Andy brought the car off Ediz Mehmet in the Summer of 2000. He had spent weeks trying to find a good 16v 5-door Tipo in reasonable travelling distance (100 mile or so), scanning the web-sites (autotrader etc and this site) until he decided that had to talk to Ediz. He talked on the phone several times, settled on a reasonable figure, when to see it and brought it. Andy says he had a lot of fun driving it back from North London!
The car had a lot of work carried out by Ediz (clutch, brakes, belts, MOT, powerflow exhaust, cat removal, K&N, Momo's), but unfortunately it still needed more. It had persistent cold starting problems and ran rough when cold (but OK when warm). Andy has since buying it, had one of the cam-shafts replaced (very worn) and all the tappets had been set 30 thou' less than they should have been.
The car is now a hell of a lot better. More power and acceleration and better MPG! but he is still am not entirely satisfied with the idling when started for the first time in a day. It chugs a bit and then the revs hunt by about 200 RPM (800-1000) for about 30 seconds. The garage has still not tracked it down, they have tested all the sensors, but not found a problem.
Ediz has discovered that since having the cat removed the car suffers from pinking on hot days. He thinks this may be the car is flowing too much air now and that the standard ECU can't cope. Ediz sort of fixed the problem by blocking off the EGR (Exhaust Gas Recycler) to prevent hot exhaust gasses passing back into the inlet manifold. It did not seem to have caused any side effects.
