Nissan Patrol 4x4 (Africa)

Howzit guys,

Okay I spoke to Graham the other day about my power loss issues, and he suggested to start with fuel pump pressure. Clamped off the fuel return line and drove: No noticeable difference. He then said the under bonnet temps get too high, especially as I have branches which are open, not insulated. So I got some asbestos tape and wrapped up the branches, then ran out. I've got about half the exposed exhaust pipes covered.

BTW, just coz of the tape, don't thing the exhaust is cold! I drove a long uphill, turned off and popped the hood and touched the branch expecting it to be cold. The blister on my hand says it was not.

Anyway, no difference after that either. Will insulate the rest shortly, but want to focus on reducing air intake temps, so my question is this: (Don't laff, bloody agent...)

Can I use foil type ceiling insulation (Sisalation) to wrap up my air intake system from fender thru air cleaner housing to just short of the head?

Shoot with some ideas okes, I cant imagine the troll needs to gear to second to climb a hill at 50kmh with an EMPTY trailer on the back surely!?

Sharp

Gavin, 'om the meet is om te weet' - you can do one of two things to try determine if you are really losing power.
Go have a dyno done, or find a mate with similar model Patrol and do some one on one comparisons on acceleration etc.
As an engineer, I was taught you need to know for sure before you start trying to fix things.

Some Engineering Wisdoms!

Engineering is done with numbers. Analysis without numbers is only an opinion.
To design a system right takes an infinite amount of effort. This is why it's a good idea to design them to operate when some things are wrong.
Design is an iterative process. The necessary number of iterations is one more than the number you have currently done. This is true at any point in time.
Your best design efforts will inevitably wind up being useless in the final design. Learn to live with the disappointment.
Three points determine a curve.
Everything is linear if plotted log-log with a fat magic marker.
At the start of any design effort, the person who most wants to be team leader is least likely to be capable of it.
In nature, the optimum is almost always in the middle somewhere. Distrust assertions that the optimum is at an extreme point.
Not having all the information you need is never a satisfactory excuse for not starting the analysis.
When in doubt, estimate. In an emergency, guess. But be sure to go back and clean up the mess when the real numbers come along.
Sometimes, the fastest way to get to the end is to throw everything out and start over.
There is never a single right solution. There are always multiple wrong ones, though.
Design is based on requirements. There's no justification for designing something one bit "better" than the requirements dictate.
(Edison's Law) "Better" is the enemy of "good".
(Shea's Law) The ability to improve a design occurs primarily at the interfaces. This is also the prime location for screwing it up.
The previous people who did a similar analysis did not have a direct pipeline to the wisdom of the ages. There is therefore no reason to believe their analysis over yours. There is especially no reason to present their analysis as yours.
The fact that an analysis appears in print has no relationship to the likelihood of its being correct.
Past experience is excellent for providing a reality check. Too much reality can doom an otherwise worthwhile design, though.
The odds are greatly against you being immensely smarter than everyone else in the field. If your analysis says your terminal velocity is twice the speed of light, you may have invented warp drive, but the chances are a lot better that you've screwed up.
A bad design with a good presentation is doomed eventually. A good design with a bad presentation is doomed immediately.
(Larrabee's Law) Half of everything you hear in a classroom is crap. Education is figuring out which half is which.
When in doubt, document. (Documentation requirements will reach a maximum shortly after the termination of a program.)
The schedule you develop will seem like a complete work of fiction up until the time your customer fires you for not meeting it.
It's called a "Work Breakdown Structure" because the Work remaining will grow until you have a Breakdown, unless you enforce some Structure on it.
Following a testing failure, it's always possible to refine the analysis to show that you really had negative margins all along.
Schedules only move in one direction.
To get an accurate estimate of final program requirements, multiply the initial time estimates by pi, and slide the decimal point on the cost estimates one place to the right.
If you want to have a maximum effect on the design of a new engineering system, learn to draw. Engineers always wind up designing the vehicle to look like the initial artist's concept.
You can't get to the moon by climbing successively taller trees.
When the hardware is working perfectly, the really important visitors don't show up.
Space is a completely unforgiving environment. If you screw up the engineering, somebody dies (and there's no partial credit because most of the analysis was right...).
If there’s a 50% chance of failure then 9 times out of 10 it will fail.
Remember Engineering is the art of modelling materials we do not fully understand into shapes we cannot accurately predict so as to withstand forces we cannot properly assess in such a way that the public has no reason to suspect the extent of our ignorance.

Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.

Do you have a snorkel fitted Gavin?

What am I missing here? Is this the same car I sugested to close the fuel return?

Hi Oom Frans,

Sorry I've been out of action for a while, even considered trading my trollies in on something else. I don't mind the heavy fuel consumption if I get the performance out of it, but most days my troll really struggles on the uphills, and I mean sukkel. The raod to the farm next door is a kronkel tar road that climbs about 160m over 2km, most times it would gear to second to get up there. With an empty trailer on, definitely in second and prob no more than 30kmh. For 185kw, this is not right.

Eks nie seker of dit oom was wat gese het ek moet die fuel return afknyp nie, maar Graham het, en ek het dit gedoen met geen verskil nie. Wat ek wel agter gekom het is dat daar 'n vacuum was in die brandstof tenk, toe het ek twee gaatjies deur die cap geboor en meeste van die tyd BAIE beter. Maar my troll is meer buierig as my vrou op 'n slegte dag. Dan vlieg hy en vat net hier en daar grond, dan kruip hy weer soos 'n dronkmens rond.

Ek kan nie verstaan hoekom hy so maak nie, maar klink my dis nie heeltemal buite die norm vir die autos nie??

@Stefan,

No don't have a snorkel fitted yet, but that's first (read cheapest) on my list of next to do. I wanted to trade my troll and very nearly did for a navara last week, but thankfully I guzzled some red wine with my swear on the weekend and he convinced me that a bigger instalment on a turbo diesel would not necessarily solve my problem. I tend to think he's right. We have small kids at the moment, but we're offroad campers at heart and will definitely want to do so again once the kids are a little bigger, so 4x2 would not have been wise...

Anyhow, to answer your question again, no, no snorkel. Do you have one and would you say it makes worthwhile difference?

Thanks guys!

Gav

I think you must just take your patrol to graham for a check up
He has all the kit to test it properly . You could have a bloced exhaust bad feul pump bad or dirty feul filter ect ect .
my 4.8 had similar usses and it was becouse of a tank of bad feul

O yes and he can fit a snorkel for just over 3k

O yes and he can fit a snorkel for just over 3k

Hey guys,

Yes I kind of thought that's the only way. I'll have to drive it up to him and fly back to Nelspruit, then fly up again to fetch. He said he needs it for about 2 days :)

Thanks for the advice guys!

Gavin, it sounds like this car has some aftermarket mods (branch etc), and if there are branches, you can be sure there is a chip mod or something similar - this could be where your problem lie - find out who did the mods and what was done - maybe they can help.
Have a dyno test, or do some comparative performance checks with another 4.8, this will tell you a lot.
Good luck...