Bonjour,
Last autumn, I posted the news that I was going to get the CVH engine in my 1987 4/4 4-seater replaced by a 1.8 litre VVT engine and around early December I posted again to say that it had been done.
I don’t know if I said it but Kevin Vernon did a superb job and gave me back a new car, or almost! The engine bay had been stripped bare, cleaned and repainted, the radiator, fan, engine, gearbox, exhaust and front brakes had been replaced. The rear brakes and the master cylinder had been stripped and cleaned.
The only external sign of any work having been done was the Start Engine button which filled the hole in the dashboard where the big red key used to be.
Pretty bald postings because when I picked up the converted car, the weather was bad and it stayed like that for a long time, right through until about April. Hence, no driving beyond the limits of prudence until two months ago. Since then, I have said rather too many times, I think, that the conversion is cheek-bulgingly ginormous. Acceleration is phenomenal and where it was a question of keeping the speed up on the motorway it is now a question of holding it down. The temptation is to use every hill as a launch pad to the stars, which is very good for the morale but potentially for now not too good for the wallet.
Starting begins with a whirr from the electric pump (Kevin added one of those as well) and then a push on the Start Engine button, whereupon the engine turns and catches, revs up to nearly 3000 RPM then falls back to about 850RPM and stays there.
Pulling away was potentially jerky, the accelerator being skittish in the low gears (see below), but once you get her moving all the rest is a pleasure.
The only comments I had for Kevin Vernon when I took the car back for a service were that the accelerator was too savage in the low gears and that the engine revs surged on start-up. The second has been more or less programmed out, but there is still some, whereas the hi-tech solution to the savage accelerator was simply to bend the pedal shaft so that my foot now eases it rather than angling (?) it. The only incident was a refusal to start when I had stopped to fill the tank on the way home in November. In a underground petrol station outside Calais at 7PM on a cold and wet Sunday evening at the end of November and not a soul around. Thankfully there was the mobile with its 2 bars of battery left. Those who knew got me home – an important fuse linked to the engine management system had blown. So I whipped the hooter fuse across to replace it and drove home with no audible means of approach but don’t tell anyone. It turns out that the wiring loom had been changed but the fuses had not.
The first big test was the May Bank Holiday weekend, 4 days of driving without a hitch, followed up by Amiens to Market Drayton and back, with detours. Confidence reigns supreme.
I’m not too keen on reading road tests because they only give you a partial impression of what driving a particular car is like. So I’ll just say that if ever you get a chance to drive a VVT 4/4, you’ll be a fool if you turn it down.
Oh yes, the fuel consumption is somewhere in the mid-30’s if I behave myself. With running-in (the car and me), it should improve.
And of course if and when GM go under, it'll appreciate enormously . . . I think.
Christopher.
