C4inLA

You chaps in NZ are living right. Clearly you're in need of massive population growth of both human and farm animals.... I haven't enjoyed roads that empty around SoCal in decades...

Curious, what octane are you running in NZ Pcars and may I ask price per gallon?

Cheers!

John McM

A US gallon of RON 95 costs USD 5.70 in NZ. My mileage for the trip was 28.7 miles per US gallon. I was impressed as we weren't trying to be frugal.

As for driving conditions, we only have 4.5 million people for a land mass the size of the UK. As it's an agricultural country there are roads everywhere to service farms and they often have lots of corners. Get up early enough and you have the road largely to yourself e.g. We drove 110 miles through a gorge and only encountered one car going the same way. Mind you we started out at 6:30 am.

C4inLA

RON 95, we only dream about it .... That will make an engine happy... RON 91 is the norm and I personally have never seen RON 93 offered at service stations ... 91 is usd $3.00 per gallon right now, trending up ....

John McM

Last year, a fellow Rennlister and I hatched a plan to make a set of bespoke valve covers for my car. Well actually I had the idea and he had all of the skills to make it happen. He put the design in solid works and arranged a CNC shop to make the prototypes. However, it took so long to get them done that I fitted my OE covers. Now the engine is out we're back into it. The covers need to be re machined but I think the next ones will be the production version.

John McM

Since I'm waiting on the new valve covers I've loose fitted parts to the engine to reduce the required storage area. Looks like a real engine now. It's come a long way in the last few weeks.

Deserion

John, I continue to enjoy your progress with the engine. It's one more piece of inspiration for when I (eventually) get a lift in my garage.

In North America, gasoline is labeled with AKI (R+M)/2 (Anti-Knock Index [RON+MON]/2). So 95 RON is equivalent to 91 AKI (98 RON/93 AKI is what I run).

C4inLA

Thanks Deserion for the chemistry lesson, good info ....

John McM

Playing with the seats tonight. Unfortunately it appears I have lost a small drive shaft on each of the recovered seats so I can't fit them back in the Silver car.

John McM

1,100 mile road trip completed. There is no other car I would consider for this than a C4.

John McM

A post road trip check revealed a torn outer front right CV boot. Unfortunately the 460 Nm torque on the axle nut was too much for my 1/2 inch to 3/4 inch adapter. Time to go 3/4" all the way.

John McM

My Silver C4 interior was linen and mostly vinyl. Now the seats are all Black nappa leather, front and rear. Today I finally received the rears. Here they are pictured next to the vinyl ones from my other C4.

ffc

What do you use for this? A very long breaker, a VERY big torque wrench or a torque multiplier?

My set-up goes from 1/2 to 3/4 and looks like this.

John McM

I have a torque multiplier but just added a 500Nm torque wrench to my tools. It was the torque wrench that monstered the adapter. Looking on line there is a good reason my torque wrench is 3/4" for that torque range. I simply overloaded a 1/2" tool.

ffc

You must be much stronger than me! I would need a very long extension on a torque wrench to get to 340lbs (or some help)|

John McM

You're likely being polite. 6' 4" and a few too many pastries plus a big wrench outweighs outright strength.