Hello Stu. Sorry to hit you with this great waffley email but I'm getting desperate and don't want to kill my much loved car. The following is what I posted in the main Tech Q&A, and I'd be very grateful for your opinion. Kind regards Justin.
Hello Everyone,
I’m Justin, and I have a 1991 135000 mile Moonstone Saph Cosworth 4x4 with a full history. Have had it a couple of years and have yet to fully appreciate its joys. I have yet to up the power, even though I receive an endless barrage of abuse from my Gt4/impreza/200sx driving mates who often leave me behind when we're out for a play. (And it ain't down to their driving abilities, although that's a favourite put down )
I bought her as an old girl and have treated her as such. I want her solid on standard boost before I embarrass the japs with Greens and English power!
Starting from the ground up, I have fitted to her:
17x8 white MO's with T1R's. Old school flat spoke type.
New Timken wheel bearings all round.
Standard new discs and pads, and refurbed calipers for now. (I even stripped down the rear handbrake lever-pin-speed screw set up so the handbrake operates 'on-off' again, rather than fudgey. (What a twat that was.)
Full set of poly suspension mounts, Mc2 Diff mount. Vibra technics Eng & G/box mounts. New centre prop bearing and doughnut.
New rear arms (Well, not bent and freshly powder coated). New compbrake adjustable Tca's up front. Compression struts (still to go on) New rod ends. Adjustable Koni's with Eibach Pro kit. Front strut brace. (Rear strut brace, and Escos 22mm rear anti roll bar to go on). It came with a scorpion 3”.
Under the bonnet I have, (All items new) battery, –31 actuator, K&N Panel filter, genuine water pump, timing belt and tensioner, 10mm blue silicon ‘twin core’ leads, 071c’s, new cap, rotor, mag mar Grp A coil, ignition amp, sensor set (act-ect-phase-crank-fan switch) fse fuel valve.
After a previous random no-start problem, I removed from the car the ECU to engine bay loom, split it all open and removed all the chaff and badly soldered or simply chopped off remainders of previous owners ‘toys’, replaced any wire which didn’t follow the nominal 0.02 ohm resistance figure I had for 90% of the wires, wrapped it all back up and back on. The remainder of the engine bay loom still remains ‘as was’. I’ve got a t34 hybrid, 500 cooler, baffled sump and front diff reinforcement plate to go on as well, but till she’s right, I don’t want to fit it all, what’s the point, right?
She misfires, right in the sweet spot. Driving an A road to pick up a clutch for it, an FTO came and sat on my bumper, I dropped it down pulled out to over take a micra or some such city box, and instead of pulling away happily, it shook and vibrated generally sounded and felt horrible, embarrassed the hell out of me and the boot tag, and that was that, back in behind unbeaten city box.
Other occasions, she sings right through to 6500rpm, no hesitation.
In the last week, the fuel consumption has gone bad. I could get 300miles out of a mixed driven tank of Shell, and now, with only driving miss daisy commuting, I’m down to the last quarter with only 140miles. Help? What the hell’s up with it? I’ve lavished it with care and it just gives me the finger for my troubles.
I’ve considered; Leaky plenum gasket, Blown head gasket, Dodgy irridium plugs which I've changed out, Naff fuel pump, dead ECU, damaged ECT, timing out, etc. But none of these seem conducive when on a rare day, she fly’s. Strong solid, big frigging smile inducing. I want to get the rest of the parts I have on, but if it fucks about and has some sort of melt down on big boost, I think I’d torch it and step under a bus. If you’ve read this far, please, throw me a line! I don’t know of a tuner locally who I trust to turn to.
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