Opinions on Freestyle Duratec

[culminator]

Went to have a look at a 2.3 engined Duratec car today, built by Freestyle. It has a Minister built 260 motor and Astra wide track at front and rear.

Anyone familiar with this set up and got experience of a Duratec in this star of tune? It has Titan roller barrel throttle bodies, dry sump etc.

[BBL-Sean]

Not sure what "Astra wide track" is exactly, but I have a Freestyle-built 7 with the supawide suspension, and like it a lot. My car has a 260 hp Cosworth 2.3 Duratec rather than the 260 hp Minister 2.3 Duratec, but I have to believe they will be similar, and have never read any derogatory comments about Minister engines - nothing but good. I think you would be hard pressed to find a better 7, but then, I am biased!

edit -- EVO magazine seemed to like it well enough in a lower-powered form, back in the day here.

Edited by BBL-Sean on Friday 28th February 01:37

[culminator]

Thanks Sean, flipping ipad auto correct! I meant "extra wide" of course.

Hope you don't mind but I've dropped you a pm as your car appears to be the same spec as the one I'm interested in.
Cheers
Mike

[sam919]

Did Minister not cease trading? it might be worth a call if not, but im sure there not operating anymore, hopefully wrong. Its nothing the likes of Premier Power couldnt service at some point, i have had some bad experiences with Duratecs in high power form, but anything 260 and lower should be pretty good if maintained well.

[culminator]

Yep minister are no more and the car doesn't have much in the way of paperwork, so who knows what they did to this particular engine. Ive no reason to think it's not a 260bhp engine but don't know what to look for and would really like to know what they did to get that power. It's on Titan roller barrel throttle bodies, that's for sure.

[Blatter]

culminator said:

Yep minister are no more and the car doesn't have much in the way of paperwork, so who knows what they did to this particular engine. Ive no reason to think it's not a 260bhp engine but don't know what to look for and would really like to know what they did to get that power. It's on Titan roller barrel throttle bodies, that's for sure.

I am wondering if this might have been my old car that you have been shown? The fact that there isn't much paperwork with it leads me to think this. My car was destroyed in a fire while at Freestyle being serviced. It was deemed a write-off but I did see it being advertised by a company called Elmstead Motors some time ago as a "track day car" as they probably didn't want to get it re-registered.

As BBL-Sean suggested, the engine was great, with loads of torque. When I had it specced, Gary May said that Minister would be supplying a 270bhp engine and all of my old paper work indicates that it was putting that out.

The main reason why this engine was not as popular as the 2.0l Duratec is because it is slightly taller and therefore more difficult to shoe-horn into the narrow (standard) bodied Caterham. One reason why people that wanted the Duratec-engined car in a narrow body went to Gary May in the first place. He was one of the few people (along with Mick Attree) that was building to this spec.

It was a great car, but if it's the same one, be wary of buying "fire-damaged goods"....

ETA - I have just seen your other post Culminator and don't think that it could have been my car, if it's always been black.

Edited by Blatter on Monday 3rd March 06:40

[culminator]

Interesting, thanks for the info.

This car has always been black, seen the original build photos etc. there's no evidence that it was in a fire, as the chassis etc shows signs of age etc. It seems a lot of money, so I'm not entirely convinced its worth buying at the moment.
Cheers
Mike