First dibs on my Turbo now for sale :-[

[wolfie308]

Ron - I'm fascinated.... I've spent in excess of £3.3k in the last 12 months on general maintenance, so I haven't exactly got money burning a hole in my pocket for more expensive niceties. However, I am aware that my original suspension is now feeling a bit tired, and poor surfaces with pot holes make it hop and skip like a bouncy thing.

Given the horrid prices of the standard original front struts, I'm starting to be tempted by the advantages the KW's seem to offer. I was previously also put off by the belief that reindexing was essential to achieve the best from them, but would I be right in thinking that it's less of an issue for road use only, the benefit of reindexing enabling you to achieve a further lowering of ride height for a more track focussed car. What mileage are you at?.....my S.2 is at 143K so I'd be very, very interested to see how our cars compare. Maybe I could pop over and see you?

Back on topic - Paul I hope the level of interest and highly favourable comments on the KW's helps persuade a potential purchaser of the huge difference between yours and a car with standard(and maybe tired and old) setup

 

[ronald smith]

Thanks all for kind comments.
Paul- Yes i cannot believe the difference in turn in. Agree with many others your car is worth a lot more- if only I
had a bigger garage.
Paul S- Thanks hope to see you and LiL on July 14th will keep you informed about adjustments although I think
for road use they may be fine- I may just let Ollie or Darren take her round Silverstone to see what they think.
Steve 944T- its all your fault if I hadnt had passenger laps- I wouldnt have replaced it- seriously though thanks.
Dont forget if you want to borrow spare set of wheels to refurb yours just ask. Look forward see you 14th July
Wolfie- be good to meet as I want to ask you about lenses- I'm only in Maidenhead so I dont think we are that
far away- your welcome to have a spin and see the difference.
Scott- Thanks- I think as above I will put a few miles on it but my first impression is that for road use its great
I may let others with track experience see whether it needs tweaking and if it can be done without changing
road characteristics.
Cheers all
Ron

 

[sawood12]

ORIGINAL: Diver944

ORIGINAL: sawood12

I've not touched mine since installation

You guys [8|][]

Its the first thing I would be doing if I had extra knobs and adjusters to play with (after recording the initial settings first of course).

Nice one Ron, I knew the guys at RPM would see you right. I look forward to hearing more of your findings as you get used to the new setup

Soooo jealous of you KW chaps [&o]

Says the guy with a one-off hand built, blue printed 3.2 ltr wet sleeved engine with custom hybrid turbo!!

To be fair Paul i'm also usually one for fiddling with everything that can be fiddled with but simply havn't had enough 'fun' miles in the car over the last year to benchmark the current settings before starting to fiddle, also i've decided to raise the front end by about 20mm or so which may change the damper settings due to the higher C of G. I'll get round to it one day.

 

[steve 944t]

ORIGINAL: ronald smith

Steve 944T- its all your fault if I hadnt had passenger laps- I wouldnt have replaced it- seriously though thanks.
Dont forget if you want to borrow spare set of wheels to refurb yours just ask. Look forward see you 14th July

[]
I may very well take you up on your kind offer if I can ever make up my mind on how I want my wheels finished [:-].

 

[wolfie308]

Many thanks Ron, I have your number from a previous post, so I'll give you a bell tomorrow if that's okay?

I'm in Amersham, so only a short blast away. []

 

[ronald smith]

Hi Steve anytime- my Cup 1's are still invery good nick but when I do get refurbished I liked the look of
Chrome Black.
Cheers
Ron

 

[ronald smith]

Yes anytime- no distance at all.
Cheers
Ron

 

[Hilux]

PS: I`ve updated the first post with stuff I forgot about.[]

 

[Hilux]

Well.........................................

Its gone....................................


Every time I sell a car its a wrench and a big hole on my life (and the garage)

Still, I enjoyed it immensely and I`m sure Peter will enjoy it also in its new life in Holland.


Things I will miss..................

The boost
The handling
The general dynamics of the car


Things I will not miss..................(no critique intended - simply personal opinion)

The understated performance (it did it all so quietly and without drama) I found it not overly exciting to drive
It had a roof (I still miss the Westy and G27)
It was a heavier car than I like to track/drive
It is a difficult car to work on
The constant niggling with little items that always seem to need fixing, there`s always something basic to fix !!!!!!!!
The cost of running it and the worrying potential for huge bills if it went wrong


Would I recommend one? Absolutely if they float your boat but I`d pay absolutely top dollar for a fully refurbished one.


Still, if ok with y`all, I will hang around on here as its been fun. If I refer now and again to my current project then apologies in advance but cars are cars and enthusiasts are enthusiasts []

Ho hum, ever onwards.

 

[Diver944]

Commiserations [&o] and congratulations too []

You're more than welcome to stick around as we continue to discuss - synthetic vs mineral, standard vs modded, Oli vs turbochargers, red vs all the other colours etc

 

[Neil Haughey]

ORIGINAL: Hilux


Things I will not miss..................(no critique intended - simply personal opinion)

The constant niggling with little items that always seem to need fixing, there`s always something basic to fix !!!!!!!!

Good luck with what ever you get next Paul, I have to say I agree with you on the above point. It has really got me down with the 968, always a couple of niggles that need fixing and the harsh ride only means that rattles/squeaks etc are never far away. In some respects I tend to block a few things out of my mind. Driving around in a new car that doesn't have such niggles only makes things worse because I have really noticed it then, like on our MX-5 first year no probs and only £120 for its 12K service.

Then it happened, the slight noise I heard from the back end got louder and louder and is now unbearable to me. My brother reckons one of the rear bearings is slowly failing. Thing is Mazda wouldn't touch as ITHO its OK, it also has a handbrake that sticks on sometimes and clonks when reversing, again they say its a design fault on the car and nothing they can do about it, they all do it apparently. This will be the last time we have a new car, at least with an old car with niggles you can fix them or modify the car, with a new car your stuffed.

Having taken the 2 above positions though there is now a way out, my race car S2 project suffers none of these problems, it didn't before being stripped as so much of the car had already been stripped down but now after a rebuild we will get it niggle free. Personally though I wouldn't go to the huge time and cost of rebuilding a road car and naturally a race car is much simpler and has less to go wrong. It also has the feeling of lightness you talk about and again I agree as the 968 feels very very heavy on the road IMHO in comparison (about 280 Kg heavier).

I have also more or less convinced myself now that this 968 is the last older road based sports car I will have, I just can't see the point any more. To much expenditure for so little in return compared to either a proper track machine or a half decent DD these days.

 

[Hilux]

I have also more or less convinced myself now that this 968 is the last older road based sports car I will have, I just can't see the point any more. To much expenditure for so little in return compared to either a proper track machine or a half decent DD these days.

I understand entirely Neil and unfortunately couldnt agree more.

The 951 was the only car that cost me money, mainly because I couldnt be *rsed to work on it. Its not that I am inexperienced as in my time I`ve rebuilt a national concours winning classic Rover P5B Coupe and rebuilt a Westfied and a Ginetta G27 and prepped an off road Zuki (and am currently rebuilding completely a Mk 1 Golf track car at the moment). The 944 is a real pain in the butt to work on, nothing is simple. They may be well engineered but the plethora of self tappers used in them tells a tale for me []

To be honest the potential for huge bills (even if you spanner it yourself) made me think twice about tracking it and two years ago (pre KW) I was about to sell it then but drove Fens and that changed my mind. Since then I`ve tracked it three times but smaller more track dedicated cars are just as quick and some modern machinery is very well sorted. If I was to get another Porker (I wont) it would definitely be a 911 because there arent many cars that can outdo Cateringvans at Mallory but I`ve been in one [] admittedly with a very special engine however a VX220 turbo on softs/slicks quite appeals at the moment.

Horses for courses of course but I`ll admit I`m a happier person working on my Golf as I feel more involved with it and once again am starting to re-engineer aspects of it with the dust blown off my welder and my head buried in Demon Thieves and GPD catalogues all the time.

I actually think you`ll enjoy the track car more as you`ll have put it together and on that basis it will be a much simpler car, well sorted and reliable. All the cars I rebuilt performed faultlessly, cheaply and reliably ie: start `em up, rag `em rigid, put `em away and repeat on a regular basis so I am absolutely positive you`ll end up the same. I look forward to renewing your acquaintance again on track one day where perhaps we can blag rides with each other or chase each other round []

 

[Neil Haughey]

I hope so too Paul, it looks like July is an even odds bet at the moment to get the car road worthy and August for it to be fully sorted. You know how these things go once you start fixing things one thing leads to another, we where going to just put the engine back in but then noticed the sump had a hairline crack so its replacement sump, service and cambelt job as with the engine out it makes sense, so more tools to buy. May swap over the rear calipers with the 968 as well and send the 968 ones off for a rebuild as the 968 ones are shot. I really hope to get it on track this summer as otherwise its another year lost for me and I don't fancy jumping straight into a race series next year with practically no time in the car in decent conditions.

I think we both agree on another thing, the buzz from projects like this has reignited my interest in cars in a way nothing else was going to do.

 

[Hilux]

I have a perfick sump from a Turbo? I was going to baffle it etc but now the car has been sold.

I would imagine its the same except you`d simply need to plug off the turbo oil return?

By the way if you`re replacing the sump then its a chance to baffle it better, extend the pickup and in particular strengthen the pick up support as I have read that this is a weakness and they can vibrate, fracture and its goodbye engine.