TimZ

Thanks! Sorry - the engine is apart right now - I had to push the car out of the garage for other reasons, so I snapped a couple of pics while it was out. I'll try to get some more when I have it all back together.

Again, is this with oil or moly? The spec that I received with my head stud kit gave both numbers, and they were quite a bit different. It sounds like they may have changed their spec, but the 60lb-ft number is closer to the number I had for motor oil. Now that I am looking at it, 60lb-ft with moly would be getting pretty close to the yield strength of the stud, according to the spec they supplied with mine.

Thanks Jeff. I think I'm going to need this soon, too. Is there a similar spec that assumes using motor oil instead of Moly?

It took just a small amount of trimming on the ends, and then I welded a couple of tabs on each end to replicate the stock mounting tabs for the trim pieces. Also, I had to bend the mounting plates for the stock bumper shocks to match the contour of the new bumper. I cut about 2.5-3" out of the trim pieces, and pinned and glued the halves back together with some urethane epoxy that I got from McMaster-Carr. Painted them with some of that "paint for plastic" and they came out looking really good.

Yes - you are correct. I meant more lash, like 0.010 and 0.012. Sorry about that.

No - just the valve clearance adjustment - if your wipe pattern looks good, then don't mess with the lash pads.

No - mine is a turbo. Another thing you might try playing with is the valve lash - less lash will translate to less duration on that lobe (and correspondingly less lift as well). As I recall, the rule of thumb is 0.5 degrees of duration per 0.001" of lash. I think that's the right rule of thumb - hopefully somebody can verify (Paul?).

Yes - 86-88 Fiat X1/9

Your plugs aren't "blown" - they are fouled... http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=107155&highlight=fouled

I finished this side project up a couple of weeks ago. The Fiat bumper does tuck in quite a bit closer to the car, and it only weighs 9 lbs. Also, I made my own little LED marker/turn signals, since there was a little cutout in the bumper for them anyway. Haven't decided exactly what I'm going to do with the empty space where the old turn signals went...

Oops - I missed that. I agree, I only run around 10 degrees at idle.

Hi Phil... Hmmm - as I recall, I had to play with the cam timing to get that cam to run well. If you are having to lean the map out, then that says you aren't breathing as well as before, as you've probably figured out. Sounds like you have already started, but play with the cam timing and take note on how the mixture is affected for different settings. Seems like advancing the cam timing would be what you need, but the #3 hole does add 8 degrees of advance (assuming the stock 3 hole cam gear), and that's quite a bit. Sorry I'm not that familiar with the Holset turbos - how big is it's hot side? Also, the idle vacuum you mentioned is pretty much what I would have expected with that cam.

Yes that would be interesting - are these the Malvern rockers, or something else? Ferrea has 7mm valve stock, but you'll have to have them made to order. I actually was considering this, but the thing is that this then requires special guides (as Dane noted), and then you'll have to have spcial retainers made that can work with our lash pad setup, too. Jeff's roller rockers might be able to use some other setup, so there might be an off the shelf setup that could work for him. I have limited funds this time around, so I decided to stay with 8mm stems.

I just found these: http://www.iskycams.com/productdisplay.php?productnumber=1624-TI(12)&sku=4442&hdwt=31101&loc=101&dealer=no while looking around for retainers. Should be an approx. 12g weight savings (each) over the chromoly ones, and the price isn't too horrible.

That's correct - the one in the picture is made by Kameari. However, if you look in the comparison table on the side, there are three different rockers being compared - stock, "lightened", and the Kameari piece. I'm wondering what that middle one is...

Okay... I've got the rockers in what I believe are pretty good shape, and the levered weights are dialed in as close as I can get them (appears to be within 0.1g at 31.8g each). Here's a pic: Since this thread started, I noticed that Kameari sells their own lightweight chromoly rockers. I tried to mimic the shape of these rockers to some extent, but didn't go to quite as far as they did. Interestingly, they mention a"lightweight rocker arm" in their comparison table, implying that it is a lightened version of the stock piece, and give the overall weight at 60g. I took quite a bit a material off of mine and they still weigh in at ~72g total, which is only ~4g lighter than stock. I can't even imagine taking another 12g out of them (although they do mention that the "lightened" rockers failed at 3 metric ton load). Anybody have any idea of what these are and/or how the weight reduction was achieved?

I had the same issue with my L6 - I ended up going with a vacuum pump pretty much identical to this one on ebay. Also, there is the Stainless Steel Brakes pump, which is a bit pricey, ...and then there is this recent HybridZ post: http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Delco-12-Volt-Electric-Vacuum-Pump-Hot-Rod-Electric_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQcategoryZ42605QQihZ004QQitemZ140173807817QQrdZ1QQsspagenameZWDVW

No, you have a 3.9:1 gear ratio. The ring gear on the r200 is 200mm (~7.9")

Very nice work. Is all of that going to fit under the hood? Maybe I missed it from an earlier post, but why the 7th injector? I assume you are using a programmable EFI system, right? Does the supercharger need to run wet, maybe? I can't imagine that your horsepower goals would be so high that you couldn't find 6 properly sized injectors that could still idle well...

I guess I'm in the camp that would still like to have some amount of protection for my intercooler, rad, etc., in the case that I am in a low to medium speed accident. I just changed over to a Fiat X1/9 aluminum bumper to at least save some weight (it weighs 9 lbs). Anyway, with the MSA III setup above I'd be mostly concerned about the airdam - is there any support for it? I think I'd want something supporting it to give me a warm fuzzy feeling that it wasn't going to collapse at 100+mph.

...So did I miss something? How come you are jumping straight to 'replace the head gasket' for this problem? That's a pretty major chunk of work if you haven't isolated the problem yet. If you are going to 'shotgun', start with the easy stuff first.

This will also have an effect on the bumpsteer curve, since you are changing the relationship between the LCA and the tie rod.

Slowly but surely clearing stuff out - still have these: Boyd's Billets 16x8 "ProSport" wheels with Kumho V700 Victoracers 245/45ZR16 BumpSteer Spacers

On the superlites, the caliper pistons are inverted stainless steel cups, so they end up just cutting a hole (cookie cutter-style) in any soft metal backing plate. For the same reason, the spray on stuff doesn't seem to do much good either. For the street, I had pretty good luck with the Wilwood "Gator" pads for squeal reduction.

Just wanted to make sure - you mentioned 19in of vacuum at idle (i.e. no minus sign) and then talked about it "going negative at 4500rpm" and as low as -7in when the turbo kicks in, which literally implies boost. So if you aren't talking about boost, what do you mean by "vacuum going negative"?