akciddento

kevo waterskiing

just realised how much the picture of kevo building the stairs at raceshack looks like this

kevo, waterskiing on stilts...

check back to yesterday and tell me it's not true !

more new!

well! here they are, scott at BAE in bristol called to let me know he'd got the leads from bosch... how much hassle has this been ?

ah well, they're in the bus, new plugs, plug leads and new coilpack...

BIG GRIN ON MY FACE!

bus runs smooth, maybe a little rich still but no lumpiness, no smoke, no hesitation on throttle... let's see how long it lasts!

mayeb i will actually be ready for the summer nationals this weekend ! last yeat tha the summer nats i got into the finals only to break out. I still got a trophy, and a cheque, awarded standing up on the big VIP balcony at the startline infront of a crowd!

also on this weekend is beachbuggin' down on southsea common in portsmouth. Hubbs is taking the wedge of doom and the tradestall down there to off load dodgy gear onto the residents of the south east and soak up some sun and bring it back to bristol....
I'm looking forward to liberating some cash from the stock as there a loads of new designs i want to get moving on.. the compilation album is also ready and waiting for replication....

gaah! so much i want to do....

and don't get me started on the hundred quid polo challenge.....

:D

new new new !

well, here's the coilpack i got in the post from DTA.

it's actually a valeo coil rather than a sagem one though the mountings are the same as are the pluglead sockets and the loom socket.....

here they are side by side, old and new prior to fitment...

i swapped the coilpack, changed the plugs and checked the oil, all in about twenty minutes. Then a quick blast up the M5 to see what's going on at Raceshack. Conor had posted some pictures of the new dyno arrivign on a 40ft trailer a few days previously so i was keen to see what was up and if there was any stuff i could help with.
I'd been over at the new industrial unit in tewkesbury a week or so previous painting the floor ready for the new equipment.

onto the m5 and whilts the engine is still running warm it is running much better, getting passed by a bazzed up renault clio something or other made for an entertaining 10 miles or so ;D. when i arrived teach botch were there in force adding the finishing touches to a 4 post car lift big enough to get a lorry on whilst the electricians did their best to sort out the wiring for the whole building. I hung around and helped with building the stairs for the mezanine and other things, got some tea and headed back to ak hq...

well let's see if this works!

after an afternoon spent running around bristol yesterday sourcing parts i returned to home base with a couble of sets of new spark plugs, an oil change gasket kit (another one) some more oil and the promise that BAE electrical would get back to me about sourcing new bosch plug leads.. (the hassle getting these has surprised me, all the motor factors ask the same question 'what, model, what year, what colour' telling them its the same as a recent EFI citroen is no help at all, if it's not from a 3 year old blue ford mondeo they don't want to know...

hubbs scavenged some parts for his t25 wedge from arthur and mark at dub depot and got the prized foglight bits he needed - all the stuff is in the wedge for rear fogs but his model didn't have them 'switched on'...

getting pack to akciddento towers i realised just how soon the Summer Nationals race meet is... IE THIS FRIDAY!

so i bit the bullet and ordered a replaceement coil pack from DTA in Manchester with the promise that they'd put it straight on a courier.... I ordered at 2pm yesterday and at 9.30 this morning there was a knock on the door and there it was ! :D

then the phone rang and scott from BAE says he can geet the bosch leads i need, they'll be in tomorrow by 10am... things are looking up. let's just hope that this sorts out the problems. if you're at the summer nationals at santa pod this weekend and you see someeone in a red fireproof babygrow weeping and muttering tearing out the last of his hair then you'll know what's happened...

i also picked up a copy of the new UltraVW yesterday and there's a great picture of the samba at the dubs in the park meeting a few weeks back... very cool. also theree's the big double page advert i layed up for conor at Raceshack which looks cool, the CMYK conversion looks a little washed out but generally it's ok...
what made me smile big time is the little section announcing the


akciddento bus land speed record party!


august 22nd at the raceshack facility, Tewkesbury, Junction 9 of the M5.

I guess i beetter start pushing the publicity on this one then doh!

entry 200 !!!!!

well, here it is! entry number two hundred in the weblog,
i've been writing (sporadically at times i must admit) this weblog for just over a year now, so i guess thats and entry every two days or so...

it's been fun, though there have been times when it seemed like a chore, gaps in the blog when there were things that i wanted to write about but wasn't sure whether to or not...

ah well, one day i'm going to go back over the last few hundred entries and update, fill in and correct (yes i may even spell chck theem too!)...

but,
until that day :D

it's getting ready for VWoodstock show time, hubbs has trucked off to devon to deliver emma to a craft show where she is trading some of her new jewellery designs (see them here at emmacaton.com ) and i've got bus stuff to do...

an oil and filter change, change some of the oil cooler hose and check the timing..
i had a positive day yesterday with a laptop plugged into the bus twiddling, trying to track down the overfuelling problem.. after checking and cleaning the plugs i think i found one of the things, i reset the throttle stops last week and that seemed to have helped, in the ECU map there is a table for 'throttle pump effect' that dumps more fuel through the injectors when you floor the throttle. The map has 4 setting for differeent rev ranges and each range lets you set the total movement of the peedal needed to activate the map, how much extra fuel to dump in and how long (in turns of the crank) to keep dumping the fuel in...

well, th pedal sensor range is between 0 and 200, with reasonable figure for the activation being 25-75. the 0-1500rpm map was set to kick in at 2 ! and then dump 50% more fuel in ! (basically this means that it was almost permanently on dumping 50% extra fuel in) and the slightest touch of the pedal would trigger the enrichment again!...

i reset the figures to 35 on the pedal trigger and reduced the enrichment to 35% so i'll see how it goes... i'm bringing the steampowered PC laptop i use for the ECU mapping with me so i can twiddle over the weekend if neccessary...

got to go and interfere with the bus some more! see you all at VWoodstock show, don't forget, i'll be djing on the temporary radio station between 3 and 4am on saturday night. except for the regular readers we have in the southern hemisphere who might find that it's a bit of a long drive for the weekend...

it's spring

a productive morning processing image files and uploading all new shirt images to the ak shop and also adding the rather swank ak pitcrew shirts then onto the spannering on the beige wedge of captain hubbs...

the headlights he needed are in (care of andy F in norwich) the welding than needed doing is done (care of dub depot in bristol) and now we have sorted the front springs out... so all being well he'll have a ticket on it tomorrow and can proceed to VWoodstock show this weekend !

i've got a DJ slot on the VWoodstock site radio station (88.6fm if memory serves me) and i'm kinda excited about it, though it is at 3am.....

:D

off to deva dubs and rods show

we're off for the weekend toi deva dubs and rods showq at chester race course....

i've been running around all morning, finished stuff on the website for emma, emmmacaton.com with loads of her new jewellery and sculpture on it, including the incredibly disturbing roedeer foetus sculptures.....

trucked down to the printers to checkout the colours for new shirt designs and went through the first few to check it all... the new designs are looking MMMMMmmMMMmm

also got louie to wash and polish the bus ! did an excellent job too !
half polished it looked great, pale blue and covered in swirls. it also made the bodywork look everso straight!

ah well, off to pack the rest of the gear... I've got the laptop and the fm transmitter so we'll be djing a horribvle mashup noise out on 88.1FM tonight on radio akciddento....

don't say we didn't warn you...

SMEG!

looking at the cooker last night i realised that i might be better off taking the ignition off the hob top and putting it into my bus...

all i would need was a bit more plumbing, a small child or trained monkey pressing the buttons down very very fast and a very long extension cable....

maybe while i was at it i could convert it to run on housegas ?

how cool would that be ?

why ?

went to the pub with hubbs and on the way back this was still parked down the road,

completely stock dark blue vauxhall cavalier, with stock steel wheels and plastic wheel trims, has big orange flames stuck on the side (full of wrinkles) and this huge wing on the back ??????????

what's that all about ?

i know i've seen it a million times on the web and driving around town but this was just round the corner from MY HOUSE!

crack dealers at the end of my garden is one thing but this sort of stuff really makes me start top worry if this is the kind of place i want my children to grow up in...