Alright mate.. My line of thinking being mates and I were all into doing similar mods you mention but deep down we knew the cars with V6 engines 1.5 times as big as our engines were going to beat us off the mark and at top speed no matter what mods we did.

Apparently when I was little, my dad and grandad both bought a new Victor 2300 each at the same from the same dealer and got a great discount for buying 2... but out of the similar cars dad had I only remember his more mundane Viva 1300.

When I was 19 I was driving my 1.6 Cortina back from work after a night shift up a steep hill with temporary works traffic lights, 2 cars following. At that time in the morning there was nothing else on the road, I could see there were no cars coming the other way approaching the other end of the traffic light area.. My light changed to red just before I got to it, could have stopped but I went through it. Rear most car immediately put blue lights on, it was an XR4i (and on that year would have been a proper one with V6 not 2L). Car in middle slowed at first then pulled off down a side road to allow police car to be the next car behind me, but being delayed by the middle car now a good way behind me... So I thought I'd do one! As soon as middle car got out the way I could see the rear of the XR4 sink as the officer booted it and was catching me up rather quickly but I had a trick up my sleeve.. Turned right at the crossroads at the top of the hill, along the next twisty road, then immediately down the drive out of sight of the following blue lights. Laughed as following car when flying past on the top road.. Not the sort of thing you get away with these days!

Simon

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I have to say in all honesty i've not owned any cars since that responded so well to tuning mods as those two. The bits for the VX came from a Chevette HS rally car that had been dyno'd at 240bhp but was stuffed on it's first outing. The two differences (apart from everything from the clutch back) between that engine and mine were it had a 4-2-1 exhaust manifold and the bottom end had been blue printed. I'd taken the complete top end other than that, big valve, high compression head, high lift cam and cam carrier machined to suit, gas flowed inlet manifold and brand new carbs, also gas flowed, jetted etc to suit.

Having said that, a year or so later when i had my first SD1 V8 i'd been followed by a car that was on my bumper almost literally for several miles. Again on a hill i floored it, was up to about 110-115 in 2nd (yes a good SD1 V8 would do that) and the car that had been following was suddenly gone from my rear view mirror. My mate in the passenger seat coughed and pointed alongside - a quick glance revealed another XR4i (like you say, the proper one with the 150bhp 2.8i) with go faster stripes and disco lights. THinking the worst i let go of the loud pedal - he put his hazards on for a couple of flashes and disappeared with the back end down at a rate of knots. I actually swapped the tuned Cavalier for this SD1 and when the new owner took it for a test drive, came back a bit pale and muttered something along the lines of "it shifts a bit!".

What you say is right though, usually cars with bigger engines as standard will eat smaller ones for breakfast but i was lucky in that where i got the bits from had been tuning Vauxhall/Opel engines for a long time so knew what worked and what didn't.

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Cheers,
Dave


Somewhere in Suffolk with a Jeep, 2 Rovers and a V6 Volvo

I have just been to fill with gas again after letting it run out and even try to use the dregs. The nozzle when attached started hissing, is there not a valve at the tank end as well as the filler? I removed the nozzle and remade the connection with no benefit. Started the pump, which gave a few cc of LPG before shutting down its power! Got that restarted and the pump shut down at 29 litres. I stood there for ages to get a little more in and got bored at 30.332 litres. Fuel gauge shows just over halfway, although I appreciate that they can't be relied on.

So, could I have a faulty unit on the tank (Tinley says not a chance) or is there somewhere else I should be looking?

I've had that hissing nozzle and pump refusing to put anything in a couple of times, on several of my LPG cars. In every case moving to a different pump has allowed it to fill normally. I guess I have the luxury of there being two LPG pumps at the Asda where I normally fill up, so if one isn't working properly I can just go to the other one.

However as it did eventually put 29 litres in, that implies that it probably is more the tank valve or float than the pump in your case.

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2004 Subaru Outback 3.0Rn auto (LPG)
1991 Mitsubishi Pajero 2.5 LWB (WVO)
2008 Volkswagen Caravelle (Diesel)

There should be a one way valve at each end of the filler as you suggest - one to allow flow in through the filler and cut it off when you disconnect, the other at the tank to allow flow into the tank and stop it coming back out.

The hissing you mention could be one of two things - either the tank is really empty and the hose is allowing the pressure to equalize, or its leaking, The former is nothing to worry about (does it happen with the tank not empty?) the later should be obvious (you'd notice a smell of gas as your filling or possibly be able to see it either as a haze around the filler, or dripping out the bottom edge). this could be down to the pump rather than the filler you have though.

The behaveour on filling does happen sometimes where its slow to start, or starts then stalls before getting going, usually just holding the button is enough to get it going after a few seconds.

It doesn't take a lot of alteration to the alignment to make a noticeable difference to the fill level though - I've seen a 10 litre difference on a 50 ish litre filling tank just down to sloped ground near the pump when filling. The colder weather usually ends up with more going in though so yours still sounds quite low all things considered, so something appears to be wrong.

Tinley tech are usually quite good - I'd assume you have the right valve fitted to the tank but may be worth checking the valve itself if you can see the markings in anyway?

Still no further forward on this. I have tried a levelling ramp under one rear wheel whilst filling and I got in 32 litres today and I have managed 35 recently. Range is very disappointing at just under 100 miles for 35 litres of gas. I am using the car around town and would expect about 18MPG on petrol. Still have a lot of noise when gas is passing into the tank.

Performance is not so good either, running petrol the idle speed is nudging 1000 RPM, switching to gas drops it to around 600. Adjusting the idle mixture back and forth shows that it is at its optimum setting and will not improve. Engine is in fine fettle and I have recently fitted it. Previous engine was knocking, but was just the same on gas.

I have seen posts suggesting a strip and clean of the vaporiser. Is that something that might be useful and how would I go about it?

One other point is that despite cold starting on LPG in below freezing weather and having a mediocre heater feed, I have never had any freezing issues, or even frosting as far as I know. Vaporiser body is always frost free. I wonder if this is a clue, as another Scimitar owner with the same vaporiser had terrible issues with frosting?

Engine bay pictures here.. http://www.scimitarweb.co.uk/sgwrs/view ... &start=165