so.

I was considering arranging a 'dyno shoot out' for those interested, they normally close at 1230 on a Saturday but would accept a block booking for the afternoon, even better if I could get the likes of Mark in attendance to sort out any rouges. Just a thought, I'll ask.

Harry

PS It's rated up to 360bhp, but with my experience of wheel spinning at well below that I think I really do need to get my new tyres fitted before I try again.