1985 Rover 3500 Vitesse
Discussion
I think SD1 hot starting probs is down to fuel vapourisation in the lines round the plenum - if you could get the pump to pump for 20 seconds instead of the inital five (if it's like a TVR?) it might get colder fuel through?
Only TVR could wire the immobiliser back to front and use clothes line to earth the starter.
It might be worth posting in the TVR forum as the later 14CUX chip has now been cracked - if yours is similar software it could be programmed to prime for longer perhaps?
Lovely looking car OP - a mate of a mate had a gold 3500SE manual well over two decades ago and I remember it very well. Ride was rubbish - probably knackered rear shocks - but sounded so good. Lovely lovely noise, and just so torquey - the Vitesse at the time must have felt quite a rocketship.
I would have picked the Rover...
Only TVR could wire the immobiliser back to front and use clothes line to earth the starter.
It might be worth posting in the TVR forum as the later 14CUX chip has now been cracked - if yours is similar software it could be programmed to prime for longer perhaps?
Lovely looking car OP - a mate of a mate had a gold 3500SE manual well over two decades ago and I remember it very well. Ride was rubbish - probably knackered rear shocks - but sounded so good. Lovely lovely noise, and just so torquey - the Vitesse at the time must have felt quite a rocketship.
I would have picked the Rover...
Edited by andy43 on Thursday 23 August 22:28
Congrats on the MOT 
You can force the fuel pump to run (to prime the rail) by pushing on the air flow flapper with the ignition on. The pump doesn't run unless the ECU sees airflow into the engine (cranking also moves the flap enough). I guess it wouldn't take much to wire up a little 'prime' switch.
edit: This is the manual I've used, it's for a TVR wedge but the engines are identical (I think??) to a Vitesse/VDP EFI.
http://www.gomog.com/allmorgan/flapperEFI.pdf
You can force the fuel pump to run (to prime the rail) by pushing on the air flow flapper with the ignition on. The pump doesn't run unless the ECU sees airflow into the engine (cranking also moves the flap enough). I guess it wouldn't take much to wire up a little 'prime' switch.
edit: This is the manual I've used, it's for a TVR wedge but the engines are identical (I think??) to a Vitesse/VDP EFI.
http://www.gomog.com/allmorgan/flapperEFI.pdf
Edited by SamR380 on Thursday 23 August 22:32
andy43 said:
I think SD1 hot starting probs is down to fuel vapourisation in the lines round the plenum - if you could get the pump to pump for 20 seconds instead of the inital five (if it's like a TVR?) it might get colder fuel through?
Only TVR could wire the immobiliser back to front and use clothes line to earth the starter.
It might be worth posting in the TVR forum as the later 14CUX chip has now been cracked - if yours is similar software it could be programmed to prime for longer perhaps?
Lovely looking car OP - a mate of a mate had a gold 3500SE manual well over two decades ago and I remember it very well. Ride was rubbish - probably knackered rear shocks - but sounded so good. Lovely lovely noise, and just so torquey - the Vitesse at the time must have felt quite a rocketship.
I would have picked the Rover...
Yes all related to the fuel vaporisation. Priming the system for longer would probably cure it. Its not something that I've ever looked into though, I was always under the impression that the earlier 4CU was too stupid to redo anything with it. But I'll certainly ask the question. Only TVR could wire the immobiliser back to front and use clothes line to earth the starter.
It might be worth posting in the TVR forum as the later 14CUX chip has now been cracked - if yours is similar software it could be programmed to prime for longer perhaps?
Lovely looking car OP - a mate of a mate had a gold 3500SE manual well over two decades ago and I remember it very well. Ride was rubbish - probably knackered rear shocks - but sounded so good. Lovely lovely noise, and just so torquey - the Vitesse at the time must have felt quite a rocketship.
I would have picked the Rover...
Edited by andy43 on Thursday 23 August 22:28
I was plesently surpised as to how well mine rides, despite being the sporty version, so I always imagined at standard ride height it would be very cushy. With working suspension of course.
The noise really is intoxicating, the V8 howl at higher RPM, the burble at idle, and the pops on the overrun.
I still need to get a good video of mine.
The performance is brilliant, but then my only comparison from that era is a mini!
Should be even better with a fresh motor.
From that article is one of my favourite Vitesse pictures, I'd love to take mine on a runway....
I was following a new Aston Martin Vantage out of a local car show, and the guy on the gate looks at the Vitesse and said " I know which one I'd have"
Did make me smile.
The running issues have slightly tainted my first experiences of the car, but I think I've finally got to the bottom of the issues. Few air leaks, and some electrical gremlins. I'll go into detail once I've got the pictures up.
I got to take it out running nicely in the last few days and it really is lovely. Such a different experience, lovely and torquey but still happy to rev out. The gearing is ridiculously long though!
SamR380 said:
Congrats on the MOT
You can force the fuel pump to run (to prime the rail) by pushing on the air flow flapper with the ignition on. The pump doesn't run unless the ECU sees airflow into the engine (cranking also moves the flap enough). I guess it wouldn't take much to wire up a little 'prime' switch.
edit: This is the manual I've used, it's for a TVR wedge but the engines are identical (I think??) to a Vitesse/VDP EFI.
http://www.gomog.com/allmorgan/flapperEFI.pdf
Thank you, very happy to have it back on the road. You can force the fuel pump to run (to prime the rail) by pushing on the air flow flapper with the ignition on. The pump doesn't run unless the ECU sees airflow into the engine (cranking also moves the flap enough). I guess it wouldn't take much to wire up a little 'prime' switch.
edit: This is the manual I've used, it's for a TVR wedge but the engines are identical (I think??) to a Vitesse/VDP EFI.
http://www.gomog.com/allmorgan/flapperEFI.pdf
Edited by SamR380 on Thursday 23 August 22:32
Now that is a brilliant tip, I could just pull the air filter off and force some fuel through. I'll try that the next time it happens.
Yes the engines I believe are identical, and I think that was originally an SD1 EFI guide written by Ramon Alban. He mentioned when i got in contact with him that someone had republished his guide online.
They've even water marked a wedge on it and removed his name, shame as the guide is brilliant and he spent a lot of time and effort writing it.
I actually bought a hard copy of the original guide a few weeks ago from Ramon. Very useful to have.
http://www.vintagemodelairplane.com/pages/Rover_Te...
Usget said:
I genuinely can't choose. Can I have all three please sir?
I'd love to add an M535i to the garage, I've never even seen a Citroen CX GTi Turbo! Joe
CR6ZZ said:
Mine when I owned it back in 1989. Doesn't look it from the photo, but it was the same colour as yours. Loved owning it and only sold it to fund some further education.
Now that's a looker, I always liked the earlier cars with the decals. Did always confuse me why they went for that font for the decals, but the square font for the rear badge. Then back to the curvy font for the 827 Vitesse. So with the Vitesse on the road I took it to wherever I could. After the British Motor Museum was a local show to me.
A good mix always tends to turn up!
All fun and games until some yobbo gets dust all over your car....
I joke, he's a good friend of mine.
The dust was real though.
With the car on the road, I could now begin my tinkering.
First up was the Throttle Potentiometer.
This along with the Air Flow Meter is the only thing that tells the engine ecu how much fuel to dump into the engine. These need to be set to a specific voltage at 0% throttle. From memory it should be 0.325v. The potentiometer was so worn I couldn't get a steady reading around this value, so a replacement was sourced. Sadly although an issue it made no difference to the running issues.
You might also notice the high tech bonnet stay. The lovely summer weather completely killed the bonnet struts.
OEM spec stabilus replacement struts sorted that. The specs of these are critical as they need to be strong enought to keep the massive sail of a bonnet up, and have a dead zone when closing the bonnet so it fits properly.
Small improvements.
Joe
Edited by 1275 GT on Sunday 9th September 21:42
We're almost caught up!
With little improvements the Vitesse got steadily better. (and served well to retrieve supplies for other projects...)
I found some small wiring issues, changed the distributor along with the ignition amplifier, fitted a new coil, and other little things. I was fairly happy with the condition and functioning of the ignition system so I moved onto the fuelling.
With the hot starting issues and lack of mid range torque (it was very lumpy driving around) I suspected the engine was running lean. The plugs didn't give me a decisive answer so I began to tinker. There's not a great deal of adjust-ability beyond ensuring that there's no air leaks, everything is working properly, and setting the idle mixture using the Air Flow Meter.
After richening the mixture slightly the car seemed to run a little nicer.
I continued to try and improve the running. and one filter I hadn't changed was the fuel filter.
A genuine original filter. That if you fit the wrong way does not help running.
But that was my mistake!
I knew the running could eventually be tinkered out, but first I was not enjoying the scabby MOT wheels. So new tyres for my nice wheels.
The old tyres weren't that bad, but were a little cracked, and the fronts had worn on the inner edge.
The tyre size is still readily available, but now is an economy size, and the Dunlops were the best summer tyre I could find.
Much nicer!
While the wheels were off I also finished seam sealing and over coated the rear towing eye repairs.
Completely solid and fully protected.
Just makes the car look a bit more loved with fresh tyres and immaculate wheels.
Then it was off to East Kirkby for the SD1 National Meet.
Was a brilliant day and there was so many Vitesses, and almost all of them were red! I think there was 12 Vitesses in total, and 10 were red!
Apart from still being a bit lumpy the car ran well with no issues.
I wasn't going to let the flapper Injection system beat me.
Joe
With little improvements the Vitesse got steadily better. (and served well to retrieve supplies for other projects...)
I found some small wiring issues, changed the distributor along with the ignition amplifier, fitted a new coil, and other little things. I was fairly happy with the condition and functioning of the ignition system so I moved onto the fuelling.
With the hot starting issues and lack of mid range torque (it was very lumpy driving around) I suspected the engine was running lean. The plugs didn't give me a decisive answer so I began to tinker. There's not a great deal of adjust-ability beyond ensuring that there's no air leaks, everything is working properly, and setting the idle mixture using the Air Flow Meter.
After richening the mixture slightly the car seemed to run a little nicer.
I continued to try and improve the running. and one filter I hadn't changed was the fuel filter.
A genuine original filter. That if you fit the wrong way does not help running.
But that was my mistake!
I knew the running could eventually be tinkered out, but first I was not enjoying the scabby MOT wheels. So new tyres for my nice wheels.
The old tyres weren't that bad, but were a little cracked, and the fronts had worn on the inner edge.
The tyre size is still readily available, but now is an economy size, and the Dunlops were the best summer tyre I could find.
Much nicer!
While the wheels were off I also finished seam sealing and over coated the rear towing eye repairs.
Completely solid and fully protected.
Just makes the car look a bit more loved with fresh tyres and immaculate wheels.
Then it was off to East Kirkby for the SD1 National Meet.
Was a brilliant day and there was so many Vitesses, and almost all of them were red! I think there was 12 Vitesses in total, and 10 were red!
Apart from still being a bit lumpy the car ran well with no issues.
I wasn't going to let the flapper Injection system beat me.
Joe
Edited by 1275 GT on Sunday 9th September 21:42
TR4man said:
Mr Tidy said:
Great progress, Joe!
Your car is looking great.
I've always had a soft spot for the SD1 Vitesse. I mean you get a V8, manual gearbox and RWD - what's not to like?
...and four seats!Your car is looking great.
I've always had a soft spot for the SD1 Vitesse. I mean you get a V8, manual gearbox and RWD - what's not to like?
It is all the things you need in a car! Four doors and a massive boot is brilliant too, but I've spent so long on the interior I don't want anyone messing up the seats!
Well this post will bring us bang up to date.
With playing with the mixture making big differences to the way the car ran, I continued to richen up the mixture until I had no adjustment left. The car ran well at this setting, but seemed to lose its punch after an hour or so of running.
I spent a good couple of hours making sure all the electrics worked as they should, and that no air leaks were present, but something was still not functioning correctly.
Although this was a pain it still meant I got some brilliant trips out.
This is my favourite picture I've taken, and everyone else seems to agree too. I took so many pictures at this location, and they're currently my phone and computer background! Sad I know.
I really didn't like not having a scientific way of seeing how my mixture adjustments were working. I knew something was off, but I didn't know if I'd gone too far with the enriching or if it still needed more fuelling.
I don't have a friendly MOT station near me that could do me a quick gas test, and I really didn't like the accuracy of the home gas analysers you can buy. So I figured I needed a proper one.
A Ford main dealer was selling off their Omitec gas analyser, and looked like exactly what I needed, and this ended up being cheaper that the garbage home analysers. This one is still in it's calibration date and is really easy to use and tells me exactly what I need. I can also do MOT tests!
It means I can now accurately set up all my carb'd cars as well, instead of constantly pulling plugs.
Slowly getting to the point were I can do everything on my cars.
Now I could properly see what my fuel injection was doing.
No wonder it passed its MOT emissions so easily, it was running really lean. This was after I'd adjusted it to its maximum richness too. I think this also explains why it suffered so badly with the hot start fuel vaporisation. Being that lean would make it so much more susceptible!
After taking it for a drive at this fueling level it felt alright, but after a while it began to run lumpy again, and when I put it in the garage it died. It would restart easily but would then stall after 5 seconds. I initially suspected the fuel pump and rashly ordered a new Bosch Item. But after thinking about the fault a failed fuel pump wouldn't allow it to restart. But a failing AFM would....
I unplugged the AFM and the car started and ran, and stayed running although lumpy.
I swapped on my spare AFM and the car ran nicely. I'd finally got to the source of all my running issues, a dying AFM. It was slowly dying, and each time I would richen the mixture and it would help, but would continue to die and lean off the mixture until I had no adjustment left.
With a working AFM I was able to properly set up the car. After I warmed the car up again, and a little adjustment the final results were...
One perfectly set up Vitesse. The factory manual calls for 1.5% CO +-0.5 at 850 RPM so that looks bang on to me!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xh6tL6CiALk
Decent speakers are recommended, I think it sounds epic. I also love how the whole car rocks when you rev it, looks like its got some torque!
I'll try to get some drive-bys soon.
Sounds much happier too. It does have a little puff of smoke at high RPMs, but then again this short block won't be in there for much longer.
Now I have a fully functioning original injection system to put back on my original short block when I get it back.
It would be rude not to take it out as it was running so nicely so I joined my friend on a trip up to Nottingham.
Drove absolutely perfectly, was an absolute joy.
My 1:18 Minichamps model turned up finally too!
Joe
Edited by 1275 GT on Sunday 9th September 16:33
Mr Tidy said:
1275 GT said:
I also love how the whole car rocks when you rev it, looks like its got some torque!
Yes, it's a great feature! My P6B 3500S used to do that, but I put it down to the soft springing! Now that's also a car I'd love to have a go in, always loved the look of a P6 and the manual S just makes it all the more appealing!
Joe
1275 GT said:
I think I also have to put it down to being rather softly sprung, but it sounds better to say its all the power!
Now that's also a car I'd love to have a go in, always loved the look of a P6 and the manual S just makes it all the more appealing!
Joe
After an SD1 I think you'd find it disappointing - PAS was an option on the 3500S (and mine didn't have it) and while they rode really well mine handled like a boat! Now that's also a car I'd love to have a go in, always loved the look of a P6 and the manual S just makes it all the more appealing!
Joe
I replaced my P6 with a MK2 Granada 2.8 Ghia and after the P6 it felt like a go-kart - but was badly lacking in performance. It needed to be a manual 2.8i!
Coincidentally this morning I went to a car meet at the Black Swan pub in Ockham, Surrey and a blue P6 3500S turned up - that took me back!
Mr Tidy said:
After an SD1 I think you'd find it disappointing - PAS was an option on the 3500S (and mine didn't have it) and while they rode really well mine handled like a boat!
I replaced my P6 with a MK2 Granada 2.8 Ghia and after the P6 it felt like a go-kart - but was badly lacking in performance. It needed to be a manual 2.8i!
Coincidentally this morning I went to a car meet at the Black Swan pub in Ockham, Surrey and a blue P6 3500S turned up - that took me back!
I have enjoyed the power steering and creature comforts on the SD1, I like how modern it feels despite its age. It's an interesting change as the only older cars I've driven before were minis!I replaced my P6 with a MK2 Granada 2.8 Ghia and after the P6 it felt like a go-kart - but was badly lacking in performance. It needed to be a manual 2.8i!
Coincidentally this morning I went to a car meet at the Black Swan pub in Ockham, Surrey and a blue P6 3500S turned up - that took me back!
I did always love watching The Professionals when they threw around Granadas, Cortinas, and escorts. Always looked like fun cars to drive.
Brilliant spot, you do still see a few P6's knocking around I know of at least a few near me parked on driveways.
Well I've done a little more tinkering on the SD1.
Unfortunately my original fuel filter came back to bite me again, I noticed it had started to weep a yellowy gunge from the crimped side, so I needed a new filter ASAP. Luckily for me the Rover's injection system is Bosch derived, and as such you can still buy most of the service items! Yes I fitted it the right way round this time.
I also panic bought a new fuel pump when I thought that was to blame for my rough running, but it's always good to have a spare isn't it!
I'm also slowly replacing all the fuel lines with brand-new genuine Goodyear fuel hose as some of the original stuff had started to crack a little.
Installed and running, it's now seems to hold fuel rail pressure a bit better, and fires into life a bit quicker.
Joe
d_a_n1979 said:
Such a fantastic build and a car of my youth... Always loved seeing these on the road. I remember the very last ones that the Lancs police used too; loved hearing them storm about!
Thankyou People do love seeing it when I take it out. On a short trip out recently I had 2 offers to buy it while stopped at traffic lights!
Always loved a SD1 police car, my favourite Scalextric car when I was young.
Joe
Mr Tidy said:
1275 GT said:
People do love seeing it when I take it out. On a short trip out recently I had 2 offers to buy it while stopped at traffic lights!
I'm not surprised - your car is a stunner. gforceg said:
Mr Tidy said:
1275 GT said:
People do love seeing it when I take it out. On a short trip out recently I had 2 offers to buy it while stopped at traffic lights!
I'm not surprised - your car is a stunner. He did seem a little taken a-back, I think he was thinking a lot lower, but said he'd still love to own it.
I still think it's silly that a decent Single Plenum is worth half what a similar Twin would market at, but it's what the people want!
I'll just have to do a Twin next...
Joe
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