s3c bonnet bulge ?

[tozerman]

Morning guys I am the proud owner of a 1991 S3c, but have a couple of questions, first of all my car does not have a bulge/air intake scoop in the bonnet where as most of the S series cars (V6) seem to have one, does this mean my car is not what it appears to be or is it just very rare ? (I wish)
secondly the car does have lambda sensors with decat pipes which i understand means it is an S3c but it does not appear to have a LSD although the guy i bought it from said it does ! does it mean i have been mislead or again is it normal ? any thoughts oh wise ones ?
cheers....Tony..

[Philthefinger]

Some S3Cs (mine included) have the later bonnet seen on the S4 which have side slots as vents and no bulge.

[tvrgit]

I don't think we ever established if the S3C had an LSD as standard.

How do you know yours isn't?

[V8ish]

Hey Tony, I hope you are enjoying the car and have had no problems. When I had the car I jacked it up and I span one of the rear wheels, the other wheel turned in the opposite direction. Unless I have got this wrong I assumed this meant it had an LSD. (I thought s3c's had a lsd as standard).
The V8s is going well and I'm part way through some engine dismatling and feetling to get it up the standard of the S3c when you took it over.

edited to say: I miss that car......

Edited by V8ish on Friday 1st February 11:56

[tvrgit]

V8ish said:

When I had the car I jacked it up and I span one of the rear wheels, the other wheel turned in the opposite direction. Unless I have got this wrong I assumed this meant it had an LSD.

Any diff will do that if the car is in gear or if the pinion can't turn - the diff will take "the path of least resistance" and the planet gears will turn the sun gear in the opposite direction to the crown gear.

V8ish said:

(I thought s3c's had a lsd as standard).

So did I when I bought mine - but I've since read some doubt as to whether they had, or not. I'm not overly bothered and I've never remembered to check (or more importantly, remembered to find out HOW to check!)

[ketvrin]

They DO look good in white...

K

[dougc]

I've got the vented, scoopless bonnet too and from that picture above, you appear to have the same alignment problems as me!

[Barkychoc]

I found these which are pretty good

Linky thing

And another

The behaviour you describe will happen with any diff - limited slip or not.
My understanding is that the V8S & S4C are the only cars with a limited slip diff.

Andrew (TVRGIT) - sorry I spent a while typing my reply and now I've looked at the thread I've typed half of what you said again.....

Chris

Edited by Barkychoc on Friday 1st February 12:14

[Barkychoc]

ketvrin said:

They DO look good in white...

K

I thought that too - not a colour I'd have thought of choosing but I also think it looks great.

[tozerman]

I always thought that if you had a LSD and you spun one of the driven wheels the other wheel should turn in the same direction but i could be wrong.
I am not too bothered but all the research i did before buying my S3c said the only difference to the S3 is the cats and an LSD.
thanks for clearing up the bonnet bulge issue too guys
cheers......Tony..

[Barkychoc]

I've got the body off at the moment so can take some pics of my V8S diff if anyone wants to try and compare.
It is pretty big and I'm not looking forward to trying to get it out of the chassis.

Chris

[tvrgit]

tozerman said:

I always thought that if you had a LSD and you spun one of the driven wheels the other wheel should turn in the same direction but i could be wrong.

It might. If you do that with a normal diff that might also happen, if the crown wheel (and hence the propshaft) can also turn.

If you do it with the propshaft locked (say car in gear) then LSD or not, the other wheel HAS TO turn in the opposite direction...

I admit I don't know how to test for an LSD or not - but I don't think the answer is the direction the other wheel turns...

[tozerman]

Oops I nearly forgot to say thankyou for all your kind words on the colour of my car, and thanks to Grant for posting a picture of it ( my computer skills are cr*p)
I remember grant posting a thread about full throttle when he had my car, when i got the car home for the first time i got an assistant to sit in the car and give it full throttle and with the intake hoses off the butterflies were not fully open, this was caused by two things,
1 The cable was kinked at the engine end wich meant the first inch of travel was taken up by the kinked cable.
2 where the cable was connected to to throttle lever, it was not connected to the lug that Ford intended.
So to remedy the problem i fitted the spare throttle cable (universal type) (thanks Grant)which to be fair did not really cure the problem. What was happening was at full throttle the cable end was fouling on the std Ford lug which meant that full leverage was not being achieved !!! so what i did was to remove the std Ford lug and fit the cable to that position (now a hole).
What i have now is 100% full throttle and absolutely no play what so ever, which means brilliant
throttle response and now all i need to replace the throttle cable should i need to is a mountain bike brake cable ! the benefit is that the rolling road figure that Grant achieved of 170BHP should be slightly conservative.
Thanks again guys.....Tony..

[GreenV8S]

The basic behaviour of an open diff is that when you jack up both rear wheels and turn one of them, the other tries to turn the other way.

The basic behaviour of a limited slip diff is that when you turn one back wheel, the other tries to turn the SAME way. This means the prop has to turn, and if it's out of gear it will do this easily. If it's in gear the engine will resist this. Depending on the stiffness of the LSD versus the resistance of the engine you may find that the engine turns over but more likely the engine stays still and the other wheel grudgingly turns the other way.

Just to complicate things, the particular type of LSD used in the V8S and S4 is utterly pathetic and behaves very much like an open diff at low loads and speeds. So it would be easy to see the wheels moving in opposite directions with minimal resistance and conclude that it's an open diff; in fact it's just a particularly cr@p LSD.

[Roy C]

ketvrin said:

They DO look good in white...

The only function of the so-called air scoop seems to be to allow water to drip onto the throttle pot!
At least the later slotted type assist with cooling.

Edited by Roy C on Friday 1st February 13:02

[ketvrin]

Roy C said:

The only function of the so-called air scoop seems to be to allow water to drip onto the throttle pot!
At least the later slotted type assist with cooling.

I thought it was to catch bees and flies ?

[V8ish]

tozerman said:

Oops I nearly forgot to say thankyou for all your kind words on the colour of my car, and thanks to Grant for posting a picture of it ( my computer skills are cr*p)
I remember grant posting a thread about full throttle when he had my car, when i got the car home for the first time i got an assistant to sit in the car and give it full throttle and with the intake hoses off the butterflies were not fully open, this was caused by two things,
1 The cable was kinked at the engine end wich meant the first inch of travel was taken up by the kinked cable.
2 where the cable was connected to to throttle lever, it was not connected to the lug that Ford intended.
So to remedy the problem i fitted the spare throttle cable (universal type) (thanks Grant)which to be fair did not really cure the problem. What was happening was at full throttle the cable end was fouling on the std Ford lug which meant that full leverage was not being achieved !!! so what i did was to remove the std Ford lug and fit the cable to that position (now a hole).
What i have now is 100% full throttle and absolutely no play what so ever, which means brilliant
throttle response and now all i need to replace the throttle cable should i need to is a mountain bike brake cable ! the benefit is that the rolling road figure that Grant achieved of 170BHP should be slightly conservative.
Thanks again guys.....Tony..

Good work! I remember that about the cable, if you notice on your throttle linkage a new hole has been made to secure the cable which effectlively shortens the throw of the lever action. I couldn't figure out why this was done so I put the cable in its original place at the end of the lever. After a quick spin I realised why it was done, it didnt give enough resistance when you pushed the peddle, causing me to inadvertantly "kangeroo" if there was a jolt in the road causing me to hit the gas. I put it back in hole further up the arm (less leverage) and the throttle resistance was improved again.

Hope that makes sense, just wanted to be sure you have the new cable in the right place but I guess it is personel preferance. PM me if you are unsure

Edited by V8ish on Friday 1st February 15:02

[trickjohn]

Hi - I have an S3c, To check if you have an lsd diff, is to hold one wheel still and get someone to turn the other wheel, if they can tun it and you can hold one wheel stationary then you do not have an lsd diff, if both wheels have to move then you have an lsd. I maybe wrong but I dont think so. However costina (Paul) currently has access to a lsd diff, i will ask him to check the above out.

My S3C does not as it failed the above - I am going to fit one, if my body off restoration gets completed.

BR

Sean

[mycroft]

tozerman said:

Morning guys I am the proud owner of a 1991 S3c, but have a couple of questions, first of all my car does not have a bulge/air intake scoop in the bonnet where as most of the S series cars (V6) seem to have one, does this mean my car is not what it appears to be or is it just very rare ?

I don't know the facts about this but i always have assumed that any S that had some form of damage early in its life would have been repaired with parts supplied by the factory , if this was the case an S4 type bonnet may well have been the only option ( or preferred option ) as a replacement part .

[tvrgit]

Don't scare the man with stories of accident damage!

Some of the later S3s simply left the factory with the later bonnet...