Discussion
Feel a bit guilty posting after reading of Steve's woes with his engine, but I'm sure he'll understand.
Took my car for SVA yesterday and passed!
There were a few minor issues but the tester was clearly impressed with the car and bent over backwards to help. Got it registered in the afternoon and had a couple of hours to play before I had to go to work for the evening.
Absolutely delighted with the experience of driving it, always a bit of a worry something won't live up to expectations!
Gotta go, small matter of a carbon fibre wing waiting to be acquainted with a GTR out in the garage
More boring details on my website.
Bob
"Probably the best GTR in Wales"
OK, I know, it's the only GTR in Wales!
Took my car for SVA yesterday and passed!
There were a few minor issues but the tester was clearly impressed with the car and bent over backwards to help. Got it registered in the afternoon and had a couple of hours to play before I had to go to work for the evening. Absolutely delighted with the experience of driving it, always a bit of a worry something won't live up to expectations!
Gotta go, small matter of a carbon fibre wing waiting to be acquainted with a GTR out in the garage
More boring details on my website. Bob
"Probably the best GTR in Wales"
OK, I know, it's the only GTR in Wales!
For the record (may be of interest for those not yet SVA'd) the issues I had were:
* lack of rear reflectors, the requirement for which wasn't mentioned by the factory.
* Incorrect wiring of rear lights - I'd misread the build manual and not connected either the side light in the middle unit.
* Engine mount bolts need washers between mount and chassis lug to prevent fore/aft movement
* Need care where aircon hoses exit sidepod at front of engine bay - I'd checked it but the inspector checked it while getting me to select each gear! Gear linkage shaft was touching the hose in 5th.
* headlight adjustment - easily sorted
* Speedo - on the way there it was underreading (I had a GPS based Road Angel in the car), which I know is a fail. When he tested it it was overreading! The nearside wheel was spinning much quicker than the offside, he thought probably the handbrake was binding on offside rear. I slackened it off and it seemed just as bad when he retested it but was *just* within the allowed range so he passed it.
He seemed happy with the brake bias bar locknut, and didn't seem worried about the gear lever and its rose joint (I'd taken some pipe lagging in case).
* lack of rear reflectors, the requirement for which wasn't mentioned by the factory.
* Incorrect wiring of rear lights - I'd misread the build manual and not connected either the side light in the middle unit.
* Engine mount bolts need washers between mount and chassis lug to prevent fore/aft movement
* Need care where aircon hoses exit sidepod at front of engine bay - I'd checked it but the inspector checked it while getting me to select each gear! Gear linkage shaft was touching the hose in 5th.
* headlight adjustment - easily sorted
* Speedo - on the way there it was underreading (I had a GPS based Road Angel in the car), which I know is a fail. When he tested it it was overreading! The nearside wheel was spinning much quicker than the offside, he thought probably the handbrake was binding on offside rear. I slackened it off and it seemed just as bad when he retested it but was *just* within the allowed range so he passed it.
He seemed happy with the brake bias bar locknut, and didn't seem worried about the gear lever and its rose joint (I'd taken some pipe lagging in case).
Steve_D said:What the wiring sheet says is LH Tail Lamp (/Brake Lamp — USA Only) which led me to believe the whole unit should be left unconnected. The problem is that for SVA you can't have a brake light within 100mm of a rear fog. No problem I thought, just leave the whole thing disconnected. SVA inspector said any light units fitted must work ... still only took 5 minutes to sort, just connect up the side light.
Now where's that wiring sheet?
On the brakes, they required quite a lot of pedal force, but were just OK. I'd driven there on A roads to get some braking in. For those who haven't been to an SVA they use a rolling road and test each axle at a time, and weigh each axle. They then perform a brake test on each wheel independently at a range of speeds using a pressure pad strapped to the tester's foot to give the pedal force reading. The results then go into a spreadsheet which works out whether the brake force and bias is good enough for the weight distribution. He reckoned with the Ult's weight distribution the rear braking force may not have been enough but it was just. Might be an idea to give the brakes a little rearward bias before locking the bar. Bear in mind they will still want to confirm that the front wheels will lock before the rears when they try an emergency stop from 20mph. He did ask if the pads might need warming, but it passed with cold pads.
On the wiring of rear lights, I connected up as per "USA only" and got both brake lights coming on together. This was an SVA failure due to brake light being 5mm too close to fog light (or something). Easily rectified during the test, and easily put back later. Car looks much better from rear with both these big brake lights operating.
gdr said:Yup, better get mine sorted today
Car looks much better from rear with both these big brake lights operating.
Interestingly whipped my speedo out this morning - I'd programmed it in as per factory recommendation (6400 pulses per mile) and it's under reading by about 33%. Checking your spreadsheet the figure you came up with looks about right George. Your spreadsheet works off a calculated wheel circumference and I think I need a slightly higher number of pulses. I'll nip out in a minute and take it up the motorway with the GPS and post back.
BobM said:
Car looks much better from rear with both these big brake lights operating.
Yup, better get mine sorted today
Maybe a specially calibrated ruler might be required to convince the boys in blue
The speedo sensor seems to need quite a bit of adjustment to get it to behave exactly as it should at all speeds. I did quite a bit of fettling of the bracket to get the dimple in the middle (the coil) lined up exactly with the middle of the teeth. The gap needs to be as small as possible without the bits hitting one an other. The smaller the gap the bigger the signal.
davefiddes said:I suspect the BiB may well not be conversant with the 100mm rule
Maybe a specially calibrated ruler might be required to convince the boys in blue
Maybe more interested in the lack of front number plate 
davefiddes said:Yes, this is what caused me lots of grief, I had to do some fairly serious butchering to get the sensor and the toothed ring on the same plane, if you know what I mean.
The speedo sensor seems to need quite a bit of adjustment to get it to behave exactly as it should at all speeds.
In fact I checked yesterday and the relationship between displayed and actual speed was linear. Set the speedo to 4765 pulses per mile today and it's now over reading by less than 1%. Better to have a bigger over read for SVA, but I don't need to worry about that now
The fuel gauges are quite alarming. Fill the tank to the brim and within 40 miles it's down to less than half
Of course this is mainly due to the shape of the tank (broad at the bottom narrow at the top). I ran one to less than the empty mark yesterday and still only got 33 litres in there.BobM said:
The fuel gauges are quite alarming.
Yeah. I know what you mean. When I filled the beast up from a couple of petrol cans and the needle didn't move I wondered if I'd sprung a leak...
I've measured up and done some experiments with the std instruments. I was going to build a linear fuel guage as an interesting winter project. Most OEMs feed their fuel level through the engine ECU and then on to the display. It should be pretty easy to hack up a black box to do a similar thing but preserve the std Ultima instrument (which I think is a lot more user friendly than a Stack LCD).
davefiddes said:Might be easy for you
It should be pretty easy to hack up a black box to do a similar thing but preserve the std Ultima instrument (which I think is a lot more user friendly than a Stack LCD).
... mind you, if you're knocking one up probably pretty easy to make me one while you're at it Have to say I really like the standard Ultima instruments, very clear.
BO Salecta said:Thanks Steve. Not sure what I'll do now, probably catch up the stuff I should have been doing while I've been out in the garage! No name, I don't tend to do that.
Well done bob. Nice to c that it past first time.What you going to do now with all your spare time.Have you named your car yet?
BO Salecta said:It's already on - no pics on the website as it rained most of yesterday
I take it your going to fit a spoiler.Is this not allowed for SVA?
No good for pics but it didn;t stop me going out in it 
The factory reckon it will get through SVA so long as the trailing edge of the upper plane of the wing has rubber trim bonded onto it, but I didn't want to take the risk. I was also worried about it obscuring the view through the mirrors.
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