MOT Pass

Computer says yes!

One more year on the road, MOT test professionally worked through by Tom at http://www.staplehursttyres.co.uk. I am all legal for another 12 months open top motoring.

Good friendly and flexible team at the testing station - thank you!

Its reasonably stressful having someone else checking my Zero, I definitely want a first class MOT test - I'm trusting my life to the car - but even so, I put every nut and bolt into this machine, theres a lot of effort and emotional investment.

Emissions adjustment

I think I finally have the emissions worked out! 

I spent 20-30 minutes adjusting the map before the test, Staplehurst tyres let me use their emissions equipment to fine adjust things. The map wasn't far off, just needed a tweak to 14.7 AFR in some key areas (calibrated), and adjust the underlying injection map to ensure the Lambda wasn't pegging at its 20% adjustment limits - i.e. give it enough leeway to do its job actively managing the fuelling.

The new wide-band lambda gauge helped massively, now I have the equipment on the car to actually accurately measure and adjust the fuelling.

Once we had all stable green on the test machine - Tom setup the MOT test proper.

Learnings:

  1. Use an accelerator holding device for the fast idle test for consistency 

  2. Don't adjust or leave things too long on slow idle since everything (CAT) seemed to cool down and readings wander.

  3. Adjust one thing and wait - give it at least 5-10 seconds to settle before making the next change- force myself into a think-adjust-wait-think MO and avoid rushing things.

  4. Don't be afraid of re-loading the before adjustment map - start again from a known point if things are not going in the right direction.

MOT Test

The test itself was no issues,

I already had emissions dialed-in from the adjustment session, so let them settle again and watch the count down timer on the test machine until it turns into a green tick,

..nothing found on the suspension shake/rattle tests, steering or fuel system etc. I'm much more relaxed about the physical part of the test - if there is a problem I know how to fix it - or I know I can find out how to fix it with tools in the garage.

Headlights within limits but a little high on the nearside.

If only I had space for a lift like this - it would make life so much easier for maintenance...

The to do list now has:

1. New tyres required, rear nearside is especially low on the inside edge. This was due anyway but I thought I would get the MOT out of the way before investing in them, i.e. didn't know if I was looking at a re-map first!

2. Offside rear bearing has a small amount of movement when no load on it, sounds and runs fine, but probably an indicator of a job to come. If I'm replacing the bearing then I may look at some camber shims for the rear at the same time,  no particular rush on this though.

3. Headlight alignment - again I'm within limits just needs a little adjustment.

4. Reverse engagement sticky when on the rollers - need to keep an eye on it

Otherwise we should be good!