The noise does not bother me these engines are not nearly as loud as people complain and I have good ears. I was just fearful that it was "bad" for the engine to do that :-)

I will try it tommorrow and see what happens. ie see how fast it will go if I just hold the pedal down.

I am not sure if the engine is good though I believe it is. it runs very well never gives me any problems starting (except the coughs on cold days but it never stalls and always starts I just have to keep the pedal down till its done having a fit (about 5-8 seconds) once it RPM's up and is smooth I can let off the gas and it will high idle just fine (idle knob turned up) in warmer weather I do not have to do this at all.

ONE time "smoke" came from under the hood. I have never tracked down what that was. I was in a parking lot. I turned on the key to warm the plugs to start it and then decided I did not need to start it so I turned it off and then turned to key to on position so I could get power from the cigarette outlet (gonna have to rewire that) a few minutes later SMOKE came from under the hood. I almost panicked what the hell do I do so I just started the engine (I know once it was running I would very likely get home if nothing was on fire and it did not stall) got out and looked but nothing ??? it never did it again and I never figured out what it was but either way I assumed it had something to do with the way I handled the "start" process so from now on I never turn the key unless I intend to start it just in case!! and if I do turn it and do not need to start it I go through with a full start and then turn it off. Just in case :-) I have never been willing to "test" this for fear of breaking something expensive. not so much in parts but in GAS I drive so many miles that if I say burned a plug the COST to me in gas to drive my van till I get a new set of plugs would result in me buying more dollars in gas than the plugs would cost :-) so I do not want to break it needlessly :-)

Now that I have read more on this I am still not sure what happened but figure it must have been the glow plugs. maybe they got extra hot from the first full warm up and then the second time within seconds of turning the key again (ie maybe doing that defeated the 110sec timer and they heated for longer than that 110sec again ??) and just started to toast some of the grease of something?? no idea really.

We shall see how fast this critter will go tomorrow. there is a nice stretch of 95 close to me if I keep it short I don't really have to worry about being caught seeing as the status quo on this stretch feels more like 90mph ie when I am doing 65-70 in my van people are still whizzing by me.

I would like to be able to go faster ie 65ish only because sometimes I drive on 65mph speed limit roads and some of them are downright DANGEROUS if your going too slow :-) If the racing sound of the engine is normal and not harmful I can live with it but again because of my ZERO past experience with these I had no way to know WHAT is and is not normal/good :-)

I have a steady and slow attitude to driving. I get more time to react to dangers and I may get to the destinations 30 seconds to 2 minutes slower than you but I might save a gallon of gas in the process. Might not seem like much but over the period of a year that could be hundreds of dollars :-)

Over a lifetime that could be several new cars :-)

Chris Taylor
http://www.nerys.com/

i think the fastest i have gone in my 240D is 75... and that was downhill with a strong tailwind