RobinJI

A quick photo dump from an evening last week since I just got the film back:

I've also seen labels printed on paper then placed under clear, adhesive heatshrink, which seems an easier DIY to a similar result, although you'd want to print on something flexible ideally I guess.

I could do that mike.

Basically what Luke said. You probably know, but turbos don't want any back pressure, there's no more to it than than, no pulse tuning, no charge robbing, that stuff was all mashed up by the turbine the gasses just went through. All you want is the lowest pressure at the turbine possible, to give the largest pressure difference across it's blades. That said, a smoothly dealt with step down in tube size is ok, but the transition will make a big difference, and 2.25" is definitely small for the power levels you're aiming for. What's the intake into the turbo like?

I think it's partly that I'm aiming for a slightly more upright driving position than standard, which means my ass has to be a bit lower to get the same head height. I'm not particularly tall at 5'9", but I want good head room for a helmet and cage, and I'd like it if taller friends fitted. I wasn't really expecting my shell to be so bad either! I knew if was a bit of a dog, but I didn't think it'd need basically full inner and outer sills! The scary thing is it was all from the inside out. On one side there was only a pretty small hole in the floor, and no sign of anything up from the outside of the sill.

It did seem a bit extreme at the time but I actually only end up at about the same height as the factory seating position. The trouble is the standard seats are really thin based, so you can't raise the mounts at all, even with a bucket seat. The standard mounts are just a little platform on the sheet steel where I cut the box section through, so the top of the box is with a couple of mm of being the same height as the factory mounts.

Looking good Dan. The new colour's infinitely better than the old one. I'd be tempted to paint those uprights satin black personally, but I didn't think they looked too bad. They do look a little off centre from the rear view, but I'm guessing that's the centre console being offset a bit, and how often are you actually going to look at them at that angle anyway? Also, could you pinch/squash the bottom of them flat to give a nicer mounting face to bolt up to the tunnel? The 924's shell is now essentially rust free, so I made a start on the seat mounts the other day. So far I've got the rear drivers one in (it'll be drilled once I've got the sidemounts I've had laser-cut folded so I can try the seat in place properly): They stick out through the floor to get the seat low enough, but they don't hang any lower most of the underside anyway:

Thanks guys. They were all on a Minolta x500 with a 58mm f1.4 rokkor lense. Mike, I'm not sure if you've been to Wiscombe before, but it's well worth it if you haven't. There's always good photo opportunities.

I picked up a couple of films from being developed earlier, some of shots were car related: My friend Ollys stunning Datsun 240z: And some photos from the VSCC day at Wiscombe park. I know nothing about these vintage beasts, but they're bloody enjoyable to watch attacking a tight hill-climb at full-bore!

Ideal. Is it also a Javalin day? They were really good about having a chat with any beginners personally and making sure everyone was happy. They had a good balance of keeping things safe without being arseholes about it too. We instantly got chatting to the guys next to us and I don't think being on your own would matter too much to be honest, everyone was friendly and more than happy to chat to strangers and offer passenger rides. Obviously it's fun to have a friend along, but I can see how a mid week ones harder to get someone along to.

Is it an open pit-lane day Mike? I went along to an open pit-lane day there run by javelin recently and it was brilliant. Very relaxed, very safe and sensible with a great atmosphere and attitude from everyone. The action days and 'semi-open pit-lane days are a lot less relaxed as they put more cars on at once and you have the pressure of trying to get out in time for the next session. We were in my housemates 1.3 litre polo which is about 100bhp and 700kg and we weren't the slowest thing there. It definitely didn't feel like we were holding people up.

Thanks Danny. Haha, the signs have been there longer than I have, and I've never asked where they came from (probably better off not knowing ) The plan for the car's to turn it into a track car but keep it fun for the odd blast on the road. So basically loose all the weight I can from it while keeping locks, and maybe put just carpets back in to help the droan. I'm remaking all the suspension (with the geometry corrected for it being lowered quite a lot and a multi-link rear set-up to kill the tow out they get under braking), and fitting the 1.8t that used to live in the Scirocco (I'll be making an adapter onto the factory torque tube and gearbox). Oh, and a conversion from 4x108 to 4x100, and I'll be fitting s3 brakes all round. It sounds like rather more work than I like to think about when I write it out like that. Haha. I'm most of the way through designing the suspension parts in my lunch breaks, so hopefully they can be finalised and all the laser cut parts ordered by the time I'm done with the cage and controls. Oh, and I'll be trying to keep it all bolt in where possible, so if I ever want to sell or race the car, the bits that don't meet class regs can just be unbolted and replaced easily.

I like the interior colour Dan. I'm probably going to do mine a similar colour soon (although with a slight blue tint to it) with a view to the outside going the same colour in the long run. I can't remember when I last updated you guys on what I've been doing with the Porsche, but I've now got both sills all welded up so I'm able to finally move onto the fun modifying, rather than just undoing 30 years of neglect. Here's a few shots of the sills: Big hole number 1: Inner sill and floor edge all rebuilt: Outer sill welded on and all ground back, along with tubes to take sill stands (I need a new rear quarter panel before I can close that hole at the back up): Big hole number 2: Inner sill & outside edge of the floor, and the bottom of the a-pillar all rebuilt: And finally the outer sill welded on along with the sill stand tubes again: So now it looks like this: I'm currently cleaning up the interior to get rid of all the adhesive from the sound deadening (it's ALL gone, bitumen included) then I can decide on a driving position and mount the seat and pedal box, which will let me start on the cage. I'm looking forward to this next stage, changes are always more fun than repairs in my eyes.

It largely depends what you mean my learning to drift. If you're going to do about 2 drift days then get whatever you're into. If you're wanting to get properly into it, and you still need it as a daily, every friends experience suggests that a bmw won't give you any issues, and an s-body will get you addicted to them, but fairly quickly have you renting a workshop to store and fix it while you daily drive something else after it's required a load of work. Please don't think I'm just saying this because I drive a BMW, I love a nice s-body, but they're not a logical car for anyone to buy at this point! I share a workshop with a guy with a nice ps13, he daily drives an e46 I'll also just quietly mention the 350z again. N/A, so less to go wrong, a decent amount of drift specific parts out there and they're at the point where you can still buy one off someone who thinks a reverse entry is just "That thing they tried after putting their keys in a bowl at that party last year."

Oh yeah, my e36 (which definitely isn't going sideways anytime soon with 90bhp!) now has another 12 months MOT and a slightly lower front end.

If you're wanting to learn to drift, don't spend 10k on a car for it! You're most likely going to at least knock it, if not completely destroy it. An e36 or 46 is pretty hard to beat in terms of sideways fun time for the amount of fixing and modifying it'll need. If you really want something Japanese, a 350z would be a good shout. They're not really any more than an s-body these days and would almost certainly make a better daily driver and be more reliable. S-bodys were great, reliable cars 15 years ago, buy finding one now that's not been abused to the point of needing constant upkeep is basically impossible, and a shame to then use it to learn to drift in, most likely making it one of the troublesome ones by the time you've had your fun. A ready done turbo mx-5 would be a good bet, you could get a really nice one for that money and if you did bin it, it can be reshelled for pennies.

Looking bloody good Dan, I bet it's going to be a right laugh to drive! My e36 failed it's MOT on a front damper leak, so I've got some coilovers in the post for it. Only cheap ones, but I know a few people who have had them on e36's with no complaints and I don't plan on setting them particularly low at all (probably around 40mm lower up front and 10 at the back). I still made sure to buy them from a UK retailer with a 2 year warranty though. It'll be nice to feel a bit happier about how it's looking.

I'd agree with this. The gearing is very relevant. As hopping_topsy says, if the pedals movement rearwards is greater than the distance the cranks rotation attempts to move the bikes tyre, then there will be an initial movement forwards. That is up to the point where the rotation causes the pedals movement to become too vertical, so not very far. My instinct would say that the gearing needed to do this would be very, very low though. If the tyre doesn't slip, the bike's held upright and enough force is applied, then sooner or later the bike's going to try and wheelie (if the force is applied from a distance behind) because of the moment arm between the tyres contact patch and the height of the cranks.

What car is it?

How long had it been sat before fitting it Mike? It may just be that the oil control rings were gunked up or stuck and took a while to free up. If that's the case then chances are it'll be fine from now on. I'll be at Combe too, keep an eye out for Prawns Audi, we'll be near by.

While we're still on the crusty sills subject, the hole in mine's been getting smaller slowly:

Yep, water building up in sills doesn't end well. This sill looked fine on the outside, the edge of the floor had some holes, this is what the inside looked like: And that's a galvanised car!

But do the guys on turbo-mini's pictures move? I enjoy reading build threads, but I never manage to find time to do it. Sitting down to watch an episode of project binky's easier to find the time for, and easier to relax while doing. (Well, it is for me after having sat at a computer for 9 hours a day at work anyway.) It's largely why I don't post on here or retrorides as much anymore actually, when I get home from work I usually do everything I can to avoid using a computer. Also, I'm loving the e36, mechanical diesels are definitely the way forwards for cheap run-arounds. As long as you don't mind running around slowly and noisily that is. I spent another weekend on the Porsche, now I have an inner sill: Before (well, part way in actually): After: And I now have a channel/tunnel thingy where the rear axle mount will be welded back in: There's no before picture, because after I'd cut the rust out there wasn't really anything to show as a before, so here's an after: I should be able to close up the outer sill next time I'm down there. Just need to weld in some sill-stand tubes and buy some more zinc primer. I'm definitely starting to feel like I'm getting back into a rythum with metalwork again. I hadn't done any real amount for a while until starting this, so it was a bit slow going at first, but I felt like I was back to making good progress today. Hopefully the drivers side will go a bit quicker as a result.

Coloured wires? On a renault?? Last time I worked on one the bell-ends had just used white for everything, making it a nightmare to fault find. Or is that just the cabin looms? I also use the a38 every day, but on a bicycle. In fact I live about half a mile away from it. It's a bloody long road! I managed to spend a couple of productive afternoons on the 924 this weekend. Now there's an even bigger hole in it than at the start of the weekend! On the bright side, solid metal has started going back in, and near enough all the rust's not cut out of the passenger side. Also, I made a sheet metal folder, because tools are good.

Nice to see some progress Luke, and good to hear the engine swaps imminent I've finally got around to starting a build thread for the Porsche, so if anyone's interested in following it's progress in a (hopefully) less sporadic manner than my updates on here: http://retrorides.proboards.com/thread/196124/1982-posche-924-road-project