hello all,
recently brought a liteace, great little motor, and how about this for luck, a garage opened across the road from where i live that sells townies and liteaces and does servicing work! i had a chat with their mechanics and learnt quite a bit. as for black smoke, before you rush in and buy new injectors, try some diesel injector cleaner, which you can buy from halfords for about £5.00 and is good for about 2000 miles. you just pour into your fuel tank. as for sluggish acceleration, there is an adjustment you can make on the cable to the auto gearbox as it connects to the turbo. usually in this country, they release this adjustment to as far back as they can, which results in better fuel consumption, but gives you elderly acceleration. i found this a little anoying, so i altered this adjustment by about 2 - 3 mm, or about 3 full turns of the adjusting nuts and now my liteace accelerates quite reasonably without a big reduction in fuel consumption!
hope this helps,
cheers,
eagleneil
thanx for this info eagleneil but where exactly is this cable to the auto gearbox,not too sure about the position dave l
i can only speak about the configuration on my liteace, don't know if it's the same for the townie! there are two cables that connect to the turbo, one goes over the cam at the front of the engine, that is the throttle. the other has two locking nuts onto the body of the turbo. if your vehicle is sluggish, check to see if you have any thread showing to the right of the right hand nut! if you haven't, then this is the trouble, release the left hand nut and give it 3 - 4 full turns, then do the same for the right hand nut to lock it back in place. if done right then you will have 3-4 threads showing on the right of the right hand nut! apparently, this is the factory setting in japan because they just do town driving and need the extra acceleration. seems garages think we appreciate the extra mpg the more sluggish performance gives. i didn't!
nor do i !!!!!dave l - (#623) dave linney, 22 Jul 01

Umm that'll be the kickdown cable on the injection pump?- the turbo is under the driver's seat and doesn't connect to anything... - (#625) David Miller, 23 Jul 01

That's what I thought. Eagleneil - are you referring to the cable with an orange plastic sleeve on it?
Ian - (#626) Ian Dunse, 23 Jul 01

Yes I am, it is the kickdown cable. Didn't realise it was the injection pump, a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing eh? Especially when not in command of the full facts!
Eagleneil - (#632) Eagleneil, 23 Jul 01

In which case I don't see how adjusting the changedown is going to enhance fuel consumption. Correct adjustment of this was covered in an earlier thread.
Ian - (#636) Ian Dunse, 24 Jul 01

I wasn't trying to enhance fuel consumption, but improve acceleration, I've been informed that my liteace will have a bit more go because of the lighter body. I did not see the earlier thread as I have only just found your site. Obviously, I would be better to keep my info, all be it fragmented to myself, so as not to cause people to make wrong adjustments!
Eagleneil. - (#655) Eagleneil, 25 Jul 01

Liteace, spacey, townie. They're all heavy, none of them go. And adjusting the kickdown cable will only alter the amount of "throttle" that the tranny changes at. Foot to the floor is foot to the floor, regardless... - (#656) David Miller, 25 Jul 01