Pashley26

"Bobble-Off" ***.

Haha, good old Lou. Tbf she is such a f**king mental case that I couldn't leave her even if I wanted too. I might write a for sale advert for her, "suspect service history, one careful owner (and three not so careful), slight head problems (overheats etc), could do with a new exhaust" lol Meh what's the point in keeping cars, I seem unable to keep cars because I get SO excited about new ones. I wanted an E36 a few months back when I bought the Clio, but I don't think "urgh wish I had of just bought one and not bothered with the Clio", I have not sold the Clio for any reason other thsn that I saw the E36 and couldn't say no. I am sure I can move the inlet on no problems, I am sure somebody will take my place on the group buy if I advertise. I have learnt what I need to from the Clio, it has served it's purpose

Just goes to show how unbusiness minded the general publis is. I have got an invention that I am going to patent, I have already had 10 made and they are f**king awesome. You know how people who wear tie clips are paedophiles? Well my plan is to produce a tie which has a stiched slit on the hoop that you put th skinny bit through, so you can button the tie to the shirt. That's going to set the world alight when I hit the Macro market, JML, Robert Dyas, Poundland etc.

I think I might just have to accept that 3 months is the average life expectancy of anything I own.

Screwdriver.

+1 it's £200 all day long. LOLZ remember that lad Alex off here we all said was on smack for setting up that company that was like "we buy any car" for bikes? Actual millionaire.

Haha, molesting little kids and profiting from their misfortune? You sick b*****d.

Clio is sold. - What the f**k Fred?! Last time I knew you were driving a 106 lol

Just bought a BMW. 90,000 miles, one owner from new, full BMW service history, TOTALLY mint. Literally the cleanest car I've seen for a long time. £400 Clio is up for sale, so a total turn around from yesterdays post haha!

Bimarco's are the staple diet of the Clio fanboys, they really rate them highly. James at Stone Automotive is your best bet, he is an importer and does them quite cheap. I can ask him how much he is doing them for if you like. http://www.stone-automotive.com/index.php/clio-rs-products/bimarco-seats

Nick won't like me saying this, but as it isn't one of his awesome car forums I'm sure he won't care too much... The seats were by far the cheapest thing in Prawns car, less than £100 a piece and non FIA approved. They came from a company called RMD who do a lot of rally kit. They are super light and very comfortable, in terms of fit and finish they are up there with the £500+ seats. But obviously the compromise has come in the structure of them. This is an interesting thing because personally I have never seen a post accident report of these highly popular "budget" seats. I bet Prawn doesn't buy the same again.

Just to add on, because the edit button isn't there. I know you asked about diesels too, well I also do Mazda who currently have the best diesel engine in the world. It is a 2.2 diesel with 150bhp, it is a 4 cylinder twin turbo and in a 1500kg compact crossover it averages 61.4MPG and produces only 119G/km of C02 so it is as cheap to tax as a Fiat 500. With the diesels the lower the compression ratio the better, it used to be that diesels ran with 20.1 compression ratios and some people still don't believe a diesel can run below 17.1 compression ration. But the new Mazda has a 14.1 compression ratio which is the lowest production compression ratio in ever made. What that does is mean that they can make the internals of the engine MUCH lighter, which makes the engine more efficient and also makes it drive like a petrol. The twin turbo just makes it smooth, but the main benefit to diesels is to make them lighter and have less restriction. The other alternative is just to up the boost and cram more into them, but most diesels are so unrefined internally that most manufacturers are looking at new ways to make them more efficient without just upping the boost and fuel. - Forteh, you are right. What I've said is a bit misleading, it is as you say and that is what I was trying to get at but worded it terribly. I know a lot of people don't understand how a turbo can effect the intake, I was just trying to point out that the power STARTS from the exhaust stroke. The resistance of the back pressure the turbo gives does cause a small reduction in power on the exhaust stroke which in turn effects the other cylinders. I think the use of the iron block is with regards to head disapation and the way that effects warm up time. You know if you leave an engine just ticking over from cold it takes ages to get up to running temperature without being driven? Well an Ecoboost warms up just as quick as if you drove the car.

The way Ford have marketed the Ecoboost is pretty clever, they've basically left ALL of the technical information out and just gone "here's a brochure about our new car which does X MPG and costs X amount a year to tax." Until we did our online e-learning on them I didn't have a scooby doo about how they'd done it. The Ecoboost engines were designed to be driven like a diesel with a huge torque spread from 1500RPM to about 4500RPM IIRC. They are direct injection and have tiiiiiny little turbo's which spool up almost instantly. Because the 3 cylinder is a really lumpy idle they've used an intentionally unbalanced flywheel, they also used an iron block to aid warm up time, the exhaust manifold is also cast into the head to try and keep it cool too. They've got an internal timing belt which runs through an oil bath to make it last longer and the turbo bearings and seals have a special coating which I cannot remember the name of which basically makes them spool up instantly. You can hear them whistle down if you rev it and then shut the engine of too which is pretty cool. I could go into the "how's" of why the Ecoboost is so economical, but that'd be boring and isn't what you actually want to know. The long and short of it is that some turbo cars are designed and tuned for economy and some for power, adding a turbo increases the efficiency as by basically drawing the burnt charge out and using that energy to force the fresh charge back in quicker, meaning that the engine can "do it's job" quicker and also getting more "charge" into the cylinders through forced induction. The increased thermal efficiency that this offers also lowers the c02 emmissions of the car which is why turbo'd cars are always much cheaper to tax than their NA alternative. By adjusting the amount of boost, the timing of the engine and the amount of fuel which goes through the injectors you can make any car more efficient or more powerful with a turbo. The turbo itself is only a small part of what makes the engine either powerful or fuel efficient. It depends what you ask it to do. A lot of the time the turbo also changes the torque curve, so with a turbo car you tend to keep the revs lower than you would on an NA car because that's where the power is. Higher RPM = the air/fuel charges being drawn in and out much more frequently so it is obviously using more fuel. As far as I know it that is how and why small turbo engines are being used to increase fuel economy and lower tax. It's probably not as an in depth reply as Robin will have written but I hope it covers the basics.

What do I often bullshit my way through? Give me an example.

I'm tempted to answer your question now, but I'm not sure if answering it or not will piss you off more. So I'm going to save myself the effort and let Robin do it. Bearing in mind I work in a Ford main dealer and have direct Ford training on the new Ecoboost engine I know exactly the sort of technical shit you need to know; and probably better than anybody else on the forum.

I'd shed all the light you need, but I'm a dickhead so you can f**k off and google it like every other fanny.

Do it Robin, you geek. My clio did it without a RARB no probems, it does it a lot better now though. Prawns does it going up the almost unnoticable slope to his driveway - Robin, if I gave you my old RARB could you make me a thicker one?

Will be an even more impressive tripod when I pull my finger our of my arse and get all the bits I have bought on it. I had the hump with the car yesterday and wanted to sell up, but I've decided after a good thrash today I am going to keep it a bit longer. I have just done a deal for a set of seam welded box section lower arms off of an ex Cup race car which will help keep things stiff when it is lowered. I can't fit them yet though because they need new bushes

Because it shows off the stiffness of the body, the higher the tripod without splitting the car in two the stiffer the car. If I go for it round a corner the car lifts a wheel anyway, like this -

I realised yesterday that since I got the Clio I haven't done a proper paint correction session on it. So I did this morning.

http://www.audi-sport.net/vb/a3-s3-forum-8l-chassis/163483-prawn-bigal-frenchmans-july-ring-trip-report.html

Not at all, the dude had just written off his 2012 Mustang and had a whacking grest bill and just said "you can't pay? hell I'll pay it for you!!" Prawn and his dad took him out to dinner and to the nearest rental car center the next day.

Just got off the phone to Prawn and Pierre, they are back on English soil lol. They are in great spirits and are driving back, it's been a long old journey for them by the sounds of it. He's got some cracking stories, and some random American who he'd never met before paid his armco bill in exchange for an IOU and an email address lol I won't steal his thunder, but the car is going to be ok

That's pretty special! I'm SURE I posted this in here? How do you post a youtube video without it turning the link into a URL link?

Turbo Mini ***. - Day off today, hence all the posts and general constant stream. Been watching some rally video's - Hey I just met you, and this is crazy. But I'm your co-driver, so flat left maybe?