Air horns, anyone?

In this case, seven or eight years and 100k. As sloppy as a MKIII
Cortina, with added body roll. Dead smooth on (straight) potholed
roads, mind.

I'd forgotten that. Bloody awful - but not as bad as the Viva, which
required the engine to be running (!) while setting them. Using
specially hardened feelers, obviously. And gritted teeth.

 

Only the "PI" (Petrol Injection) models. Most of them had bloody awful
twin Strombergs, or the nearly as bad Solexes. Mate of mine made up
adaptors for SU carbs - they went like hot cakes.

Mechanical fuel injection wasn't known for its accuracy, nor
reliability. Whilst a carbed 2000 was capable of 30mpg on a good day,
you'd never better 25mpg in a PI and frequently get into the teens with
a heavy right foot. A well set up 2000 fitted with SU carbs would
return 30mpg reliably, with little or no performance hit - I could
never understand why they didn't fit them in the factory.

Mind you, I see the SU as a cureall - but not as much as my mate Dirty
Keith, who engineered a long-tract manifold for one and fitted it to
his Transit. It was a bit slower off the mark than with the FoMoCo POS
it replaced, but /much/ torquier and 10mpg better. Wonderful.

 

I did exactly that for my yellow Tranny - quite a simple elbow.

 

Haar, too simple for DK - he'd read my book on "Performance Tuning For
Fourstroke Engines" (prolly still got it, too, the sticky-fingered
little oik) and he wanted an extra-long inlet tract for maximum torque.
He was a good empirical engineer, actually, for a casual layabout
welder and stock car builder. Anyway, this inlet went out of one side,
over the top of the cam cover and down on the other side, so as to give
enough space for the Stub Stack and cone K&N filter - he'd obviously
got as far as Chapter Seven.