That makes interesting reading.

I was never brave enough to convert my Supercharged L322 to LPG through horror stories of the valve seats burning. Probably just as well, it was never my daily car and only did 10k in the 3 years I had it :)

David.

Well, due to work and other things keeping me busy these days I've not been on forums for a while.

The red VSE is performing impeccably at the moment. She passed her MOT without any advisories and has done a fair amount of towing recently too.

She's not spat her dummy at all and seems to be doing everything I ask of her as soon as I ask her to do it. Definitely one of the good ones.

I've still not had time to touch the Blue VSE yet or finish the DSE but things need to change and I need a clear out for my own sanity as much as anything!

David.

Just checked the HPI report for it, it's a Cat C write off.

Apparently the insurance were going to repair it but the owner at the time was being totally unreasonable and wanted it to go to his own bodyshop where the cost of repair was significantly more then the quote from the insurers bodyshop so they wrote the car off.

I bought the car without asking about the warranty on the engine so can't answer that one, would assume it doesn't.

The car currently doesn't have any MOT on it, I could attempt to get an MOT on it but with the crack in the windscreen I don't think I'd be very successful, it also needs Marty to sort the ABS ECU out for me too.

If someone offered me £2k for it, it could go tomorrow, it owes me about £2,400, I know I'm not going to get all that back on it but could just do with clearing some space at the moment.

David.

Well, due to a lack of space/time and other obligations, I've decided I need to thin down my collection of cars.

I really don't need 2 VSE's, I've decided I'm going to keep the Alveston Red car which means that the Oslo Blue VSE is going to be up for sale.

So... the car...

It's a 2002 Oslo Blue Vogue SE with 114k miles on the clock. This car is not immaculate, it would tidy up with some preparation and some paintwork. The front and rear bumpers need painting and that would tidy the car up massively.

The car was unfortunately written off a couple of years ago. The owners wife left it in Neutral rather then Park and it rolled into a bollard damaging the bonnet, N/S headlight and front bumper. The bonnet was replaced with one the right colour, the headlight has been replaced, and the bumper has been replaced too but the paint job on it is awful and needs respraying.

The windscreen needs replacing as well as it's cracked.

The interior is all present however the underside of the dashboard needs putting back together as it was dismantled to get the blower motor out from under the steering wheel when it packed in. All of the unique green VSE woodwork is present and complete and in good condition.

The sat nav works and knows where the car is, the radio powers up but the speakers don't work and the DSP menu is missing from the headunit so I'm guessing it needs a new Amp.

However, all the bad bits aside, this car does have 1 major advantage... the engine... the engine was brand new 5,000 miles ago and was supplied by RPI engineering. It is wonderfully quiet, and runs brilliantly. It's had a new radiator as the return spigot snapped off it when it was being worked on, the water pump was replaced recently as the bearings were knackered, at the same time, the aux belt tensioner was replaced as well as there was a slight grumble from the bearings.

The EAS valve block was rebuilt last summer when I got the car as well. The car has a tow bar fitted with twin electrics. Apparently this was fitted before the car was taken off the road and was never used.

I know what the car owes me and I've got a feeling it's probably more then what it's worth...

What does everyone think the car is worth?

I've also got a 1999 DSE that I'm going to be selling too.

David.

I can't help with the press pack or brochure, I'd love to see some pictures of your Linley though!

David.

I tried to fill up in Asda Govan on Saturday afternoon but they were out. Never thought anything of it until I read this. Haven't looked to see if they've got it back in again yet though.

David.

Well, we can finally update this issue to SOLVED!!

I visited Simon this morning and he did some digging with his laptop and software and diagnosed my ECU was faulty.

He fitted a known good Romano ECU to it and even before setting it up properly the difference in idling was huge.

The switch for the Romano ECU is also different to the Tartarini one so we changed the switch in the cabin as well.

I drove whilst Simon did some fine tuning on his laptop and the only thing I can really say is Wow. The car is as smooth on LPG as it is on Petrol, if not smoother. Simon was making changes in the software and as we were driving the car was changing from LPG - Petrol - LPG and other then looking at the switch I had no idea what fuel it was on.

I’m over the moon!

David.

Thanks for the input, gents.

Simon, I reduced the pressure to 0.9bar on the reducer with the screw and then set the reducer pressure to 1bar in the software. When I did this it still jammed at 3.4ms on the auto calibration.

I then did a factory reset on the LPG ECU and reconfigured it from scratch setting the reducer pressure to 1bar and the injector type to matrix. The rest of the settings were all mirrored. I ran the AutoCalibration again and the numbers danced around for a bit longer then they did previously but the calibration process appeared to stall about 1/3 of the way through the process with the T. Gas reading stuck on 0.64ms whereas the T.Petrol was still floating around between 4.5 and 6 roughly.

After the car had been running on the drive for about an hour the reducer temperature was steady at 83 degrees but the gas temp was only reading at 31 degrees.

At this point I had a few other things to do so I had to leave it there unfortunately. I wish this was as simple as single point!

David.

Indeed, the local Asda are 52.7p/litre, the Morrisons in Paisley is 53.7p/litre.

David.

Thanks for that! I've left the car at my folks tonight, Will have a look at it tomorrow.

I've got a link box for my TE20 to fetch from North Wales this week so it would be nice to take the RR for it's first proper run in my ownership. It'd be even nicer if I could do it at 52p/litre rather then £1.17/litre ha ha.

David.

I had a fault showing for the two lambda's when i waved Testbook at it recently. If you clear it the fault stays away for a while but does come back.

I'll have another prod at it tomorrow.

David.

Thanks Gilbert.

I've got 2 lambda sensors here, I might try and get them swapped out tomorrow and then run the auto calibration feature on it and see what happens.

David.

Here's the graph. It's crap quality as it's a picture of the laptop screen. From what I saw the petrol and gas injection seem to mirror each other very closely on the graph.

Here's the pressures sitting a bit more stable now :)

David.

Easy way to tell if it's the o-rings leaking is to feel the side of the transmission tunnel where your left ankle would be when you're driving. It that feels damp then rub your fingers in it and get them damp, then lick them with the tip of your tongue. If you get a horrid sweet taste then it's coolant and is probably your o-rings.

David.

OK, time for an update.

The car is running great at the moment and seems to be behaving really well so I thought I'd get a look at the LPG as we're going away for a few days tomorrow or Tuesday.

The new reducer is fitted, plumbed in and appears to be doing it's job. After a bit of twisting the adjuster screw I've got the pressure to sit at 1.32bar. It didn't seem to want to come above that as I was aiming for 1.4bar as per Simon's previous suggestions.

I headed off up the lane and initially there was a few pops that sounded like they were in the exhaust under the car so I ran it on petrol for 1/2 mile and then switched back to gas. The car now runs on gas better then it did when I got it but it's still not right.

When climbing hills it feels lumpy and underpowered even when I'm not using 50% throttle. If you floor it the engine sounds as if it's bogging down and makes a funny noise and at idle it's lumpy. Switching back to Petrol cures all of these issues. If you're coming up the hill with your foot in a constant position, switching back to petrol makes a huge difference to the pull of the car. On LPG it's hunting through the gears when trying to climb the hills.

One thing I did notice with the laptop out is that since changing the reducer the gas pressure is now constantly in the 1.2 - 1.3 bar even at wide open throttle whereas the old reducer wasn't sustaining the pressure at full power.

Both the liquid and vapour filters have been replaced, and the reducer has been replaced.

I've got a text file and a colourful graph from the LPG software but they don't mean much to me!

David.

Well, the P38 is now back together, almost. Have left a couple of panels off under the dash to keep an eye on the o-rings.

All 4 airbags replaced and she seems to be staying level, soapy water on all of the air unions seemed to confirm there's no leaks and leaving it in high with the battery disconnected confirmed there was no dropping over about 4 hours.

The brakes feel better now it's got the new ABS accumulator fitted and the ABS pump isn't running anywhere near as often.

It now very lumpy at idle on LPG and then cuts out after a few seconds so the new reducer I've fitted needs setting up. A job for when the rain stops as I need my laptop balanced on the slam panel to do it.

The heater matrix o rings seem to be holding but my trip to Dumfries in the morning will confirm that. A big thanks to Gordon for giving me a hand with them. Now I just need to get anti freeze out of the drivers side carpet.

Hopefully we're now making some progress with the car and we can use her a bit now before we need more spattering :)

David.

Both front airbags are done, the LPG filter is changed and the solenoid refitted, the new vaporiser is fitted, the dashboard has been reassembled with new bulbs in anything that wasn't illuminating.

Today I had it running, bled the cooling system through, put the suspension to full height and disconnected the battery, wandered around the back of the car and could hear a hissing noise and could see the car sagging. Slid under and had a peek and found the rear airbag with cords hanging out of it. The front stayed up this time which is better then it was before, however the back has decided it wants new bags too!

By the time I'm finished this, it'll be like a new car!! Anyway, Island 4x4 order has been dispatched already so with a bit of luck we'll get a bit more dry weather.

David.

That's really quite interesting! I didn't realise it had been registered onto the private plate straight away.

Someone has told me that Ireland is a good possibility of where it could have gone but apparently there were a lot of these cars shipped to Africa around about that time.

I'll bet it was sent off to auction by the local dealer when Dad traded it in, from there, I'm at a blank. I wish I was a bit older at the time, I'd of been begging him to keep it!

David.

That's really quite interesting! I didn't realise it had been registered onto the private plate straight away.

Someone has told me that Ireland is a good possibility of where it could have gone but apparently there were a lot of these cars shipped to Africa around about that time.

I'll bet it was sent off to auction by the local dealer when Dad traded it in, from there, I'm at a blank. I wish I was a bit older at the time, I'd of been begging him to keep it!

David.

I think the original plate was L530 AHS, then it wore KIJ 26 which went on the car on 20/05/94. It was taken off on 09/05/96 when it was put onto L530 AHS.

It was mid May 96 that my Dad bought it.

David.