mad082

you didn't read what i said about the b43's did you. they don't have a flat face on them for the brakes to contact, meaning your brake pads will only contact with the top corner of the pad until they have worn away a bit, by which time the top of the pad will nearly be completely worn and the bottom of the pad will be like new still. here is what i mean. technical drawings taken from velocity's australian website (since the rims are made in brissy) b43 rim deep v rim also those prices are in $US and i would double check the price of freight as i wouldn't be suprised to see that go up a fair bit once you actually went to pay for them. and for not much more you could get them through your local bike shop with velocity track hubs, or could get them built up with whatever type of hubs you want.

the smooth edge of the rim will still stop you as the machined section goes smooth pretty quickly anyway, it just doesn't look ugly after a while. the b43 though isn't designed to run brakes though. it doesn't have the flat edge for the pads to rub on, it is an angled rim a bit like a disc brake specific rim.

+1 for z32 with nistune. much cheaper than a PFC and will do the job just as good.

i'd do the flusing first. but to flush it i would simply wait till the car is dead cold, drop the coolant, remove the thermostat and then jam a hose into the top hose and let it run for a while.

no that looks pretty right. the reason being that at light throttle the AFR's will actually be between 14 and 15, controlled by the o2 sensor and the ecu. once you put your foot down the ecu ignores the o2 sensor and reverts to it's mapping and there is where it runs richer. in the case of your car, it is running rather rich up top and it would greatly benefit from some form of aftermarket ecu, be it a nistune or a SAFC or any other ecu or piggyback. the ideal afr you want is about 12:1 where as you are running as rich as 10:1 (which is common for stock ecu cars). as for the power it made, what mods do you have? that will be a determining factor as to how good/bad your power is, but considering the boost pressure you were running it doesn't sound too far off what it should be.

also if you coolant is dirty (brown) then you might want to think about getting the radiator cleaned (or just replacing it as the cost isn't much different) as you can get quite a bit of build up in the core which can block it and reduce it's performance.

cams will set you back about $1000, and i would put them in before doing a port and polish. also if you have a pretty small wallet then i would be setting your power goal at about 180hp as that extra 20hp to get to 200 will cost a few thousand dollars. also while you have the head off i would get it machined/shaved to raise the compression a touch.

so i am assuming that you diagnosed that it was cylinder 3 not firing by unplugging something to do with cylinder 3 while the car was running to not have it make any difference? the issue you are having could still be spark related. it could be that the coil is arcing out when it's in the spark plug valley, when then you are simply testing to see if it will fire in open air it will work. i would try swapping a spark plug and coil from a different cylinder and see what happens. also have you checked that the injector is getting power?

the only way that the fuel pump alter fuel economy was if the old pump was really dead and unable to pump enough fuel. the fuel pump doesn't alter the pressure the injectors see or how much they fire into the cylinder. as for the noise, generally after market pumps will be louder, but how much compared to what you are hearing is hard to say over the internet.

rotor forum

how much you will get out of a nistune will depend on how your car is running now. i think you would be pushing it to get that much out of a natro rb25 from just an ecu (i know people who only got about 25hp from putting a pfc on a turbo rb25) . i would expect to see about a 15hp, give or take a few hp. if you were getting the tune done after adding some mods then you may see a better gain from just a tune though. i know that on an sr20de you will generally gain about 10 to 15hp just from a tune. the rb30 ecu is somewhat more primitive than the rb25, so there are more possibilities of gains from it than there is from the newer, smarter ecu. and i agree with zebra on getting cams. you sure as hell won't make 200hp on the stock cams. that first 20 to 25hp should be easy to get. a set of cams and a nistune should do that comfortably. the next 15 to 20hp will take a bit more work. headwork and intake

a mate of mine had a rb30e that would rev to (i think) 9000rpm. he had custom everything. twin throttlebody setup, modified crank (to allow higher oil flow), lots of headwork, etc, etc, etc. he wanted to keep it single cam and natro. was making up to 230hp, but wasn't the most reliable thing in the world and at the drags it was still slower than a very mild turbo r33 (ran a high 13 with the exhaust dropped at the cat). it was a pig to drive (button clutch and locked diff didn't help though), and drank fuel like there was no tomorrow. i don't know how much money he spent on it, but it was a lot and that was with them doing a lot of the work themselves.

if the battery is fine, then your starter motor may be tight and not turning as freely as it should. but i would still be looking at the battery. maybe even try putting the battery our of your brother's car in (if the terminals fit) and just try starting it. the fact that it won't turn over with the lights on makes me think the battery is on it's last legs and coming into the colder months i think you will find that it might die.

8" rotors on a penny farthing would actually be pretty weak. it's all about leverage. on something with as big a wheel as a penny farthing even an 8" rotor will have a very small amount of leverage. i wouldn't be suprised if they wouldn't even lock up with a quad piston caliper on it.

just out of curiosity, if the tune is locked, does that mean you can't even look at what the settings are, or can you just not change them? so for example, if i got a tune done and it was locked, can i still look at the map settings but not change them? or can i not even look at them? the reason i ask is that if you can still view the map then the tuner isn't doing it to stop it being copied (as you could simply make up a spreadsheet and copy over the details) but they are locking it to either stop someone (the vehicle owner) playing with it and stuffing it up, or to stop you from taking it to any other tuner. now the first of those 2 i understand, however if the second is the case and the tuner won't give the password out to the new tuner, then wouldn't that would breach the anti-competition laws?

don't plan to build a high revving motor just for the sake of it and because your bike can. for a motor to rev high reliably it needs to be set up for it in the first place. there will be a limit as to how much it will take without spending stupid amounts of money. and the higher you go, the more money it will take to make it go that little bit higher again. also getting an engine to rev high can result in a loss of low end power, meaning that if you plan on driving it as a daily driver it can end up being a real cop. you bike would be a prime example. i bet that if you rode around keeping it below 8,000 or 10,000 it wouldn't have much go now would it.

penny farthing races have been going on for years. i'd love to have a ride of a penny farthing. there are even penny farthing trikes with 3 big wheels. i am yet to see 1 with a free wheel though. as for the brakes on the front, you would need them since the rear brakes won't do shit, and with those useless sidepull calipers you won't really have much chance of flipping it if you yank on them hard.

difference in rim size between a 650c and a 700c is about 2" in overall height, so a 700c wheel would sit 1" further into the frame/forks and once you put a tyre on it it would rub on the frame and wouldn't turn. a 650c tyre actually has a smaller outside diameter (talking tyre not rim here) than a 26" mtb tyre. you could posibbly put a 26" wheel with a 26 x 1 tyre in the frame, but you may not get the brakes to reach the rim as the 26" rim is smaller than a 650c by a bit over 1cm.

oh and as for tyres, michelin don't do any 650c tyres. continental do 2, 1 at about $70, the other at about $110, and i think schwalbe may do 1 or 2. yes they are a triatlon size wheel, but very few companies actually make 650c tri bikes. most will be running 700c. i know that off the top of my head that the 4 tri bikes that cannondale do and the one that giant does and the one apollo did a year or 2 ago all ran 700c. in fact in the last 10 years i have only ever seen 1 650c bike in the flesh. the wheels are very close in size to a 26" wheel, but different enough that you couldn't substitue one over as the brakes wouldn't reach the rim (in most cases at least).

ok, price i quoted for the velocity wheels was from just ringing up and asking them. i think they said they only do 4 different rims in 650c. can get either machined sidewalls or non machined, and built up with sealed bearing track hubs available in flip flop so you can run a freewheel, or fixed/fixed as for zipp wheels, unless they are very old, expect to pay about what the RRP was on your bike. i just rang the supplier and they wholesale at well over $2000 a pair. retail would be around $3500, so i wouldn't be suprised if they go for at least $1000, and if you look at the prices of other zipp wheels on ebay you will see that i'm not too far off the mark. as for just taking links out of the chain, that would work with something like the raleigh (or anything that used the old style axle mount derailleurs and has dropouts like the raleigh) as you can move the wheel backwards and forwards to adjust the tension on the chain like you do with a bmx, but if you look at your mtb or that magenta frame you linked to or pretty much any other modern geared bike, you can't do that, so you will end up with either the chain being too long, or being too short and not being able to put it on.

oh and don't forget that when choosing wheels, if you go track hubs you will have to get some that are wide enough to fit in a geared bike frame as track hubs can be up to about 2cm skinnier, which if you put them in you can end up breaking axles all the time or even damaging the frame. if you can't find any then you can get a cassette hub with a single speed kit on it. also because some don't have adjustable dropouts (can't slide the wheel backwards and fowards), such as that one you linked to as it took a frame mount derailleur, you will need to run a chain tensioner.

*in monty python voice* RUN AWAY! RUN AWAY! ok well now that that is done i will explain a few things. first, if it was rusty i would be worried since aluminium doesn't rust. secondly, RUN AWAY, RUN AWAY. that is a 650c wheeled bike, which means your choice of wheels and tyres for it will be EXTREMELY limited. in fact i don't know if i even regularly deal with a company that sells 650c wheels or tyres. i know velocity do wheels, but they and the people who do zipp wheels would be about the only 2 companies i deal with who do them, and as for tyres i might deal with 1 company who does them, and they will probably all be high end stuff. you won't find much 650c second hand stuff as only about 5% of bikes on the market use it. if you go new, a set of velocity wheels will set you back between $400 and $450 for a pair and they are probably one of the cheaper ones as that will be built up with track hubs. pretty much all other wheels will be cassette hub wheels and probably closer to $1000.

fuel tank is about 65L, best to use premium fuel, but not a must. as for fuel economy, as with every car it really depends on how you drive. if you like flooring it everywhere then you will get noticably worse economy than someone who drives like a granny

i think the issue here is also that if you get a car with a locked tune and then that tuner shuts down and you make a minor adjustment to the car (or have something play up and the car doesn't idle very well), you are screwed. you have to get a whole new tune done to solve something that could've been solved in 5 mins with access to the tune.

to get the cluster out is extremely easy. now i am going from memory here as i haven't had my 33 for a few years now. remove gear shift surround. pretty sure this will just pull up (pull up at the back). not sure about auto's though. now i can't remember if the dash surround has 2 screws that hold it in place underneath the gear surround, but you will see them if there are any. then just unclip the dash surround. you may need to lower the steering wheel before doing this. once you have this out of the way then you can get the cluster. i think there is a small panel held on by 2 screws above the cluster. this should then give you access to all 4 screws that hold the cluster in. undo them and the cluster will come out. then just unclip the plugs at the back and you are done.