Orangebean wrote:

If I paid £7.3k for that engine, I'd at least expect the old gasket goo to be scraped off the manifold faces and the cr@p to be removed from the exhaust ports :)
Perils of throwing bits together for a photo shoot I think .....

As it's the same photo for all of the long engines, I think you're right. But the differences are going to be inside so they may as well use a stock photo.

Alternately, buy a RRS :)

But they're ugly........ (and have the spare dangling at a funny angle underneath making fitting an LPG tank difficult)

Nah, go for one of these......

http://www.v8developments.co.uk/products/engines/long_engines/5.4_litre/dominator/index.shtml

Engine ECU sends engine speed, torque and TPS directly to the gearbox ECU and that in turn sends a timing retard signal back to the engine ECU to give smooth gearchanges. Then there are the other bits that need to know the engine speed (or that it is even running), a signal from the HEVAC tells the engine when the AC compressor clutch is engaged so the revs stay steady too, even the heated windscreen will only switch on if the engine is running. There's so much interaction between the different bits that fitting the engine is the easy bit, making everything else work is where you run into problems. That's why I say fitting a Motronic controlled L322 engine into a car that had a Motronic controlled 4.6 engine could be possible. Fitting a modern engine, such as a Lexus unit, into something very basic, like a Capri, is dead easy, you just need to use the engine ECU that came with the Lexus engine engine to deal with ignition and fuel injection. The car isn't fussed what is making it move as long as something is.

However, as OB says, as long as the original engine is looked after, then there's no need to think about changing it. I suspect most of the projects that have been started have been because someone has blown up their engine and have something laying around gathering dust so they decide to try to fit that rather than spend the money repairing the one that will work.

Overfinch used to put a Chevy motor into the Classic but that was simple enough as the immobiliser was the simple cut various circuits job and could easily be bypassed (if you knew what you were doing). You can't easily bypass the immobiliser on a P38 as it's an integral part of the BeCM. The BeCM receives the code from the receiver and sends a rolling code to the engine ECU to turn it on. Hence mention of them getting out of sync so the code received by the ECU isn't what it is expecting to see so stays shut down. If you have immobiliser problems, you fix them.....

Overfinch also did the same with the P38 but no idea how they did it although I suspect they used a Chevy engine but retained the GEMS (as they never did it on a Thor) ECU and just used that to control the engine. There's a guy in the States who has fitted a Chevy LSx engine but he's had to use both the Chevy and GEMS ECUs and tied them together to make it all work. Took him over 2 years to get it all working though. I've thought that in theory it would be possible to fit the BMW 4.4 motor from an L322 into a Thor as they both use the Bosch Motronic ECU so I would have thought you could still use the original one on the later engine. But why would you want to? The BMW gives 295 bhp compared with 225 for a 4.6 Thor. With a bit of fairly mild tuning you could get pretty damn close to that anyway.

Dunno about you but I always find there's something actually satisfying about pulling an engine apart and seeing the cause of whatever caused you to pull it apart in the first place. There's nothing worse than pulling it apart and finding everything looks perfect.

You won't, cars built after 1999 don't have one. The fluid level has to be checked using the level plug but with the engine running. I must admit that auto boxes are a bit of a black art as far as I'm concerned so can't offer any advice on the reverse problem. If nobody else pops up, you could try giving Ashcrofts a call and seeing what they can tell you (http://www.ashcroft-transmissions.co.uk/index.php).

Sounds decidedly tappetty to me. That sounds very similar to the one my mate in France has and his was down to two rockers with the loose inserts. His is slap in the middle of the affected VIN numbers too. Mine is a deeper sound, almost a clunk rather than a tapping noise. Never thought about the purge valve though, I thought that just opened for a while as it felt necessary rather than clacking open and closed.

Don't see why not as long as all 4 connections are link internally. The idea of the two Y pieces is to balance the pressures from the two sides of the reducer. Effectively it is two in one housing and if they were kept so one outlet fed one injector bank and the other fed the other, any difference in pressure would cause one or other bank to be out.

Sorry I mis-read that it was doing it before the oil change. Yours is a 98 so could be in the range that suffers from the loose steel insert in the rockers but that makes more of a tappety noise than a clack. Mine also has a clack when warm and that's always been there. It was there before the engine went to V8 Dev for the whole block to be refurbed and was still there afterwards. The only moving parts that weren't new was the rocker gear so I've put it down to something there. Mine is also intermittent and most noticeable at idle but at the last summer camp we checked and a number of them were all making the same noise to a greater or lesser degree.

It shouldn't be, not with top hats in there. Even if it is, it isn't important as the fire ring bears against the top of the liner.

(this is where he pulls the head to find the invoice from Turner was for a different car and there aren't any top hat liners in there.......)

You can also see where carbon is starting to build up on the pushrod. When I pulled mine apart it had been run for so long with the blow that there was a big lump of carbon on the pushrod. Mine had gone on the other bank so you can't see the pushrod in my pic but the bit of gasket had been blasted across to the opposite side.

I've got the same connectors on mine, I just wiggle them from side to side while pulling on them. Wiggling them causes the spring on one side to release and pulling causes the other side to let go.

At a rough guess, I'd go for number 5......

What oil did you put in?

Early one has a pigtail with 2 connectors coming out of it whereas the later one has a socket on the latch itself. They are actually interchangeable if you extend the loom so it will reach the connector. The later early ones (from about late 97) also had the three microswitches encapsulated in epoxy so they are a solid block rather than 3 individual switches. It's one of these solid blocks that I've got so it should be the same as on yours.

Usually means the ultrasonic sensor (the thing in the headlining above the LH B post) has failed. Pulling it out, unplugging it and plugging it back in to clean up the contacts is often all that is needed to cure it.

Orangebean wrote:

Way things are at the moment, it's probably vultures too lazy to circle overhead.

I must admit, I thought my SE was cursed with the number of faults I found with it but you seem to have bought the lemon of all lemons there. At least my SE would manage a couple of hundred miles before something else failed rather than finding everything all at once.

You'll probably find that if you look very carefully you'll be able to see where the gap in the gasket is. I found a pretty big clue to the problem when I took the inlet manifold off when I was doing mine. That definitely shouldn't be there.......

That explains it then, central locking is activated by a combination of the mechanical linkage and the CDL switch. So, he's got a dodgy key switch. If you remember you sent me a couple of the encapsulated microswitch sets to replace mine to stop the dancing locks in hot weather. I've still got the one I didn't use so could fit it for Rutland Rover if the latch on a very late car is the same. It's a 51 plate, one of the very last.

I suspect that the switch could have been faulty for some time but as the fob was synced it worked prior to the BeCM going into meltdown. Once that happened and it was removed, the fob would need to be synced again but can't be as the switch isn't doing anything. For the same reason the EKA can't be entered with the key either.

Noise will be the ABS pump as you suspect. It will try to pressurise the system and stop eventually (about 30-40 seconds) but the rear brakes are on the power circit so as soon as you touch the brake pedal, it'll blast all the fluid out of the hose (or more likely pipe) that has just burst. There's two short metal pipes that lurk at the back that rot through. Easy enough to make up a new one in Kunifer tubing but you will need a crows foot spanner to get to the top union. To bleed it, just turn the ignition on and get a glamorous assistant (or a bit of broom handle wedged between the pedal and the seat if you don't have one) to press the pedal.

As the pump has run out of fluid, there's a bleed nipple on the pump itself that may need cracking open very briefly. Do NOT allow anyone to drive it as it is, it'll empty the reservoir in a matter of seconds as soon as anyone puts their foot on the brake,