Paul Booth

Ooh you're tempting fate boyo. I use it on the A417 South of Oxford, every day, which is very windy and has interleaved 60/40/30/40/60/40/30/etc. speed limits at 3-4 mile intervals. I'm constantly hitting the 'set' function for each zone. I'm sooo glad everyone is happy with their cruise control but I've never seen any other car with a wandering control stalk and it's a PITA.

What do you mean 'fold in'? Manually or electrically?

Don't know, now you ask, but all I remember is that I've been looking for it coming off a number of roundabouts. Even on gently winding roads, you can't select it by touch 'cos it's not where it's supposed to be. Why couldn't they just stick it to the column like every bugger else?

Personally, I find the nob on the steering wheel a PITA. I've never seen one which buggers off around the wheel when you turn it before. You end up trying to find the damned thing on bends. If I hadn't got one already, I'd be fitting it to the dashboard or finding a way to stop it wandering off.

It'll be tonight now.

There's a valve involved in the changeover from T1 to T2. and an exhaust gas bypass circuit. If it doesn't turn out to be the new part (which I'm inclined to suspect, as per JB's comment), then I can scan the relevant section and send it to you.

Darren, The orifice is designed for a capless bulb and it's my assumption that the bulb glass needs to be kept as far away from the plastic lense inner as possible (stop it melting, basically). So it looks like there are now 2 options 'cos I came up with another (never say die). 1. By using a capsule Tungsten Halogen lamp with a 2 pin G4 base (it's quite small and pretty damned bright) and a porcelain G4 holder soldered into the original mounting, we have a fairly small but very bright unit. Yes, it would need painting orange, which is the big downside. 2. I'm also gonna have a look at bastardising a standard bayonet base out of an old indicator mounting and see if: (a) I could get a standard bulb (as you described) into the hole and (b) if I could mate the bayonet base onto the original side light mounting. I know I can do (1) but it then means painting the bulbs, plus they are a specialist supply (Maplin or RS are easiest)

B*££*cks! The all glass bulbs only come in 3W and 5W. If I can't mod the side light bulb holder easily to accept a standard bayonet fitting, it's a nice idea down the pan.

My thoughts went as follows: There's no legal requirement for front facing fog lights, so if I was to replace the fog bulbs with 5W and make them the sides, this would be perfectly MOT'able. I gave some thought to a Zener/Darlington arrangemenbt but then I thought "there's no voltage regulation on the rest of the lighting circuit so why add any?". In fact, over the required voltage range, a 6R8 resistor would have to dissipate between 9.6W(ish) and 13W(ish). So I ordered Ali cased HS50 units from RS. These will dissipate 50W heat sunk and 25W in free air. With regard to the light output levels from a filament dissipating 5W electrically, but that is designed to operate at 45W electrically, you got me there. This is where I go to suck-it-and see mode. I think PWM is way over the top as I'd like this to be a mod anyone can do at reasonable cost (£4 so far). Actually, my biggest concern is getting the all glass bulbs which fit the original sidelight mount sockets in 21W (which I will then have to paint orange). I have someone researching this for me.

Spent some time reviewing the circuit against "The Good Book" (sad, I know) and worked out a much better solution: 'the fog lights'. It's possible with 2 x 10W resistors, and little else (existing diodes in the side light circuit and the fog relay combine to provide isolation in each mode), to make the fog lights work as 5W side lights, when the side lights are on and the fog lights are 'off'. Then to switch to full brightness when the fog lights are switched 'on'. I assume there are no issues with there being no seperate side lights at that time. It is then possible to wire the indicator circuit to the original sidelights and replace the bulbs with the appropriate alternative. The big orange lumps can the be discarded. Any legal or logical flaws I'm missing here?

Getting itchy fingers waiting for odo to arrive and Japanese-Honda-manager to get back from wherever he's been holidaying, so... between getting our refuse truck 205 DT ready to offload and replaced with a lightweight Ali trailer, I got to thinking about this whole side-lights/indicator lights bit. Can anyone think of a reason why dim dipped headlights should fail at MOT time when used dimmed as side lights and normal brightness when switched to dipped headlights? If not, I have a solution for converting the side lights into indicators and making the dipped headlights double as side lights in a dimmed operating mode. It just takes a couple of air cooled resistors, courtesy of Maplin. Then I can chuck the stock indicators into the spares box. BTW, while collecting a new 205 facelift indicator from a new & used bits centre in Gloucester, I noticed a family of repeaters, same size as the Supra's, and in every colour; red, purple, blue, green, white and even orange. I was picturing a pair of red repeaters on the side of my red Supe. Hmmm! (Edited by Paul Booth at 7:50 pm on Aug. 27, 2001)

I've had to start this thread as there's something strange going on with the original thread, i.e., I can 'quote' but if I hit reply, strange things happen, so.......... So far so good. Using the JIC speed converter, I have modified the speedometer to read in MPH not KPH. This entailed cutting a 4mm section from the signal track and then scraping back the insulation from each new end, then removing the insulation from a 4mm length on 2 others. I tinned all new contact points on the flexi-pcb and soldered the +ve and gnd wires, on the converter, to the main instrument live and ground tracks (previously stripped and tinned), about 20mm from the connector. I soldered the input to the converter to the cut track, nearest to the connector and the converter output to the end nearest the speedo screw terminal. After completing the soldering, I applied a strip from a glue gun across each wire about 10mm from the solder point to prevent stress tears in the flexi-pcb. I mounted the converter on the plastic bracket on the rear of the combination meter used, I believe, to push the wiring loom passing behind the speedo away from the back of the speedo. Works a treat and if I ever get a UK combination meter, I can just swap it straight out with no modifications required on the wiring loom. I have now proved that: 1. the odo pulse shaper output has been damaged during the original conversion and it's breaking down, probably in thermal runaway, so the pulse train stops being delivered to the various ECUs after about 5 minutes. or 2. One of the ECU's has a similar problem on it's input buffer and it's overloading the speed pulse bus once it gets warm. I'm using the converter's 2nd output (I know it's 8/5) to drive the ECUs until I get the replacement odo to test and, even if an ECU has an input problem, the converter's output is sufficiently macho enough to handle it. I rather think it proves my point about the odo though. So, once I've got the guaranteed pulse train, from Sensor No 1 via the pulse shaper, it's time to fit the SLD, (See other thread) then I can see if my 120 MPH problem has gone away. I'm going to update this thread only in as much as I reach conclusion on the odo, then it'll all be about the SLD. Oh yeah! unless the SLD doesn't cure my 120MPH limit problem.

My mistake, £15. My chum, body-shop-man, went to collect it and pay for it and it became £15. Well I need some luck. I've done nothing but chase iffy speed conversion problems for a week of spare time and I'm spending all day Bank Holiday Sunday getting to the bottom of it. Then I'm taking it over to Essex on Monday to view yet another red open-top, a Honda as it happens...... ... an NTV Deauville. I can't make my mind up whether to get a Pan European for it's long legs (M40) or the Deauville for its manouverability in traffic (Regent Street). Never ridden a Deauville, so we'll see Monday. Big problem is that Deauvilles are built in Spain (Danger! Will Robinson. Danger!) Found a mint, high mileage, single owner Pan on a 'T' plate but it's blue. Oh well, can always get a colour change.

I will be most interested to hear her reaction to being asked to translate written technical Japanese, assuming that is that she's not a native or has native parents, as it takes about 13 years to learn to read/write Japanese comprehensively. The best we could hope for is that it's written using the 'low' Japanese pictograms and not one of the higher sets. One of the few things written in English says that the product is *not* to be used outside of Japan, ergo as it's not intended for installation outside of Japan, I guess they didn't see any need for an expensive multi-language translation.

...and now I've got the engine one too, for another £20 contribution to the workshop coffee fund. Bwuhaahaaahaaaaaaa!

Well it seems Honda-manager-family would love to reciprocate, having been getting my wife's friends to help them with English letters for a while now. Hopefully, this will happen sometime next week. Don't you just love this multi-cultural Britain (

Thanks Ash. I guess I'm going to have to lean on my friend in NJ. I maybe know one route to a local translation. One of the Japanese Honda managers is V friendly with one of my wife's friends. I'll try that devious route. I'm guessing, if I do get this done, there's some interest in the output.

DOH! forgot email notification.

Super efficient as always, SHOP! has delivered my HKS bits. However, I don't read Japanese. Now I have sent a scanned copy to a Japanese friend in New Jersey but I'm not sure how quickly she'll get back to me. My Japanese friends in Tokyo's English isn't so good and I'd worry about their translation when connecting up the large number of wires on the SLD. Being middle management distance from the Honda factory in Swindon, we have a number of Honda's ex-pat managers living in the surrounding district and whose children attend the same school as mine; however they're on summer break. It would help me immensely if someone has already installed the auto SLD kit or, better yet, already has the English version.

Well it must have *some* effect but I bet you can't measure it on a Supra.

Well, until Ash tells us the formula, I understand it's something to do with the P/V ratio, i.e., if you can supply air at a particular rate and you know the volume then you can calculate the time to achieve any pressure. So if you increase the volume and don't change the air supply then it will take longer to achieve the same pressure. To maintain the status quo (don't go there), if you change one parameter you have to change another to maintain the same P/V end-point. So you could compare blowing up a bin-bag as opposed to blowing up a crisp bag. (Edited by Paul Booth at 2:58 pm on Aug. 22, 2001)

No, it's fine.

and hence modify the Jap speedo, not the wiring loom. As and when I *do* acquire a uk speedo, I'll just be able to pull the j-spec one and not have to mod the loom *again*.

Phil, Do what I'm doinmg, mod the Speedo, *not* the wiring loom. This of course means restoring the wiring loom back to original and that's where you find out that it's all been fudged and they've probably knackered the output buffer on the odo pulse shaper circuit which is why they were feeding the speed signal line to the ECUs with converter output 2. DOH! I have a replacement odo coming off a dead Supra for £45.

Surprised you didn't mediate this one John (For Sale/Wanted)