Haven't updated in a while! Just been keeping on top of maintenance and a few small jobs.
The first big thing I finally got around to doing on a free weekend was installing my Newman camshaft. This took about 3 hrs, and was a lot easier than I thought it would be, despite my apprhension about messing up the timing etc.
Old sh!ttily painted silver (not by me) rocker cover.
Stock cam.
New cam and new hydraulic tappets installed.
Gave the rocker cover a quick tidy up with some Simoniz Tough Black paint, and reinstalled with a new cam seal and rocker cover gasket.
Enjoying the new cam, I can definitely feel the difference over 2500rpm.
In the photos above you can probably make out a spilt in the crankcase breather hose, so this got replaced too, £20 for an aftermarket part though!
Other general bits of maintenance done include both auxiliary belts (again something I’d been putting off but turned out to be ever so simple), and a new coolant temp sensor.
Recently I had been suffering with a very lumpy idle, and stalling when dipping the clutch as I slowed. I chalked some of this up to the cam but decided to clean out the throttle body anyway to see if it made a difference. Forgot to take any before pics but trust me when I say it was awful!
Nice and clean now though!
I had bought a new throttle body gasket in case the old one was damaged, only to find there wasn’t one even installed! Metal to metal surfaces with no gasket or sealant of any kind can’t have been helping with the running of the car! Another small fix was the two small ports on the vacuum hose which connects to the inlet manifold, that are blocked with green rubber caps. These had gone completely hard and brittle with age, and just crumbled when touched, so I joined the two ports together with a small length of silicone hose which should seal a whole lot better! Realigned the throttle body too, and now I have a nice smooth idle, and no stalling.
Finally, I took peoples advice from a few pages back and ditched the yellow tint film on my fogs, replaced with a smoked film, and painted middle reflectors black.
Oh and bought a regular splitter after breaking another VR6 one (aftermarket of course!), despite only being 35mm down.
