Car appreciation... the aesthetics, the engineering, etc

Investment purposes - I'm too old to hoon.

I'd love an Evo 2 'Grale, but the prices have gone crackers.

type R is probably not a bad shout - 22B's are silly money

i've got a monster drinks hat and a wrc jacket i can lend you

What is the joystick in the centre console for?
Do you have sidewinders at your disposal? Pretty sure thats against the rules in most forms of motorsport.

Sadly no sidewinders. It's the electric reverse mechanism. Pull the lever backwards, press the trigger, and the car moves backwards rather slowly doing a reasonably convincing impression of a milk float. Having a reverse is a requirement for racing, and since engine and gearbox are from a motorbike they don't have a reverse gear. The electric reverse mechanism (home-made, of course) is on the right painted blue in this picture:

M.O.G.

http://www.stanceworks.com/2015/04/73rd-goodwood-members-meeting/

Speaking of bike engines, this does look like fun...

http://www.speedhunters.com/2015/03/scorpions-sand-16000rpm/

The father of one of the guys I used to race against (more accurately, behind - he won the Championship twice) had a Rage R200RT buggy . Quite, quite bonkers. Tiny wheelbase, 200bhp. Surprisingly nippy on track, despite having over a foot of suspension travel front and rear.

Golly:

Source?

Elmia 2015- chap on Turbobricks photographs, let me see if I can get the link on my iPad

http://forums.turbobricks.com/showthread.php?p=5141544#post5141544

Just came to post one of those

1 Attachment

My new daily :)

I've been in bed with a nasty bug so been looking at cars on eBay Australia... Hi-Luxes are so cheap!

Might have to go down that road, as much as I'd love a Defender I'm not sure how practical/reliable it's gonna be...

Also been looking at Holden and Mazda estates, you can get a lot of car for not a lorra money, innit?

Can you actually drive?

Not much to hit over there- sheep and roo's

Not yet, just window shopping... And relieving boredom...

I've just sold the mighty Panzerwagen. Felt odd to be sitting in the passenger seat, and odder still to see someone else driving it away.

For the next couple of days I don't have a car...

Test drove two V70's yesterday, once with the 14o bhp standard engine, one 2.5T with 210 bhp. Don't think there's a going back now, the turbo was well nice.

Check the coolant level when it's cold, then take it for a drive and check it again when hot.

what's it supposed to be? what will it show?

The 2.4 and the 2.5 can split the liner/s- the most obvious symptom of this is a full expansion tank when cold, then when hot it empties (which is very odd!), let me find a post from an owner describing it, bear with me.

Here is the post:

Erm, Yeah, the coolant does absolutely mad stuff. it actually goes away (from the expansion bottle) and comes back from nowhere.

You stop when you get a low coolant warning and the bottle is dry. Give it 10 minutes standing and it's all back again. You can't top it up enough to stop it becoming empty because as soon as you open it the coolant all comes back. You have to overfill it when it's cold as there will be airlocks in the system somewhere and when the engine warms up they return to the expansion bottle.

I did a 3,000 mile run with it like that. It isn't terminal, the engine doesn't "blow" you can keep running but coolant management becomes an important part of driving.

It's worse when the engine is warming up.

Interesting, thank you! Any other quirks to check for?

Just found an '06 with just 52k miles on the clock, but it's almost a grand more than I'm looking to pay. Tempting though, and might be a wise choice if it's sound.

That's the only real "gotcha", as once it has happened the engine is scrap- people shim the liners in order to prevent it, but that is a head off job, and generally only worth doing if you are chasing moar power.

I'll ask Tim if there are any other things that should be looked at around that mileage.