SteveSmith

Travis - you asked earlier for a Freescan log. Here you go: http://lexi.mantaur....Run20120513.csv This was taken back in May. My notes to Sparky at the time were as follows: "Finally managed to find a bit of time and some sunny weather yesterday to take the car out for a logged run. As expected, it drove like a dogs dinner, coughing and spluttering and backfiring in the 2400 to 3200 RPM range under light to medium load. This is the EXACT behaviour I have always known since I bought the car and makes driving it very unpleasurable !! Things of note are: 1 - The warm up cycle is still a great improvement since you adjusted the minimum air rate screw - idle is pretty good and it doesn't bog down all the time its in Open Loop. 2 - As soon as it switches to Closed Loop, things start going wrong including the above described issue of holding the throttle steady (whilst stationary) and after a couple of seconds the revs drop dramatically and it backfires and then picks up again and repeats this cycle. The CEL then comes on, reporting the Code 24 as previously described. 3 - At the end of the run (and as previously noted), the engine tends to idle very high (1500rpm ish) despite the desired idle clearly showing 987rpm."

Oh - was really hoping the running issue was all down to that crack in the elbow Worth swapping out anyway ?? Can't be a *good* thing to have a crack in your pressure line...

As someone who knows a thing or two about this problem car, I know I mentioned it previously but forgot to mention it again on Saturday, there is a crack in the plastic elbow for the pressure line going into the MAP sensor. I know the MAP data is reading OK but maybe, just maybe, fiddling with the pipe around the elbow seals it enough to run well for a couple of weeks but then degrades ?? Really wish I'd remembered to remind you of that on Saturday... May be just another red herring of course

Can you see the printer's properties in Printers & Faxes ?? If so, is there a test print facility ?? That should identify why it isn't working.

What error are you getting when you try to print ?? There's no reason why the virtual XP machine would behave any differently to a physical one as long as its seeing the USB connected printer OK.

Sounds odd. Be interested to know what kernel... If it can run off XP with drivers then the virtual machine option would be fine. Failing that, I can lay my hands on a number of redundant 5 - 8 year old laptops. Happy to help out with either option

How about running a virtual XP machine on your Win 7 laptop using Virtual PC 2007 ?? Only needs to be a basic install with minimal resources... Would save on having to have extra hardware lying around.

Main BBC sites appear down if you go to the homepages but I can see the article above if I click the link !!

Loved the tank slapper take off. Still glad I opted for aero tow

Here we go with some photos together with captions where appropriate: Our intrepid leader showing us his photographic skillz: Our group being shown the controls and instruments: Trev enjoying an 'intimate moment' while Bibs watches with great interest...: Aerotow takeoff: PTFE's turn: Trev coming down from his high: Bibs' turn for an 'intimate moment': He clearly enjoyed it...: GKP wondering whether the glider will make the same noise as his Aston: The 'Gods of Gliding' were clearly enjoying this as much as the rest of us...: Oh and there were some rather lovely cars there too :

Thanks folks for a wonderful afternoon / evening. Still buzzing from the flying experience and the beer, food and company at The Plough afterwards was fantastic. Great to see you all. I'll post some of my pics shortly.

Have heard from a few friends locally that their BT Broadband connection is dead too... Must be a Kent thing.

AAAAAAARRRRGGGGHHH !!!!! I LOST Battery completely FUBAR'd - not holding any charge at all and don't have time to replace it. I'm still coming but will arrive with slightly less presence... Currently clear skies out there but rain forecast for early evening and my Dad, who was booked for a hot air balloon flight this afternoon, has just had his flight cancelled because of this threat. I think thats completely daft but is it worth checking with the gliding club just in case ??

I'm currently sitting in my office which is about 5 mins away from the gliding club and looking out to some lovely sunshine (despite some earlier rain) and the trees are hardly moving. Its a good day to go flying Sadly the Esprit didn't agree with me when I needed to leave for work but I'm hoping to go home at lunchtime and coax it into coming. A fight may ensue but I don't lose lightly...

Trev A brief translation of Bibs' helpful post is that it won't be quite the clear skies I previously predicted but the wind is still set to be light and very little chance of rain

The forecast for Thursday evening is currently showing as clear skies and very light wind... Not bad gliding weather I reckon

Was lovely to see 6 Belgian registered Elises go right past my house this morning in convoy. They even had a support van running behind them !! My guess is that they were taking the scenic coastal route (A259) from the ferry to Goodwood FOS.

Hi Alan Welcome back !! Bizarrely I was only thinking about you and your car (being a twin to mine) the other day and wondering whether you still had it !! I remember you saying some years ago that you were considering selling the Esprit and getting a Nissan 350Z to replace it... Regarding your car dilemma, I'm not best qualified to give advice as my car has spent much of the last 9 years of my ownership in the garage but I still love it and would be very reluctant to sell it despite the best efforts of my wife Depending on what it needed doing when you garaged it 4 years ago, as long as your garage isn't damp and you've managed to keep the brakes freed up, there probably isn't too much that will have deteriorated - I speak from experience on this. If you're still passionate about the car, I'd say keep it and spend money on getting it right. If it would be a half-hearted venture, I'd say sell it as is to someone who could take on what is probably a fairly minor project to get it back on the road again. Cheers Steve

AU59*** so its a Norfolk registered car. Spotted it quite some distance ahead and took me an age to get my wife's gutless 1.6 Focus to catch up and pass it and it then followed me off at my junction (presumably to visit the services). Looked really gorgeous - wife's comment: "Its got quite a fat arse hasn't it". Nuff said really

1. GT111 2. Bibs 3. Laura 4. Trevsked. 5. Chris (redvtec) 6. SteveSmith

I was hoping to bring the Esprit to this meet but its playing up again big time and I'm not sure I fancy the 80 mile round trip in it. I've got Sparky on the case checking the Freescan logs so we'll see...

Mmmmmmmmm beeeeeeeeer Mmmmmmmmm BBQ

As the official quality controller of Bibs' Beertm, I shall be on your doorstep in a couple of weeks time to approve the latest batch

Was literally just parking up outside my house and a gorgeous red S3 came past heading East towards Folkestone. Also, on a side note and not worthy of another spotted post really, I was out locally in my Esprit just for a quick blat since Sparky worked wonders on it a couple of weeks ago and was met on a narrow lane by a blue Elise S1. Huge smiles and waves from both parties !! Aside from arranged meets, its the first time I've spotted another Lotus whilst out in mine