Hello? Anyone home?

I'm still alive and not the only one with life threatening illnesses anymore! Hurrah! Also the 206 (Formerly Dan405/DanTXD - when the f*ck did you leave?) went back, and I got something more accepted by the clique - as everyone knows RWD drive is best etc etc. Although SteveH has now decided it doesn't really matter day to day and a Passat TDI is all one needs for motoring nirvana. Dervman has a derv. Ummm... Carl is now Elder and(Skodapilot/meatball/sleeker) has a big Lexus/Toyota V8 thing. PeteM is still scouse. AVM still rambles on a lot. And we had a meet at Wetwang! Tim Kemp hasn't stacked a car for a while now. Vamp has an E36 328 Coupe. Bob Sheruncle and Tony Bond still know more than the rest of us about building cars from what you have in the garage. I can't think of anything else interesting to say now. I feel as though I've already stolen too much thunder really...

Oh and have you still got the, erm, what were those little gullwing Toyota things you had a fondness for..... Sera?

The Seras? Sadly, I don't have one of those currently - I sold my black one a year ago for 'far too little', bought an Astra (I mentioned it here) which died in October with fuel pump failure (bloody coded pumps!) after I gave it to Siani (who now drives another, older, red Astra TD after a couple of months suffering my beaten up old 850 2.5 20v, now thankfully gone forever).

Wish I had another one, and I will get one again!

RichardK

Yeay! Are people taking bets on who goes first, then? How are you doing?

Ah, so instead of life-threatening illnesses, you've gone for a life-threatening car, that is also FRENCH and therefore might fall apart and catch fire as it spins horribly out of control?

I'm envious, I'd love a Clio V6, but I'm far too logical :D

I think he had the TDi... no wait, he had a 1.8T I think. No more Alfas, not even on the side?

Soarer? Or LS400? He's the one I've seen elsewhere :D

That's good to know. I might need new wheels for the MR2...

What/where's that?

Has he stacked it?

Heee! It's nice to be reminded of all the people, though - I've been hectic, so got out of the habit of using newsgroups, not helped by my PowerBook suffering some sort of massive failure in February or so - I've got a MacBook Pro now, but the time without a good Mac laptop meant I also got a massive Dell 20" thing for working "on the road". Which of course means Windows Vista :(

I may well be hanging around more now I have the MR2, partly because if (that's a big if, as my track record shows) it sticks around, it's going to be the first car I have modded. If, as I plan, I get the house done and buy a C6 with the intention of keeping it (no contract hire, no restricted mileage, no feeling that it's not mine) for several years (I always came back to big Citroens, and I always got depressed because they were old, broken and worthless. I figure if I have a new one, I'll at least get to enjoy it for the time period before it becomes the ones I used to own!)...

...then I have a suspicion that the MR2 is going to do that "Toyota" thing of being "reliable" and "nice". And I'll become quite attached to it, despite it being intended as a stopgap and to stop hippies throwing anti-SUV stickers at my Delica (which in fairness doesn't really happen, because despite being a HUGE 2m tall 4x4, it seems to cross the line to "it's kinda like a hippie van!".

If I become attached to it...

Then I found a firm that for the really quite insignificant sum of £2,500 will fit a "good, new headgaskets fitted, new belts and so forth, detailed etc." Camry V6. Which requires no body mods, includes a new clutch and downpipes to match the standard exhaust fitting points, and delivers a lot of torque without the turbo's peakiness.

I am VERY interested in this conversion, because it looks like it is utterly professionally executed, and it also is all Toyota. And the weight of the MR2 Mk 2 feels like it needs a V6.

Anyway, enough rambling!

RichardK

I still have my MK2 Golf. Current new years resolution is to fix everything that's wrong with it. And by the time that's done, I'll probably have graduated and been working for 4 months and have enough cash for a 1.8T consersion. 200 horsepower and a Peloquin differential is what I want. Maybe in the distant future, 300 horses and 4motion, but that means swapping the transmission tunnel and boot floor, and I suspect if I tried to do it at the same time as an engine conversion it'd mean the car in bits for months.

Surely it would be easier to do the transmission stuff first? Isn't it all tied in anyway, with the 4Motion electronics chatting to the engine ECU?

Should be quite interesting, though. Start with a Golf Country and just put the high power, 4Motion running gear in the already-syncro based chassis :D

RichardK

Wuss ;-)

The turbo engine swap is fairly simple purely because it's well documented, and you can run it with something like a MK3 gearbox IIRC. The 4 motion swap isn't. A company called Dutchdubs (guess where they're from) was producing the parts needed to adapt a syncro / rallye rear beam to take the Haldex diff and mount the 02M gearbox into the MK2 shell. And they were producing a controller for the Haldex rear diff.

The Haldex diff links up the CANbus and speaks to the ABS system and bases what it does on wheel speeds I think, though I've not got my hands on the documentation to know for sure how it works. The actual engagement of the rear diff is controlled by a wet clutch pack contained within the housing, and this in turn is controlled by a valve which allows hydraulic oil pressure to engage the clutch. The valve's controlled by a stepper motor, so your options are to get a stepper motor controller and do it yourself, fit the complete canbus setup, or to remove the stepper motor completely and replaced it with a knob on the diff. At the moment I'd be inclined to have a go at putting together my own electronics to control the diff in an automatic manner, but at the least you'd want to be looking at wheel speeds, steering angle and throttle position IMO, so you'd near enough want an entire ECU running it.

I'm most likely going to start with my own car and swap the floorpan. I've resprayed it, and now it represents far too much hard work and effort to flog it. And everyone knows that Syncros and Countrys were 5 doors, and nobody loves a 5 door.

Welcome back!!

I've also (almost) sold my 850 too. Decided to be sensible for a change as I didn't really need it. Well I say sensible - I'll be using the proceeds to pay off some debts, which will allow me to spend more money on the SD1 later in the year (I'm aiming for 200+bhp ready for the summer) :) This also means the 360 GLT that's been gathering dust for the last year or so will be coming back out to play. Just purchased a new wing for it, along with some other bits, so may even get a few more of those jobs done on it that I intended to do!!

Also got a 306k mile Pug 205 which is still getting the other half to work and back everyday. Looking to replace it soon with something a bit nippier though! And ideally a few less miles!!

Good to see you.

I bought an MX-5 in March 2007. It's awesome.

I was in Peebles the other day, and thought of you.

So long as it wasn't me :-)

Still driving a crap Golf and playing with rubbish old kit cars. What else do you have ? (Cars, retro musical equipment, computers)

ello ello

change all round,

not a single modified chav hot-hatch in site at mine, these days its all sensible vag estates, (couple of octavias and the venerable a4 which is still to require anything other than servicing.

damn i feel old

Logical? Bollocks. You like old Toyotas.

He's still got the wrong engined 75, and his missus has a 156.

Comments like that and you'll need to legs to reach the pedals :-p

Middle of feckin' nowhere.

Wasn't that Barney Rubbles' daughter? You perv.

Dude, she's 2,497,058.

Good to have you back. Did you ever get that tarten designed?

Import LS (Celsior) going soon I fancy a change and want something silly like a Bighorn or an Estima diesel.

The Crown is a big 2 door coupe. Very nice too.

If you want big and nice, find a V8 Century, or better yet a V12.

one in bodyshop at moment :(