After a long time talking about it and playing around with ideas and such I have taken the plunge and bought a very rough NA slicktop to turn into a dedicated track car. Here is where it starts, there will probably be years of work on it before/if it is ever finished but I'm looking forward to it: Currently it's a fairly stock silver manual NA with a rough body and interior, hydrolocked engine, aftermarket exhaust, pod filter and coilovers and other that that it's dead stock as far as I can tell. I'll be starting pulling it apart tomorrow morning and updating as I'm going. As it stands the plan is to strip it right down to bare bones, remove anything that is not completely neccessary both to lighten it and simplify it as much as is possible, tighten the handling up as much as I can and put in either a worked VG30DE or VQ30DE engine, either way with a home made loom. Cosmetically it's going to stay pretty rough as I have always wanted something I can tinker with, throw around the track and not have to be too precious with. For the same reason I'm going to be doing it on as tight a budget as I can with as much of it home made or second hand as possible, both because I don't really have huge amounts of money to blow on it and it's really meant to be about seeing what I can do rather than how much money I can throw at things. We'll see how it goes, with things like this I think I may be finding that a 'tight budget' is a very relative thing. Most of the stuff I'm stripping out will be for sale fairly cheaply so if you want anything you think I'll be getting rid of let me know and I'll see what I can do. Here's a couple of pictures before it was towed to my place:
Fun is what this project is going to be all about. Thanks for all your help so far Dave, it's been inspirational. I'm sure there will be plenty of tech days and such so hopefully I'll be able to sort out one when you are over here.
Thanks Graham, I'm going to use it as an excuse to have a go at panel beating as I'm not going to be holding this car to very high cosmetic standards. If/when I screw it up beyond redemption I'll get back to you about yours...
VQ engine should be a cheaper and better NA, particularly if it does not have to be opened up. We all start off with a budget, good luck with that
Hey Pete! Congrats on the new purchase! I'm almost at the point where I've collected ALL the parts I need to start getting my TT up to speed!.......so if there are any parts worthy of donating towards the track car??.......you're more than welcome to them!
VQ would be cheaper? is that a VQ30 or 35? The 30s are tricky to come by as they didn't come out in anything rear wheel drive locally. I do like the idea of a light modern engine if I can manage it though. Thanks Russ, at the moment I'm at the getting rid of stuff stage but will let you know if I need anything you may have. Do you have an electric drivers seat in the TT? Do you want one?
Nice looking project pete! Any more details/photos of the goodies that came with it? I've started thinking about engine swaps (though admitably probably wont happen this year) so very interested to see what you end up doing. Also would be interested in the aeriel if its in good working nic & if a 2 seater one will fit in a 2+2 (anyone know?). cheers, tim
Yeah happy to help if I can? No electric seat in the TT!.......but have RECARO seats & BRIDE rails waiting to go in! :zlove:.........& no you can't have those!
yeah, Ben (Blipman) cam over today and we got stuck into it. He took a bunch of pictures which I'll put up soon, one thing we did discover was that the front coilovers are adjustable whuch is a bonus. Not sure if the aerial works nor if it will fit a 2+2 but if it does I won't need it so I'm sure we can sort something out. You think I'd put those fancy pants things in my car? This is going to be rough and nasty all the way.
VQ35 is used in several AU models, plus they should be available from importers. Thing is to get NA power out of a VG is going to cost $ and you will still be left with a relatively heavy motor which may be disappointing for you in the long run.
Yeah, a VQ35 is an option, I'd like to stay under 3 litres as that would put me in a category I'm happy with for a lot of events down here but I have not completely ruled out a VQ35 if I can't sort out a VQ30 or get what I want from a VG30.
Pete I have a 3 16" x 9" and 3 16" x 7.5" wheels which are surplus to requirements from Karl's TT (we have 17x9 and 17x10 for it now). Also comes with Kumho V70A medium compound 265/45R16 and 225/50R16 tyres. There are 3 front and 4 rear tyres (only 2 fronts and 2 rears have been used - about 40 laps of Sandown). Give me a call if you'd like these ... only modest payment required. RB
Started pulling it apart. A bit of time was spent on the weekend pulling things to bits to see what state everything is in and get ready to pull the engine out. With the sparkplugs out all the cylinders looked fine inside except number 6 which has a large puddle of brown water. We turned it over by hand reasonably easily, though we may have been turning it backwards (this may be important later). Standing in front of the car facing the engine bay we were turning anti-clockwise. As it was turning pretty easily we tried the starter motor again and it turned over easily. Previously it had made a terrible grinding noise and done nothing else helpful. All sounds good except for 1 thing. While all this is going on nothing has happened in cylinder 6, the piston does not move at all while the engine turns over easily. No funny noises though. I assume the connection between the piston and the crank shaft is gone somewhere, broken rod, pin or whatever but I thought this would make some nasty noises while the engine was turning over. Any idea where it's broken and what this means for the state of the block? Some pictures thanks to Blipman: Nasty gunk in driver's side intake piping, brown water with clear jelly like gunk in it: Timing belt looks OK to the untrained eye. Passenger side only had a few drops in it. Has this definitely come though the pod filter or has the head gasket gone and some catastrophic engine failure sent this stuff from the coolant lines into the cylinder heads then out into the intake? Coolant level was very low and this kind of rusty brown colour. Funny thing spliced onto the AFM wiring, is this one of those nasty eBay '+20hp chips' or something? A pile of stuff we pulled off: And a nice bonus, adjustable front coilovers:
That's not too good if you've lost a rod No holes in the block? Kinda surpised the crank still turns fine. Do you know what brand those front coilovers are? Look like they have a rebound adjuster on the side there. Got that steering rack out of my zed too Shoot me your address and I'll work out how much for post.
I was really surprised the crank turns easily too, other than the fact that one piston does not move you would not know anything was wrong with it, I was kind of tempted to plug everything back in and see if I could get it to fire up just out of curiosity, probably a bad idea though. I'm fairly sure there are no holes in the sump unless it's hidden right up the back end, I'll have a closer look tonight. There is a sticker on the bottom of the coilovers, I'll take a picture soon, I think it was something like 'S.A.' or the like. PM coming with my work address to send the rack to, thanks for that!
Yeah, I'd stop turn it over if I were you You've snapped a rod or a pin, either way the bore of cylinder 6 is going to be badly scored I'd imagine.
Yeah, once we were sure piston number 6 was not moving we stopped, though I don't know that there is going to be anything much salvageable from the block. Hopefully at least it will give me a spare set of heads to have a go at porting if I do end up going with a VG engine.
this will be an interesting build good luckk with it all any more pics of the dash? is that covered in suade ?
