Hi all,
Kicked things off in the newbies section a while back. Started like this:
Hi all,
Been on MG-R for a little while and stumbled upon this place.
Bought this £250 snotter of a ZS a few days back. I like it, but it's not pretty. It's going to be a daily tool and something to play around at tracks in (hopefully)
It's been attacked with a table:
The previous owner had owned it 8 years and had just replaced it with another one sans dents. It had been laid up since July.
It's got the usual KV6 inlet rattle, but I'm working on a way to fix it rather than bin the flaps. Had it on the dyno at work today....161bhp-ish was the best result. For the age I'd be happy with it, but the graph looked a bit off so hoping it might eek out a tiny bit more:
Gonna be conducting some experiments on the dyno with different manifold settings to see just what the crack is with it.
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Well, a few weeks ago I pressed on with the MOT work needed on my £250 ZS.
£21 CV Joint:
£200 for new tyres, or £80 posted for these Hairpins?
Hairpins it is then!
I forgot to take a pic of 'after' but I cut the centre box out of the centre section and popped a straight pipe in there. Wasn't after any more noise, just a bit more note
It kinda worked!
I got it through the MOT at a cost of £120ish including the test. Next was to sort that rattle, one way or another.
Found the cause:
I tried to fathom a way to cure the problem, but gave up pretty early on and just beat all the valves out of it. Popped it all back together, fired it up and it wanted to idle at 2000rpm. I *may* have not done a brilliant job of sealing the manifold back up, so it could be an air leak causing the fast idling. Or, it could also be the fact more air is being drawn into the cylinders because the once shut flaps are no longer there.
Either way, by bunging up the idle valve it completely sorted it! Runs and idles perfectly, except for one tiny issue....on cold starts, you have to hold the throttle for a couple of seconds, otherwise it'll drop off the revs and die again. Hold it at 2k revs for a few seconds, then you're good to let go.
What differences did it make to the power? Well:
Better all round. With the broken flaps, the valves weren't actually sealed shut, so at the top end the numbers aren't that different. But the smoothness of the power is much improved. Crucially, it also sounds sweet now! Power delivery is comical, as it's pretty flat until about 3500-4000rpm, when it suddenly goes mental. It's a bit like VTEC. I assume with the valves in place, the changeover is smoother and more progressive. Truth be told, it doesn't bother me one jot. When you're gunning it, you never fall out of the powerband on gearchanges and the way it pulls at the top end is good fun. 150hp @ the wheels, I'm happy! Flywheel figures were 174bhp or 165bhp, depending on whether you correct the figures to a set calculation or not (has more impact if you're forever tuning on a certain set of rollers, less if you're just pottering round the country using different sets of rollers. I just assume it's somewhere in the middle....possibly 170bhp. Very happy considering the OE output was 177PS (about 173bhp SAE).
So here she is at the moment:
I still haven't cleaned the moss or bird **** off of it. But god does it drive better on the 16's! I remember when I put straights on the 120 I used to have....it made an already bad ride terrible! But it did look better!
So far the car owes me just north of £600 including a years MOT and 6 months tax (£150!!! Ouch!) It's proving massive fun to drive....probably as much fun as any other FWD car I've owned. The gearbox is sweet, it doesn't rattle...everything works. I love it - I've even christened it the "ShedEss!"
Only gripes I've got with the car overall is the boot leaks, it steams up badly (linked no doubt) and the A/C doesn't work. I remember my old ZS 120 had a crap heating system until I sorted the A/C out. Also, fuel consumption is...poor. But in fairness I only drive 4 miles to work and 4 miles back. I imagine it's having a hard time warming up so this could explain the 19-20mpg figures. I guess it's also possible ripping those valves out has worsened it slightly.
I've also now got the opportunity to buy a car I've wanted for a while to do this car's job, but I'm not sure what to do. The economy head on me says I should sell it on and try and get back what I've put into it, but my fun head says keep it.
With that in mind, I've entered it into an MSA Autocross event in a couple of weeks. I've in a class with M3s, TVRs....everything with a big engine. But I'm told nimble, FWD cars are the way to win. So I'm secretly rubbing my hands together
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