Ferrari 944 or Porsche 250?

[Peter Empson]

Agreed, brilliant show that's well worth attending, I never miss it.

I've been going through my pictures and here's an original idea, it's a 911 replica with an almost mid mounted MR2 engine [&:]

 

[Neil Haughey]

I am sure I remember seeing a chesil or similar 356 replica a few years back that definitely had Impreza running gear, quite a neat idea I thought, just wait a few years till the lovely legacy 3 litre flat 6 motor is available from a few scrapers.

 

[John Sims]

I am with Paul in that there are some very able kits out there. There are some which are absolute dross as well.

Aside some of the long established manufacturers (Westfield, Ginetta, Ultima) few seem to be able to generate a complete package. Some look good but are a mechanical dogs dinner where as others have clearly fallen from the ugly tree but can be very good technically.

Having had a Westfield I can only say that, in Essex, it was a far from desirable experience on the road. If you lived in Scotland, where you can still enjoy driving, it could well be better than sex (assuming it wasn't raining).

 

[Hilux]

Will be at least 130 hours total,

I hope you make it Neil, my experience is that it`ll be half again or possibly double as when you put it back you`ll think "how can I improve that" or "I might as well do that now" or "how can I make it easier if it ever has to come apart again?" or "if I fit that now I wont have to take the car apart again to do it"

 

[Pastry]

Just to say ive nothing against kit cars and the 'garden shed' mentality of british engineering; great things have been achieved by men in garages, and I admire anyone who's actually built their own car. Im not against upgrading older cars to make them more reliable or handle better either. Its only the cosmetic faker mods that annoy me, they belong in the same bracket as the boy racer 'barry' cars.

 

[John Sims]

A mate and I stripped my Westfield and rebuilt it on a new chassis over an Easter weekend. It would have been an easy job if only the new chassis had been built correctly and didn't require us to reweld the pedal box. []

The thing with a kit car is you never really finish them. There are always jobs to do and additional mods to undertake. Mine had four different wiring looms over a number of years.

The plus side is you can attack them with power tools and not feel too precious - a bit like a Land Rover.

 

[edh]

ORIGINAL: Hilux

I must admit I dont understand some of the kits nor their purpose or dynamics BUT how many detractors can say "I built my car"?

A mate of mine is currently building a car (almost) completely from scratch! - he's built his own chassis - using his Nissan S14 200SX suspension / pickup points for reference, & mating it with a mid mounted saab turbo motor [:-]

It's now at the bodywork stage - he's using some bits from an S13 shell & is making a buck to form his own moulds - build thread is here - 61 pages!!

http://www.sxoc.com/vbb/showthread.php?t=364036

 

[Hilux]

Woooooooow,

Top man, superb stuff.

 

[Peter Empson]

Looks interesting, will have to wade through that thread later [] thanks for the link Ed.
It's also worth registering to view this thread on fchat for another inspiring build.

 

[Neil Haughey]

ORIGINAL: Hilux

Will be at least 130 hours total,

I hope you make it Neil, my experience is that it`ll be half again or possibly double as when you put it back you`ll think "how can I improve that" or "I might as well do that now" or "how can I make it easier if it ever has to come apart again?" or "if I fit that now I wont have to take the car apart again to do it"

Could well be true, as a race car a fair few non-standard or adaptations on the car. We have come up with a few neat ideas that will need a little amount of "test if it fits and looks right" sort of thing. We have spent this evening trawling through the PET and I have a shopping list of 23 different items, mostly X of a type of bolt or nut etc. Also replacing all the jubilee clips. I am very very lucky that mechanically the car was very fresh to start with, so far we have one bit of PAS pipe and 2 brake pipes to replace, everything else is nuts and bolts. I think a strip-down renovation that including stripping the engine and box would be very time consuming indeed, as an example we have the engine, subframe, wishbones and hubs all complete sat on the crane. Same at the back end. Pretty much how a car would be assembled in the factory using complete sub assemblies. This saves a massive amount of time and effort IMHO, one also has to consider garage space constraints of course.

 

[SUSIT]

ORIGINAL: Neil Haughey

Well I have always lusted after a Hawk Stratos with an Alfa GTA V6 motor in the back but this one just doesn't hit the right notes for me Paul.

Also worth remembering the huge effort ppl put into these projects. When I was looking at Ultimas, GTD40 and stratos kits you could be looking at up to 400 hours to build. My S2 is currently around 80 or 90 hours and still requires putting back together. Will be at least 130 hours total, therefore building a kit car is at least 3 times as much effort as stripping apart and rebuilding a 944.

Fraid there is no way you can build a hawk Stratos kit in 400 hours, realistically your talking in thousands of hours

 

[Hilux]

Nah, no-one would bother if it was in the thousands of hours.

I see you may have one but I cant see how its anything like that in my opinion, and I`ve built/rebuilt/repaired a few cars incl kit cars in my time

Unless you are fabricating each and every bit by hand I`d agree with Neil but would say within 500 hours if a perfectionist, a bit more if you want to complicate it. They are, after all, only a kit of parts that needs fettling.

 

[DivineE]

I tend to go to that show most years because my partners father is a member of the Italian Exotics club of whatever its called. Guy who built / owns that car is nice enough and very easy to talk to. Spent a long time filling him in on 944 owners tips he needed told him he should join this forum last summer but not sure if he did?

I'm afraid I'm not very popular there though after a long discussion with the group we agreed to disagree. I love the home engineering fun and skill of kit cars, the mentality of making your dream and many of the points mentioned above but the form over function hurts my soul! Seeing a 'ferrari 355' with a 2ltr 160hp mr2 engine or an AC Cobra with a V6 just makes my teeth grind its such a bitter disappointment. For me the love of speed, sound and adrehnalin is my whole reason for loving cars. The only reason I ever liked the 355 is that high revving V8. I can think of no other reason why I'd want to buy one?! They're not pretty cars like the Ferrari's of old, they're badly made, hugely expensive to maintain.. but every time you hear that sound it just makes you remeber why your a petrol head:-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ej_23OLq3Dw

 

[DivineE]

Just one more[]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aR_kz8l9CjE&feature=related

 

[Neil Haughey]

ISTR 400 hours was what Hawk quoted when I asked them at Stoneleigh many years ago.

BTW our original estimate for the race car build was about 200 hours total but this was optimistically based on 0 refurb work and straight reinstallation of the engine-torque tube-gearbox as one complete lump. In truth after talking to Barry in depth about the build I would say a more realistic number is about 350 hours, I reckon though Barry has spent much more time then that on the car he just won't admit to being a fettler [].

Lots of small jobs in this build have taken a long time due to making adaptations etc. As an example the bodyshell whilst from a series 2 car was not from an S2 (came from a 2.7). The body shells are not the same despite what some may think. This has added about 30 hours or so in total.

The other big thing has been the refurb work. We agreed once we had all the bits and pieces it would be a shame to just bolt a load of all bits on to a brand new looking fresh shell. The refurb work I reckon has added about 100 hours, its enormously time consuming but I think will be worth it ultimately.

BTW a brand new car takes about 60 man hours these days to assemble, puts things into perspective.

 

[Hilux]

The only reason I ever liked the 355 is that high revving V8. I can think of no other reason why I'd want to buy one?! They're not pretty cars like the Ferrari's of old, they're badly made, hugely expensive to maintain.. but every time you hear that sound it just makes you remeber why your a petrol head:-

I`m lucky enough to know a good friend that owns a softtop and drive it whenever I can.

Tunnel runs are superb [] and I`ll have to say that (touch wood) its been reliable and gets driven to the south of France each year without issue.

 

[Neil Haughey]

The 355 is seen by many as a land mark car. Like the 993 it was created as a bit of a frankenstein but its also seen as the first truely modern Ferrari. OK so you don't see em with 150K miles on the clock but they do have a reputation for being pretty robust mechanically (still scary hyper expensive servicing though). I would love one but if I had the money I would probably spank it on racing instead anyway.

Something insane like a Radical SR8 is more up my street []

 

[bennyboy]

F355 Berlinetta, manual, in red with black leather, challenge rear grill and tubi exhaust.

Before my 40th with a bit of luck....[]

 

[944Turbo]

Drove one at thruxton, look nice (outside) sound nice, firm but crashy, felt lacking in torque after climbing out of my 944T and no more powerful. Wasn't impressed with the interior,
Tony

 

[Hilux]

Wasn't impressed with the interior

Neither am I. A VX 220 has a similar look and better quality. The seats also look scruffy very quickly.

felt lacking in torque

You have to rev them []

tubi exhaust

Yup [8D] hence the tunnel runs [][][][]