1972 Rover P6 2300TC - Saab B234 Turbo

Yeah, annoyingly too low with the sump and exhaust!

Fixed it now, dropped the front springs out, put half inch worth of shims under each spring and it's lifted the front up by an inch, so there's now about 1" rake front to rear











Then I turned my attention to the paint on the doors. Having a week of 6am starts at work has given me enough evening tinker time to get the doors in final basecoat and now first coat of lacquer. The objective of putting a decent hard wearing paint finish over the top is complete, though there is still lots of work to be done to make it really nice, but it'll do for now....









Not bad for being done on a hot and humid evening just before dark with a thunderstorm warning in place and after a week of starting work at 6am to beat the heat!

The front wings are clearly a shade darker and will need repainting sometime in the future along with most of the black trim, but for now it's wait for the lacquer to bake. refit the door handles and trim then it's almost ready for the road and RRG

Looking forward to taking it there again! I think the last time was at Prescott?

Couldn't resist a little top down photo opportunity, damn my P6 is hot



Little more progress accomplished. I needed to do a rough tune on the Megasquirt and as it isn't ready for the road the next best thing was block up the rear wheels, and run it in gear loading the engine up with the brakes. What could possibly go wrong?



Success! The fuel map was backed off and smoothed out which has made the engine a lot smoother. I was able to hold 5psi on the brakes, but after a few runs they were merrily smoking away and stunk for days

With a week gone by after painting the doors all of the trim has been refitted, and it's looking like a proper car again







One last minute addition was a front recovery point. Going by how reliably unreliable the P6 has been on varying fuel issues and how I'm starting out with a completely untested engine, ecu setup and fuel system I'm expecting the worst!







In the last photos it may become apparent that the P6 is frighteningly close to the Queen's highway....
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And this morning made it's way to my local mot station....


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Which was a fail
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I lie it passed



I drove it straight to work, it cruised nicely, accelerated nicely, brakes are improving after the long lay up, steering was spot on, it just went too well!

Of course something had to break, and there appears to be a fuelling issue under boost leading to a sudden cut in power on hard throttle. I'm thinking it's the fuel pump maybe being weak, or something else causing a loss of fuel pressure as the afr reads lean just before it cuts? Light and mid throttle is fine. I have another fuel pump I can try, and doing that I'd like to fix the fuel gauge sender since that's just reading empty on a near full tank!

Nice work on the MOT pass, the car is looking absolutely spot on!

Well that's about 140miles done in the P6 now, and I think I've found the source of the only fault so far of the engine feeling like it's cutting out under load after 20 minutes driving. I fitted a fuel pressure gauge to the fuel rail feed, and it appears the fuel pump is failing when it gets warm, and cannot pump enough fuel to maintain pressure so it leans out under load. After 40 minutes the fuel pressure constantly fluctuates 2-4psi and struggles to maintain 40psi pressure. I don't think the fuel is getting particularly warm, though I can feel the heat from the axle rising up through the floor underneath the tank, but the tank is still relatively cool.



In a way this is the preferable fault, as it appears to be a mechanical fault which I can see and touch, and not something buried in the ecu that I don't understand! Now I need to drain the tank, replace the pump with my spare which I'd already bought, and fix the sender so I know how much fuel I've got to play with...

Before you get mucky....... tank vent? IS there one? Is it clear?

Does the pump make any odd noises? If it's changing to harsh buzz or sounds like it's pumping gravel - that's cavitation.

Nick

I demand a video when its running right .

You owe us that , you can't make such a filthy car and not provide one .

Excellent news re the MOT pass and glad that the fettling seems to be going well.

The fun you could have tearing up behind BMWS and Audis on a commute ...

It's a trivial thing but re the number plate lights, could you make the spacers angled to stop white light showing?

Great car and the blue really suits it.