Modernising a MK3 'Tina...
Discussion
I ran a couple of Mark 5's back in the day. If you fitted the estate solid axle bushes (you had to - the voided ones didn't last 5000 miles) and replaced the s
te standard dampers with Konis, they weren't bad. But it was only ever a decent chassis by 1970 standards and you always had the rear axle 'wiggle'. By contrast, the Mark 1 Cavalier was a superb thing to drive and they're probably still good by todays standards with a few tweaks. I was also surprised how decent a Marina was with the ST telescopic damper conversion - not amazing, but entertaining and much better than the Cortina.
There wasn't much wrong with the old Pinto really, but I'd be locating a rotten Sierra 2.0is and relieving it of the 205 blocked injection unit and 5 speed T9 - a good combination. Zetecs strike me as being a lot of aggro to fit.
For the price of a decent* Cortina Mark III I'd be looking instead at the aforementioned Cavaliers, E21 3 Series and so on.
te standard dampers with Konis, they weren't bad. But it was only ever a decent chassis by 1970 standards and you always had the rear axle 'wiggle'. By contrast, the Mark 1 Cavalier was a superb thing to drive and they're probably still good by todays standards with a few tweaks. I was also surprised how decent a Marina was with the ST telescopic damper conversion - not amazing, but entertaining and much better than the Cortina.There wasn't much wrong with the old Pinto really, but I'd be locating a rotten Sierra 2.0is and relieving it of the 205 blocked injection unit and 5 speed T9 - a good combination. Zetecs strike me as being a lot of aggro to fit.
For the price of a decent* Cortina Mark III I'd be looking instead at the aforementioned Cavaliers, E21 3 Series and so on.
iSore said:
I ran a couple of Mark 5's back in the day. If you fitted the estate solid axle bushes (you had to - the voided ones didn't last 5000 miles) and replaced the ste standard dampers with Konis, they weren't bad. But it was only ever a decent chassis by 1970 standards and you always had the rear axle 'wiggle'. By contrast, the Mark 1 Cavalier was a superb thing to drive and they're probably still good by todays standards with a few tweaks. I was also surprised how decent a Marina was with the ST telescopic damper conversion - not amazing, but entertaining and much better than the Cortina.
There wasn't much wrong with the old Pinto really, but I'd be locating a rotten Sierra 2.0is and relieving it of the 205 blocked injection unit and 5 speed T9 - a good combination. Zetecs strike me as being a lot of aggro to fit.
For the price of a decent* Cortina Mark III I'd be looking instead at the aforementioned Cavaliers, E21 3 Series and so on.
Those Cavaliers don't look half as cool as the Mark 3 Cortina though, or even the Mark4/5 IMO. But you're right, they did handle nicely.te standard dampers with Konis, they weren't bad. But it was only ever a decent chassis by 1970 standards and you always had the rear axle 'wiggle'. By contrast, the Mark 1 Cavalier was a superb thing to drive and they're probably still good by todays standards with a few tweaks. I was also surprised how decent a Marina was with the ST telescopic damper conversion - not amazing, but entertaining and much better than the Cortina.There wasn't much wrong with the old Pinto really, but I'd be locating a rotten Sierra 2.0is and relieving it of the 205 blocked injection unit and 5 speed T9 - a good combination. Zetecs strike me as being a lot of aggro to fit.
For the price of a decent* Cortina Mark III I'd be looking instead at the aforementioned Cavaliers, E21 3 Series and so on.
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