stevie_b

Mine are made by McGuard (IIRC) which you can buy from Halfords etc. As kitch said, ensure you buy ones with the correctly-shaped surface that mates properly onto the wheel. The spinning collar thing sounds like a good idea if they're not prohibitively expensive.

You know how to slide it!

Welcome to the club. Nice-looking, clean Civic you have there!

Good price, although a classic policy is a different beast: you don't accumulate NCD, and you sometimes can't use the car for commuting.

True. When taking out cheap insurance (car, health, holiday, etc) you're taking an implicit gamble that you won't be needing to claim. The claims dept is where the bargain insurers save their money. If I were in the OP's shoes though, that wouldn't put me off taking out cheap car insurance.

At 21 years old you're likely to get stiffed on insurance. Those numbers are the top end of what I'd expect though with 3 years' NCD: West Sussex isn't Helmand Province.

The blower isn't needed when flushing the matrix. IIRC, it's only a fan that blows whatever air is around the matrix into the cabin. The valves is a good point. Does anyone know if the ignition needs to be on to provide a path through the matrix? I've done a matrix flush in the past, but didn't turn the ignition on. The flush was inconclusive.

I've skim-read the thread a couple of times. Apologies if this repeats what's already been said, but there's a fair bit of confusion here. The OP is talking about 2 different problems: the coolant temperature gauge not reaching operating temperature (although it's not far off: remember the bottom of the gauge isn't 0 deg C, it's more like 70 deg C). To be clear, this gauge measures the coolant tempature in the engine or rad (I can't remember which), and as such doesn't measure the temperature of the air coming into the cabin. The position of that temperature needle should be sufficient for the matrix to give fairly hot air into the cabin, *if* the matrix is working properly. That's his other potential problem: matrix issues. That needle is exactly where I'd expect it to be if I were running a thermostat that opens at a lower temperature. My usual advice is unless you know why you should fit a TRD stat, rad cap or oil filter, then don't. Why do you turn the ignition on?

Either a bad earth, bad battery terminal connections or your starter motor contacts needs refurbishing. There's a guide on here for doing the refurb: common fault, not expensive to fix. Not sure about the cd player and dash lights not working. Everything else apart from that points to starter motor contacts.

What's the best way to clean them? Lemon juice used to be suggested a lot, but not sure if it does any good, or even does any harm.

Hi gdog, I supplied the tools and it was suprasurrey who supplied the knowledge. Let us know what the cause was: at the end it seemed like a compound problem: immobiliser preventing the car from cranking, but that still left the original problem unfixed.

I'm at the edge of my knowledge here, but if you put UK clocks in and removed the converter/delimiter, you'd still be limited to 112mph. This is because (I'm not 100% sure of this) the speedo is the only component that decodes the pulses into a number. The rest of the components (odo, ECU, etc) still use the "4 pulses per wheel rev" signal. The JSpec ECU prevents further acceleration when it receives an input pulse frequency equivalent to 112mph: without reducing or capping the pulse frequency, you'll be limited to 112mph. To disable the speed limit, you have to cap the pulse frequency (this is what the good limiters do), or as a nasty fudge scale it back by a big enough factor so the engine runs out of puff before you reach an "alleged" 112mph. E.g. if you reduced the frequency by half, an alleged 112mph would be an actual 224mph, and a 2JZ without serious modifications wouldn't reach that. I think your odo (if it's a JSpec one) would count up in kilometres. The JSpec odo counts the pulses, and displays the number as the number of kilometres travelled. A UK odo counts the pulses and displays the number as the number of miles travelled.

I think that means you're converting the speed "twice", which would tally with your 50 vs 75 readings. The speed sensor tells the clocks (and the rest of the loom) the speed by sending a pulse every 1/4 revolution of a roadwheel. The JSpec clocks convert these pulses to a number in kph. The UK clocks convert these pulses to a number in mph. A converter typically multiplies the clock reading by 5/8 (i.e. it reduces it). So, the pulses were multiplied by 5/8 (which would convert 75 to approx 50). This then gets displayed by the UK clocks as a mpg value. To see speeds in mph: 1) run JSpec clocks with a converter; or 2) run UK clocks without a converter To see speeds in kph: 1) run JSpec clocks without a converter. Running UK clocks wih a converter will give you mph multiplied by 5/8, which isn't a standard unit of speed!

I thought the speed signal passed around the loom was a pulse signal that pulses something like 4 times per roadwheel revolution.

Yeah, thanks Dave, top work for organising it!

Sounds like you have a combined speed converter and delimiter. A pure delimiter is usually wired in beside the ECU in the passenger footwell, because that's the only thing the delimiter bit needs to talk to. The combined unit need to feed an altered speed signal to the speedo, hence that's where it usually is.

I'm pretty sure the speed sensors don't affect the clocks. As imi said, the ECU will need to get a speed signal to control the things he listed, but changing the clocks to UK ones and removing the speed converter won't affect the speed sensors if you do it properly.

As David said. The speed limiter function is in the ECU. To remove the speed restriction, you either need to fit an ECU that doesn't have a speed restriction (i.e. a UK spec ECU, these might still have a higher restriction at 155mph though) or feed the ECU with a false speed value (which is what the delimiters do).

Well, I like the Porsche. As long as you don't drive it like you're Gordon Gecko, you'll be fine.

Just what I was thinking! Expect a partisan response.

Cheap ones might not control things like the progressive power steering properly. That's what makes ones like the Thor one good.

I'm looking forward to bringing my MSB along. Might not stay for the pub though.

Apart from me in my NA: I've had buses out-accelerate me.

Hi Colin, it's fine to ask for help more than to give it. As bradleyh said, make good use of the search function and you'll be fine. Supras (NA in particular) use pretty standard technology, so any generic car maintenance principles should be fine for looking after it mechanically. There are a small number of common faults, none of them surprising and (mostly) not expensive, but that's the same with any car. The supra probably has less faults than most, especially considering their age.

Tarmac's got quite a bit of "give" to it. Not so with concrete. Remember when you jack the car up and put it on stands, there's a lot of weight spread over a tiny area (the contact points of the axle stands with the ground).