Unfortunatley Rockingham seems to be desperate for race meetings (I think they were only going to have 5 this year) so I think more meetings will follow last weekends Britcar meeting into being bored to death at it.
I think the LFS Serbia one is neat and blends into the top of the page nicely.
The GRID one takes the biscuit as the most visually offensive and tatty ad on the forum by some way.
The GRID one takes the biscuit as the most visually offensive and tatty ad on the forum by some way.
Last edited by ajp71, .
Appologies I was talking about the nearly 10 year old manual coupe, far more desirable and stylish than the automatic roadster IMO.
It should be reasonably competent given that it is an SLK underneath (but a lot more attractive), what else in the last 10 years has been produced that is front engined, closed roof or folding hardtop/electric convertable (I assume that is a pre-requisite of being practical) that is less overweight whilst still being interesting?
I'm not saying I would ever buy any of them or anything produced in the last 10 years if you gave me the cash though
If it has to be less than 10 years old and practical I'd look at a 350Z or Chrysler Crossfire, nice attractive cars although a bit bloated.
Look for something second hand then, either find a tyre place doing part worn tyres and ask for a matching set of premium tyres (my local tyre place does this for £15 a tyre but normally you have to wait if you want to be picky as to what you get).
Better still try and find a part worn set of the tyres you want on a set of wheels, Ford wheels are easy to find and you get a spare set of wheels in the process. I managed to get a nearly new set of A032R semi-slicks on Alfasud alloys for £100, not bad considering the Contis cost me £180.
Most of Toyo's range isn't great for performance use, it's aimed at wear/tyre noise/wet grip as are most of the tyres you are looking at. Ignore subjective opinions about tyres based on none competition/trackday use, what they're like on the road and how much grip people may think they have, isn't helpful when choosing a tyre for competition use. The R888 are Toyo's only tyre aimed at proper competition use, they do make a great alternative to A048s, the hard ones last considerably longer both on road and track, not that you can use either.
The starting engine had 140bhp, a rolling road can easily invent 25bhp plus a bit of exaggeration from owners and the actual output is more likely to be under 190bhp which is easily obtainable by building a nice naturally aspirated engine. Presumably some of the internals of the turbocharged variant of the same engine were used and the compression ratio must have been reduced.
Find the front washer motor, connect the wires to a multimeter/tester if possible and see if you get a connection, if you do remove the washer motor and see if you can strip it out and clean it, often they just get clogged up and simply clearing them out is all it takes.
Installing a key logger to increase mee-pennis? No thanks...
Certainly nothing wrong with the track, it's exceptionally safe, equally rubbish for spectators and totally characterless with a sea of tarmac run off area. The reason why Silverstone lost the Grand Prix is it is owned by the BRDC, who Bernie hates, he's been going on for years about getting rid of Silverstone (all the nonsense about a GP at Brands or in the centre of London). Donnington was the first feasable proposal Bernie has come up with but it is evident that there has been no serious work started yet, other than digging a tunnel and knocking a couple of buildings down nothing has been done and I see no way its on track for 2010.
It would have needed a lot more investment and commitment, none of the landscaping/changing the layout and acceptance that current pit complex, whilst not great could be expanded to cope.
The 1.8 litre is a 4 valve per cylinder V6 engine, I think the 1.6 is the same engine used in the MX5 and I don't think there was a 1.8 4 pot option on the MX3.
That's the problem though, if you can't find a job you shouldn't have any choice or pickyness about what you're doing or how much you're being paid to do it.
Look around a bit, plenty of notices for short work on notice boards in local shops and supermarkets, often a couple of days of work pays very well cash in hand no faffing about with interviews and the like. Of course nobody wants to be hunting for short term work like this (although I find it very convenient) but you'll still be better off than spending the day watching TV.
They look awful and cost as much as the car...
So true as well: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v ... obymg&feature=related
Go for it, at £250 I'm sure you could make a profit selling it to non-contact oval racers, I would have snapped a tatty one up for that when I was looking for cars, but even relatively tatty ones weren't going for under £400 on ebay.
As someone generally opposed to intrusive laws and find the whole terrorist 'threat' to be far from the top of my list of things to worry about I find this absolutely fine and sensible. Of course there may be issues with exactly when it can be enacted but there have been plans/action taken of localised organisation and control in the event of disaster (be it natural or nuclear) I don't see any issue with this.
I think it's bad as usual, the idea of encouraging perfectly good cars to be scrapped and getting people to buy new ones they don't need and can't afford is creating two problems in one go. The new car industry should be allowed to fail like it naturally is at the moment, people can't afford to buy so many so there's no point in trying to artificially keep people in work producing a product that no one wants, it just doesn't make sense, the hard truth is we'd all be far better off if car workers were sat on their arses (not being paid) or found another job.
There are still plenty of jobs where I live, that are still being filled by foreigners (although numbers coming in are reducing) and a percentage of the population is still unemployed and quite happy to be unemployed (despite telling you otherwise) they won't work for minimum wage and they certainly won't do anything that involves manual labour or effort, nor can they do temporary work until they find something permanent...
I don't think giving people jobs will do much to help 'jobseekers' other than possibly making them run out of excuses and free handouts?
There are still plenty of jobs where I live, that are still being filled by foreigners (although numbers coming in are reducing) and a percentage of the population is still unemployed and quite happy to be unemployed (despite telling you otherwise) they won't work for minimum wage and they certainly won't do anything that involves manual labour or effort, nor can they do temporary work until they find something permanent...
I don't think giving people jobs will do much to help 'jobseekers' other than possibly making them run out of excuses and free handouts?
Here's where your ideas about driving differ from enthusiasts, driving quickly and fast doesn't tell you anything about the average speed the car is maintaining, or is capable of maintaining over a stretch of road. In order to drive quickly it is pretty universally accepted that the car is being driven with its limits, the tyres are not going to be slipping slightly but not (intentionally) beginning to get to or pass over optimum grip levels. Typically a driver driving quickly (particularly on the public road) will reduce the amount of braking they have to do (both to add a safety margin and to reduce unnecessary wear and tear). A car being driven quickly may still be steered on the throttle or brakes, but well within the drivers comfort zone, and most importantly a car being driven quickly should never ever loose control or have an accident. The point of driving quickly is solely for the enjoyment of pro-actively driving a car, and can be performed on track days and the public road (obviously the environment restricts what kind of pace is safe) and the rate at which the car is traveling is completely irrelevant, if you want to travel fast on the public road use the motorway not back lanes.
Certain cars are unsuitable for driving quickly because of the relative lack of feedback or progression they give meaning they are neither satisfying nor particularly easy to drive near but never quite at the limit, overweight overly power assisted cars that are very dynamically capable spring to mind, as do a lot of racing cars, anything with wings and slicks would be hard to drive reliably at 9/10s cold. These cars simply have not been designed with driving satisfaction in mind.
Driving fast is different altogether, and again does not require a high average speed, driving fast requires the car to be driven on and slightly over its limits for the conditions with a small safety window, you can't drive a car fast bellow its limits. Road rally cars are driven fast, and when in a competitive environment is the only time I have ever driven or would consider driving truly fast on the road, obviously basic safety and a bit of caution has to be taken but the objective is to get the car from A to B as quickly as possible and high power front wheel drive and all wheel drive cars (which are very good at this the fact they're boring to drive) being driven fast struggle to maintain the average speed of 30mph down tight narrow lanes with a typical navigator on a typical 12 car rally. Cars are driven genuinely fast, at and over their limits, on autosolo and autocross events.
It's not up for debate that a car without power assisted steering gives you a direct mechanical linkage with the wheels, a car with any form of power assisted/indirect steering does not give a mechanical linkage and whilst it may not be too bad it will never give as much feedback through the wheel.
You don't need a really fast car to enjoy yourself on a race track, any car can be driven fast and pretty much every type of car has been driven fast on a race track, the 2CVs in the 24 hour race are driven fast, on their limit. They are still going fast and it will still be far more rewarding to drive one fast at that pace than to effortlessly follow driving at a mundane pace in another car (even a Lada!). Driving the Morgan quickly/fast on track is absolutely fantastic fun but I'd far rather drive a Leon quickly than have to follow it in the Morgan
I think by the limit your simply talking about driving fast in a straight line, a vehicle can drive at very high speed well within its design limits without being anywhere near its limits. I agree that driving quickly in a straight line on the public road, whilst tempting, is totally pointless, drive a vehicle once as fast as it can go and the novelty will soon wear off, and whilst not particularly exciting can get you in trouble very quickly both with the law and other obstacles in your path, that's why I much prefer to drive faster at a third of the speed of the typical motorcyclist who seems thrilled with the fact his machine can go forwards (but not stop) very quickly.
Older cars suddenly jump into bushes on their own do they? People have been driving/racing/rallying just about every type of car on the road and none to my knowledge have demonstrated this curious habit. Any car driven to its limit for the conditions (which can only be established by feel) and driven there quite comfortably, of course older cars may have lower limits or curious habits which the driver must respect through feeling the fact he's going over them! A lorry is by your logic far more likely to crash at any given speed because it is a dynamically less capable vehicle, as we all know this is total bollocks and generally the most likely vehicles to have accidents (through going way beyond their limits and the driver failing to save the situation) are relatively modern hatchbacks (popular with young boy racers) and expensive modern sportscars and coupes (owned as a status symbol and driven totally incompetently far too fast).
So in other words you like going fast in a straight line?
They're all too big and heavy, don't have any true feedback in the way that even the Lada manages and a modern 2 litre car is too fast to drive hard on the road unless you want to be approaching 3 figures down a country lane, which is great fun until you meet something.
I can assure you that rightly or wrongly our Focus does oversteer when on the limit, was great fun with the back end out round Luffield and I hold my hands up as an idiotic novice who span through lift off oversteer at the Craner curves, thankfully *only* at 95mph because I was in a slow car
Autocar rated it as having a much better gearbox than modern hatches, being more involving to drive, turning in with 'reasonable precision'.
'you can get pleasure from driving it. No joke'
Read some of the editorials in a magazine like Autocar, lots of journalists (Chris Harris springs to mind) are constantly harping on about both the lack of driving involvement in modern cars and how they're too fast to be enjoyed on the road.
How is a rear wheel drive car anymore dangerous, a car like the Lada (or any old rear wheel drive saloon) will understeer like there's no tommorrow with standard suspension setup and driving fast is still largely about countering understeer, but the throttle can be used for positive gain, whilst you can get the arse out the average road driver is going to have no issues with it suddenly jumping out on them, a well balanced front wheel drive car is actually potentially more dangerous for an incompetent driver because lift off oversteer will be made worse by a typical driver.
There's a lot less wrong with low power light weight front wheel drive cars, they're less adversely effected by having everything going through one axle. On the road a well setup low power front wheel drive car will also be far more entertaining to drive than a considerably quicker high power front wheel drive car.
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