After having had new remote central locking fitted, I saw aftermarket cruise control as a possible next option. System was £600 though, fitted. Anyone did this? And what system did you use?

no but would love to see it done!

777james777 has a kit fitted to his car. been in his car a number of times now and its veeeeeeery good . worth a pm, and if i remember rightly cost nearly half the price above.

Been thinking of it many times, only saw it in a 16VT ten years ago. Would be very nice to see a good example!

Yeah, I remember, but as I also seem to remember it was a mechanical locking kit. I don't know if these are legal and if they unlock when there is an internal problem / you touch the brakes / declutch / ...

i think it is a mechanical locking kit type. but im almost certain it unlocks when the brake or accelerater is pressed..... not sure about the clutch though.

oh but hes on holiday right now so probably wont be checking the forum. should be back soon though.

i looked at this some time ago and i remember reading Cruise control is easier to retro-fit to the VIS engine, cause its drive by wire rather than throttle cable.

ninja

I've looked into it in the past, and worried that there's a lot of installation to do - and of course, this being a coupe, a lot of places to get it wrong.

Most of the kits I came across were several hundred pounds. To be safe - dunno about the law, as far as I know you can just stick a brick on the loud pedal - you need to arrange for it to auto-disconnect when you hit the brake or clutch pedal, which means adding switches to at least one and ideally both of them. In a perfect world you'd want failsafe, so that hitting those pedals kills the power to the servo mechanically, even if the control unit's failed - but then, I'm an old and conservative engineer.

Servos are often vacuum driven, which can be an issue with a turbo car, so you'd need an electrical servo, and you have to make space to fit it to the throttle body.

Also you need a pickup from the speed sensor; getting the speed from the ECU is too slow for good servo response and non-recoverable if the link drops out at speed.

This page is worth a look: http://www.conrad-anderson.co.uk/conradanderson-prices/cc-prices.htm (not a recommendation, just that they discuss some of the issues and have prices).

Sent them a little e-mail.

Let us know what they have to say? I suspect this would be useful on my kit, which with 700kg and 220bhp is likely to be lively.

Strangely enough I've been thinking about cruise control recently and I found some kits on Ebay for £250-£300 but no idea of suitability etc.

First response looks promising... they propose the...

AP550 = £280
command module = £37,50 - £85
clutch switch = £16

This is for self-installation. I've asked some extra questions and looked some things up - looks like it's a module by 'Goldcruise'.

The system features an electric servo which can be mounted on classic throttle-cable cars. Although I can't find a listing that includes the Coupe. Also looks like they know the turbo as they didn't suggest the AP-300 which works on vacuum.

They were pretty swift with their answer so maybe they've already fitted one on a 20vt.

Anyway - asked some additional questions and if it's interesting I'll look into a group buy.

Although an interesting idea/plan maybe for you people who drive motorways everyday. But not sure where in UK you really get the chance to use it?
When I had a car with cc I used it to check that it worked, used it once as a novelty. The only good use was when driving through motorway roadworks 50mph speed limit time over distance. Set it, no worrying about overspeeding.
Never looked at the aftermarket units but mine you set the speed, then you could 'toggle' fine tune up and down desired speed. And as soon as you touched the brake it would cancel the cc. Sounds alot to retro fit!

What next? Auto?

Well, don't hold back on the requirements. I have just got confirmation that they have already installed the unit in the past on 94, 96 and 98 models.

What it does... (dlongstaff, pay attention...)

- set speed
- increase / decrease
- re-set speed after touching brakes / gas / clutch
- optionally have 3 readily-set speeds

So all and more that the standard kits give you. It actually works in parallel with your existing throttle cable or would even hookup to your accelerator pedal (depending on car).

You will be able to fit this yourself as it comes with detailed installation instructions. Or they can install it for you.

I'm checking for a final, reduced price for this.

Anyone that is genuinly interested should send me a Private Message please.

yhpm.

Kayjey,
I would think you would need to do a lot of motorway miles to want cruise control - found it very useful when I lived in the USA for a time (set at 55mph ), but it would never get used on my Coupe in SE England. Even on the motorways there is too much traffic going at different speeds to be useful IMHO,

Tim

I agree my last 4 cars have all had cruise fitted, and I have used it once properly, and that was in France. I tried to use it on a 200 mile trip at the weekend, and I was forever upping and lowering the speed to change with traffic. Totally pointless IMHO too

Each to their own. I find it highly useful on the Cupra. Yes, you do flick it on and off on occasion, but my word it saves your right ankle.

Errr... we're looking for people that are interested. Not people who are not interested. I find cruise control helps, especially in zones where there's a strict limit and (average) speed camera's. If you have to keep to 50mph on a stretch of motorway because of work in progress, I know I often click on the cruise control. Or just on long trips. Of course, you don't need cruise control if you use the car just to get groceries.

Mine gets used mostly on motorways, both here and in France and Belgium, so yes, I would be interested.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Cruise-Control-Kit...=item53e39b4c13
£155 plus postage?

Vacuum actuator won't work with a turbo engine.

Well, I had a few PM's about this so there's really some interest. Also me and Barnacle are talking to the sales manager and while we have already secured a discount, we are now looking into the different Coupe models to see if there would be any problem fitting the system to any model.

Thanks to those who PM'd - I'll send a message back as soon as they are ready to go.

I bought my kit off of eBay from the USA. It cost me £250. It works 100% as it should. It's interrupted by the brake pedal and the clutch. If mounted the ecu/motor on the left side of the dash and I've connected the cable to the throttle pedal so it pulls on the top to pivot the pedal down. Works faultlessly. I hooked it up to the rpm wire and the speed signal. Both off the ecu

Interesting. Do you have resume / accelerate / decellerate functions? Would be interested to see a picture of the control stalk.

Yeah it has all those functions. I Didn't want a stalk so I opted for a controller that mounts flat. I've mounted it on the blue panel above the drivers vent so it's easy to see and easy to use. It was a bit of a pain setting up the ecu for it because it wanted to know about the speed sensor pulses so I went through all the options one by one until I had it set to work properly. Behind the ecu you have pins to move on/off to change certain settings. You have certai
settings for gain and sensitivity etc. It was very useful being able to remove the dash end panels for this install

On the way to Curborough on Friday, I popped in at Conrad Anderson (thanks to Marco, Mario, and Lashes (and Mrs Lashes) who also found their way there).

They had a damn good look at the cars and how the kit would fit; extremely professional and painstaking.

The conclusion was to use the electric stepper motor servo, mounted somewhere under the passenger glovebox. A bowden cable runs across to the throttle, and a mount will be fabricated to control that cable at the throttle. Pickups from a magnetic reed switch on the clutch, the brake switch, and the speed sensor wires behind the dash.

This *is* doable at home but it's going to be tricky and fiddly; CA reckon 4-5 hours for them to do each installation and I'd recommend using them.

We didn't have a VIS to hand, but they think something essentially similar will act on the pedal directly.

It took me 2hrs to do mine. The ecu is hooked up to the rpm wire so if you press the clutch and the revs rise without the vehicle speed rising it will cut the cruise the ecu/motor is mounted under the passenger vent and the cable runs along the inside of the dash to the throttle pedal and I've secured it at various points and just in front of the pedal so it's able to pull on the pedal. When I get a chance I'll get the model of the cruise for you guys if you want

James

All info greatly appreciated, James, thanks.

Sounds good Neil. Do we get a final quote for each model one of these days?