Car suggestions - missed any?
Discussion
Out of that little lot you can narrow it down to 3. The GT4 ST205, MR2 Turbo, and the 200SX. The 300 ZX is a nice car and all that, but not a patch on Supra, (although they were making the 300z when supra were still on the old square shape, so ahead of its time I suppose), the na supra is really going to be too slow for you.
MR2T is fantastic car, and the 200sx is a hoot, with a failry large amount of pace, and very tunable, for little money, and the gt4 is a damn quick car all round...
By the way... That wasn't a nice thing to say about MrE's lady friend.. A rally slag? The girl has feelings you know!
MR2T is fantastic car, and the 200sx is a hoot, with a failry large amount of pace, and very tunable, for little money, and the gt4 is a damn quick car all round...
By the way... That wasn't a nice thing to say about MrE's lady friend.. A rally slag? The girl has feelings you know!
Of all these cars the insurance quotes I got for the mr2 and the celica are by far the cheapest from elephant on a quick surf.
I guess as I tend to drive mainly in the winter maybe I should take a look at the celica again and look for a rather better example than the one I saw at a local importers and then compare that with the mr2.
Cheers,
Mark
I guess as I tend to drive mainly in the winter maybe I should take a look at the celica again and look for a rather better example than the one I saw at a local importers and then compare that with the mr2.
Cheers,
Mark
dern said:
I guess as I tend to drive mainly in the winter maybe I should take a look at the celica again and look for a rather better example than the one I saw at a local importers and then compare that with the mr2.
Read my webpage, and then Dans webpage before going near an ST205. There aren't many issues, but there are a couple of expensive gotchas.....
Cool Locust project,if I ever saw one-due respects
Not been a worry, for me anyway,(a):It seems to be mostly a case of,people that know 'liners, know what it is-the rest go 'cor its a skyline mum' type thing(b):I don't really care what they say.
Prices:Take a quick look on E-bay! place is swamped with cheap ~£4k+ 'liners,doubtless some will be dogs but this aggressive market is slowly pulling the value of all but the top flight beasties down.
Mpg: expect sub ~20's.
Inusrance costs will be a bummer,grp 20,then again some of the other cars you're considering are 'high teens'
Stock performers?:Probably most of the cars in the UK have had some mods done.I must confess our GTST felt a little lardy when 1st got it-I was deffinately expecting more,there's all that weight & the engine seems a bit strangled.I would definately reccomend some minor tweaking; uprating air filter/induction,stock 'zorst is actually quite good-but quiet & adding an EBC. Stock shocks & brakes are well up to the job.
>> Edited by tuttle on Wednesday 6th July 17:33
>> Edited by tuttle on Wednesday 6th July 17:34
dern said:
I know this sounds stupid but if I got one the first thing people would say if they saw it would be "is it a gtr?"
Not been a worry, for me anyway,(a):It seems to be mostly a case of,people that know 'liners, know what it is-the rest go 'cor its a skyline mum' type thing(b):I don't really care what they say.
dern said:
Is that the kind of thing available for 5k and what are they like near standard?
Mark
Prices:Take a quick look on E-bay! place is swamped with cheap ~£4k+ 'liners,doubtless some will be dogs but this aggressive market is slowly pulling the value of all but the top flight beasties down.
Mpg: expect sub ~20's.
Inusrance costs will be a bummer,grp 20,then again some of the other cars you're considering are 'high teens'
Stock performers?:Probably most of the cars in the UK have had some mods done.I must confess our GTST felt a little lardy when 1st got it-I was deffinately expecting more,there's all that weight & the engine seems a bit strangled.I would definately reccomend some minor tweaking; uprating air filter/induction,stock 'zorst is actually quite good-but quiet & adding an EBC. Stock shocks & brakes are well up to the job.
>> Edited by tuttle on Wednesday 6th July 17:33
>> Edited by tuttle on Wednesday 6th July 17:34
MR2T's are properly rapid cars, but need to be driven with a bit of respect.
Integra...doesn't drive like a typical fwd car...test-drive one, you might be pleasantly surprised!
Sure, it will be slower straight-line than the two shortlisted machines, but point to point will eat a 300ZX on anything other than super-smooth tarmac. And the involvement is up there with the best Jap machines.
300ZX always seemed to me to be a bit of a barge of a car...too heavy and unweildy. You can get huge numbers out of it, but may have to put huge numbers in.
Being honest, though, if your budget is £5k, any of these three run the risk of adding 50% to that in bills if you buy a wrong-un, and from what I'm told the ZX can add 100% in short-order.
Integra...doesn't drive like a typical fwd car...test-drive one, you might be pleasantly surprised!
Sure, it will be slower straight-line than the two shortlisted machines, but point to point will eat a 300ZX on anything other than super-smooth tarmac. And the involvement is up there with the best Jap machines.
300ZX always seemed to me to be a bit of a barge of a car...too heavy and unweildy. You can get huge numbers out of it, but may have to put huge numbers in.
Being honest, though, if your budget is £5k, any of these three run the risk of adding 50% to that in bills if you buy a wrong-un, and from what I'm told the ZX can add 100% in short-order.
havoc said:That's true of any car though isn't it and I'm reducing the potential for big bills by doing all work myself. I've been running cars with the same potential for big bills and the running costs don't worry me that much (well, not all the time
Being honest, though, if your budget is £5k, any of these three run the risk of adding 50% to that in bills if you buy a wrong-un, and from what I'm told the ZX can add 100% in short-order.
). The costs of bits for the mr2 seem very reasonable compared to my old 944 for example. I really don't want a fwd car no matter how good it is. I've had a prelude vtec and while I appreciate the teg would be a bit (maybe a lot) better the prelude was an excellent fwd car and I got bored of it pretty quickly and I'm not a massive fan of the vtec engine. Honda stuff is top notch though but the only car I'd have is the nsx and I can't afford one so I'll just stick with my blade.
I'm going to take a look at a rev3 mr2 locally this w/e so will let you all know how I get on.
Thanks everyone for all the input.
Regards,
Mark
andy mac said:
You don't really need a turbo timer, unless you are incredibly lazy... Just drive at normal, everyone else pace for a few minutes before you stop...
What about M-way services, for example? You don't strictly need a TT, no, I agree. But it is that little bit of extra security in case your mind is otherwise occupied...
Its quite possible to run around in an MR2T with very little boost running. I did it all the time, even with the thing set to 1.25 bar. So motorway services shouldn't be a problem. IF you go for a blat, and you stop immediately after a blat, then yes, buy a TT, but if you have any nouse, you can do without one, and spend the 100 quid on a nice meal in a nice restaurent for the missus
Mark
Just bought a Rev2 MR2T. Looked at 4 (private) cars, and 3 of them had some sort of hesitation on boost at full-throttle. Pretty common, as HT leads/rotor arm/dizzy cap/spark plugs break down and cause the HT to track, causing ignition problems on-boost.
'Dirty smoke' is usually caused by running rich. It's usually not a problem on-boost, especially if boost/fuelling has been cranked-up (although mine doesn't do it). MR2Ts overfuel on the standard map anyway to protect the engine.
If it's running properly it should feel properly quick, and should still be accelerating significantly as you go past 100 mph (on your private test track). The needle on the dash boost gauge should go all the way to the '+' mark at full throttle in the higher gears.
What I like about the MR2T is that you have to DRIVE it properly all the time. It's not a car to be chucked through the corners. Loads of traction with RWD and the engine over the rear-wheels. It's one car that you really need to brake in a straight-line, however, as using the (very good) twin-piston brakes in a corner encourages the engine to try to overtake the front of the car quite quickly. Being smooth and deliberate is fastest I find. I've only had it a couple of weeks, and I am still surprised at it's depth of ability (and I've driven Elises, VX220Ts, Skylines, M3s, Porsche 996s...). For £5K it's hard to beat.
Find a good one. You know it makes sense.
ST
Just bought a Rev2 MR2T. Looked at 4 (private) cars, and 3 of them had some sort of hesitation on boost at full-throttle. Pretty common, as HT leads/rotor arm/dizzy cap/spark plugs break down and cause the HT to track, causing ignition problems on-boost.
'Dirty smoke' is usually caused by running rich. It's usually not a problem on-boost, especially if boost/fuelling has been cranked-up (although mine doesn't do it). MR2Ts overfuel on the standard map anyway to protect the engine.
If it's running properly it should feel properly quick, and should still be accelerating significantly as you go past 100 mph (on your private test track). The needle on the dash boost gauge should go all the way to the '+' mark at full throttle in the higher gears.
What I like about the MR2T is that you have to DRIVE it properly all the time. It's not a car to be chucked through the corners. Loads of traction with RWD and the engine over the rear-wheels. It's one car that you really need to brake in a straight-line, however, as using the (very good) twin-piston brakes in a corner encourages the engine to try to overtake the front of the car quite quickly. Being smooth and deliberate is fastest I find. I've only had it a couple of weeks, and I am still surprised at it's depth of ability (and I've driven Elises, VX220Ts, Skylines, M3s, Porsche 996s...). For £5K it's hard to beat.
Find a good one. You know it makes sense.
ST
speedtwelve said:Thanks for the info ST. Is there any particular reason you went for a rev 2 over a rev3?
Mark
Just bought a Rev2 MR2T. Looked at 4 (private) cars, and 3 of them had some sort of hesitation on boost at full-throttle. Pretty common, as HT leads/rotor arm/dizzy cap/spark plugs break down and cause the HT to track, causing ignition problems on-boost.
'Dirty smoke' is usually caused by running rich. It's usually not a problem on-boost, especially if boost/fuelling has been cranked-up (although mine doesn't do it). MR2Ts overfuel on the standard map anyway to protect the engine.
If it's running properly it should feel properly quick, and should still be accelerating significantly as you go past 100 mph (on your private test track). The needle on the dash boost gauge should go all the way to the '+' mark at full throttle in the higher gears.
What I like about the MR2T is that you have to DRIVE it properly all the time. It's not a car to be chucked through the corners. Loads of traction with RWD and the engine over the rear-wheels. It's one car that you really need to brake in a straight-line, however, as using the (very good) twin-piston brakes in a corner encourages the engine to try to overtake the front of the car quite quickly. Being smooth and deliberate is fastest I find. I've only had it a couple of weeks, and I am still surprised at it's depth of ability (and I've driven Elises, VX220Ts, Skylines, M3s, Porsche 996s...). For £5K it's hard to beat.
Find a good one. You know it makes sense.
ST
Regards,
Mark
I actually bought the car from a mate of mine who couldn't afford the fuel or insurance for it. When he originally bought it his budget only stretched to a rev1 or 2. We found a good one, but he only put a couple of thousand miles on it. When it came to me buying one it made sense to take it off his hands as I knew exactly what I was buying.
I don't plan to go crazy with power, and so the extra horses of rev3+ cars aren't too important, as I can make up the deficit of my rev2 with some mild tweaking. The handling is fine; you can use all the grip and power in the wet as long as you are smooth with the wheel and pedals. Incidentally I have a t-bar, but don't notice any chassis flex at all. It has the factory t-bar front strut brace and rear cross braces over the engine to stiffen it.
The rev3 had thinner walls on the engine compared to the other cars, and some consider it the 'weaker' engine as far as reliability goes if you up the boost considerably. It does have the fully-variable VSV boost controller, which will give you as much boost as the car will allow given intake temperatures, fuel quality, pinking etc. The rev1 and 2 vsv is either on or off, i.e. if it senses any parameters which may cause detonation it'll drop the boost to the actuator-controlled limit of 7psi rather than the vsv-allowed 10 psi.
Be very wary of cars that have aftermarket boost controllers fitted. On a rev3+, the vsv has to be disconnected, and so the in-built engine boost protection is lost. Some switched-on owners wire in an LED which shows the vsv status from the ECU, which will warn them if the ECU would be limiting the boost due to detonation if the vsv were still connected. Others just override it and crank up the boost regardless. I viewed one car that had vsv disconnected, boost ramped up to something like 17 psi, and the muppet owner ran it on 95 octane fuel! I think it ran 2 weeks before he holed a piston...
Go look at a few. They're great cars.
ST
I don't plan to go crazy with power, and so the extra horses of rev3+ cars aren't too important, as I can make up the deficit of my rev2 with some mild tweaking. The handling is fine; you can use all the grip and power in the wet as long as you are smooth with the wheel and pedals. Incidentally I have a t-bar, but don't notice any chassis flex at all. It has the factory t-bar front strut brace and rear cross braces over the engine to stiffen it.
The rev3 had thinner walls on the engine compared to the other cars, and some consider it the 'weaker' engine as far as reliability goes if you up the boost considerably. It does have the fully-variable VSV boost controller, which will give you as much boost as the car will allow given intake temperatures, fuel quality, pinking etc. The rev1 and 2 vsv is either on or off, i.e. if it senses any parameters which may cause detonation it'll drop the boost to the actuator-controlled limit of 7psi rather than the vsv-allowed 10 psi.
Be very wary of cars that have aftermarket boost controllers fitted. On a rev3+, the vsv has to be disconnected, and so the in-built engine boost protection is lost. Some switched-on owners wire in an LED which shows the vsv status from the ECU, which will warn them if the ECU would be limiting the boost due to detonation if the vsv were still connected. Others just override it and crank up the boost regardless. I viewed one car that had vsv disconnected, boost ramped up to something like 17 psi, and the muppet owner ran it on 95 octane fuel! I think it ran 2 weeks before he holed a piston...
Go look at a few. They're great cars.
ST
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