carl0s

(it's all about the noise BTW, I don't care that a bit turbo might make more power. I just want 300hp or above).

I did wonder if it was typical to take the ECU from the car that the engine came from. I reckon I could get an LS1 engine, but just the engine, for maybe £800, or am I just dreaming? My uncle has a 351 Ford in the cellar. Not sure what the deal is with that though. It's from his Ford Pop drag car that's been "in progress" since I was about 14 (so about 14 years..). Apparently they changed the regs so he needed to lengthen it a bit, and it never got finished.

More money would come from the turbos, good rotor and housing and other bits from the 13B engine I suppose.

Well, it's my RX7. It needs a new rotor housing and a rotor, and a full set of various seals, o-rings and gaskets. So I'm probably into maybe up to a grand there all done. The car has an Apexi PowerFC w/commander ECU, but that's only for the Mazda, so wouldn't run a V8. I'm just thinking how cool it'd be to drop a V8 in there, and if I was to sell the PowerFC for maybe £600 with the commander, then that gives £1,000 to £2,000 spend allowance if I'm to try to keep costs in line with the rotary rebuild cost. I'm just wondering if I could grab a big V8 for ~£800, and then have a grand or so to get it working in the car, but it has to be something I can do myself, since that's the whole point. Up to now I've pulled the rotary out of there, and it's all stripped and on the engine stand, and I'm pretty happy that I could rebuild that now, but I'm at the point now where I have to buy the parts, and a lightbulb has just gone on in my head, plus enough people (uncle, father-in-law) have said "put a v8 in it". I've just registered on v8rx7forum.com, but I know you guys are straight talking It needs to be something that I could just about do myself, since that's the whole point of this RX7 - it was bought as a project car and something to do, but I've kind of already done it now, up to the point where I have to spend the money and put it back together. I understand it well enough now that the fun part is pretty much done, except for the satisfaction of it actually working I suppose.

Quick question, it's general and not mkiv specific. If I was to want to drop, say an LS1 V8 into a Jap car, like an RX7 or something, or maybe a Supra, whatever, well, can somebody explain how the car's electronics interface with the engine? Does full mapping etc need to be done, and a programmable ECU and what not, or with it being a normally aspirated engine, can it be done fairly simply? What happens regarding the gauges in the car and all that other stuff? How does the car's wiring tie in with the transplanted engine? Can it be not too difficult, or does it have to be a tough expensive job?

I think all phones are like that, regardless of fancy touch-screen or not. I won't get three hours of TomTom out of my E51, and that's a basic candybar with a tiny screen.

Aw, come on! Bring it to the UK already! http://www.engadget.com/2009/06/03/palm-pre-review/

Screens don't mark much. Biggest problem for me is that I can type/text much more easily on a proper keypad, because they have the touch-type notches on the keys. I've switched back to my E51 from the HTC Magic, but then I don't own the Magic (it's on loan from a phone shop), and I have TomTom on my E51 too. They're brilliant for web browsing and viewing graphical (HTML) emails, due to the bigger screens and the easy panning/scrolling.

The Android phones (T-Mobile G1, HTC Magic) have capacitive touch screens too. Just think of it like this: a capacitive touchscreen is the same as the touchpad on your laptop. A resistive touch screen is a grid mesh of wires sat on top of the screen that have to be pressed to make a circuit. I forgot to say, Windows Mobile is pathetic. It's Windows 3.1 for smartphones. Avoid it.

I'd wait for the yanks to get their hands on the Palm Pre when it's launched over there tomorrow, and see what they think of it then consider waiting a few months for it to be released here in the UK. The iPhone is a marvelous achievement but the novelty wore off very quickly for me and I don't like the idea that it's not extend-able at the core - i.e you can't have things that run and monitor in the background, no constant open wifi scanning, no sat nav, no umm, anything actually that might sit in the background and notify you of stuff, except what's already built in. I have had a HTC Magic here for a couple of weeks now. It was severely limited out of the box, being a Google branded ("..with Google") variant, but the HTC-tweaked firmware/rom has made it to t'internet and now it's a great bit of kit - full inbuilt Exchange contacts/calendar/mail, pdf viewer, office viewer, 3g tethering via wifi etc, but it's still a bit dull and dark.. compared to the Palm Pre the menus just look so dull and boring. I'm a big Nokia fan, love my e51 and am keen to get my hands on the E55 or possibly E52 when they're finally released, but they're not touch-screen. I'd check out Palm Pre user opinions after tomorrow, and put it between that and an iPhone. iPhone is butt ugly and bulky BTW. iPod touch v2 is almost perfectly proportioned.

Not head off, no, just air. I don't think anything specific to the Supra is needed, just regular spark-plug sized fitment. I didn't do it, a garage I use did it. They're very good. I'll know how much it cost when I go to see him and take some computery software for his lad.. hopefully he'll be gentle with me!! The parts cost me about £150 from Steve Manley, and the garage also put a new cambelt on for me, plus he MOTd it too. Dude/AFR on here does the job for £400. Don't know if that's just the labour though.

Yay. Finally, no more smoke after leaving the car for a few days. I presume there are other benefits to having it done? Are there ? Don't even know how much it's cost yet. Had a new cambelt too. It's nice to know the car is being well kept anyway.

Phew. That's comforting to know ;-) I'm not too surprised that she didn't know the answer, I was just bugged by the "they don't teach us that at school". It's all I ever hear! I asked her the question because I was busy with something and said "Dunno" when she asked what a dual carriageway was, and she said "You're a driver, how can you not know what a dual carriageway is?", so I said "What's the square root of 64.." and said "You're a GCSE student and you don't know the square root of 64.."

16yr olds who are just now taking their GCSE exams are supposed to know this aren't they? Or are they? We're all fucked.

Er, no. I do computers. We developed a tanning shop booking system when he had his 9 or so Megatan tanning stores in the north west (Altrincham salon on Greenwood street is still there, now belongs to his mum though). I supported his last venture, the reverse finance company, which my buddy was a partner in. AFAIK the only fraud he's ever been involved in is the grant-scheme-scam that he was held on remand for a long time ago. He's just not very good at making money it seems, but likes to spend it/lose it for investors/not pay to the tax man.

I wouldn't be too surprised if he gets diminished responsibility as last I knew he had big benzo problems.

Crikey. One of my customers. Not seen him since he left Knutsford for London, but spoke on phone a bit. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1189158/British-millionaire-Ian-Griffin-flees-Porsche-girlfriend-Kinga-Legg-battered-death-exclusive-Paris-hotel-Le-Bristol.html

Thanks very much Chris. I'll go have a look in a minute. There seems to be quite a bit of lateral shaft play on the turbos, but not enough for the turbine to touch the housing.

I think this is an awesome phone BTW. The hardware is perfect, top marks to HTC. Software is neat but missing some functionality (TomTom/McGuider/Similar, Bluetooth DUN/PAN, Exchange ActiveSync), but overall I think it's a really cool device, and awesome to have a linux device that's so wicked. I definitely think I want one. Only problem is, Symbian supports all of the above missing features, and very well too. The E55 and E52 are due out imminently. They just don't have the 'magic' of the magic.

Tried it, and all the others. None of them integrate with the inbuilt mail/calendar/contacts. Roadsync beta doesn't work with my Exchange 2010 beta (err_unsupported_version from the client in the http access logs), and besides it only does email and one-way contacts download (no realtime sync), and no calendar. Touchdown is OK-ish but it has its own mail/contacts/calendar.. that's not what I'm after really. So far the solution is: IMAP for Exchange mail gSyncit for contacts & calendar from Outlook (requires Outlook being left open on a computer), and costs $9.99 or Google Calendar Sync (free, still requires Outlook left open, and leaves a question mark over the contacts sync).

I've been borrowing one from the Vodafone shop since Friday to see how best to get it to suit their business customers (i.e. email, exchange servers). No decent Exchange support, except possibly in the Asia firmware. I've got root access on it now anyway. I expect the Exchange stuff from the Taiwan/Asia images will be here shortly

That's a lot of ancillaries! : http://www.css-networks.com/rx7/images/dscf2402.jpg The infamous rat's nest: http://www.css-networks.com/rx7/images/dscf2396.jpg Phase 2 pretty much complete anyway: http://www.css-networks.com/rx7/images/dscf2409.jpg Lots more pictures here.

I can see through the ports that the front rotor has some gouges in it, so it looks like I definitely need a front rotor, and possibly/probably a front housing. I just missed a pair of housings for thirty quid each off eBay because my bloody diary wasn't in-sync on my phone :-( So, I could do with a rotor at least.. maybe housing too. Can you help ?

I remember now.. I was going to keep the Halfords trade card thing to myself. It's not so special when everyone else has one too. I've let the cat out of the bag now though! (Not that lots of people don't already know or anything of course)

Yep, reckon that'll be fine. All I did was walk up to the parts area, and say "Excuse me.. I was reading on the Halfords website, and I believe the trade discount card is available to hobbyist DIYers like myself. I do quite a lot of work on my car and buy quite a lot of stuff from here." He just said "Well, it's down to our discretion really. I'll go and get you one".