Locost Sierra Donor

[Andy_sx]

Morning all

After speaking with a freind alot recently we have decided to build a Locost kit as a bit of a toy to eleviate the boredom of our daily drives that will be changing in the not too distant future to mundane vehicles!

my main question is, where are the best places to source a decnt ish donor Sierra, preferably an MOT failure with shassis rot that we can rob all, if not the majority of the seesntail parts.

Also, what engine would yu leraned people recomened to be the best for this type of build? I will try and source the donor with this engine in already as it were so we have less dormant car shells floating about.

All help and advise is appreciated. Initailly we will be doing it for fun and track days with the view of entering the Locost race series at some point once we have more oomph and experience with driving this type of car

[singlecoil]

There's no need to buy an MOT failure, much better to buy a road legal car at say £250 and up, and drive it around enough to know which bits are OK and which aren't. The diff and the gearbox for instance. Yes, you can find out afterwards if your gearbox is duff, or just a bit dodgy, but that's going to invlove a gearbox swap in your newly built car and you won't want to do that.

Engine choice, well, the pinto is OK, and may well be free with the donor. Don't bother with any of the others especially the DOHC or V6's.

If you are on a budget then my recommendation would be to go with the pinto and maybe change to Zetec after a couple of years.

Just had another read of your post, if you are planning to race in the Locost series then you will need to get a copy of the regulations, they are quite restricitive.
Personally I wouldn't bother. Build the car the way you want and do trackdays instead.

Edited by singlecoil on Tuesday 8th July 13:04

[Red Firecracker]

Having been there and nearly done that (sold it as a rolling chassis) I'd suggest looking at one of the seven-esqe kits and going that way. It's a touch easier than the LoCost chassis route and dare I say it, comparable in price.

[Andy_sx]

Singlecoil, many thanks for that, the kind of thing i was hoping for. Have just been on the dreaded E-bay (dreaded by my bank manager...) and have seen a few options available that will (or at least should) drive home to be ripped to pieces.

dont suppose you know if the xr4x4 or similar can be utilised in rwd format only in the sa,e fashion a pinto transmission will be positioned etc? (fords arent a strong point for me)

Red Firecracker, my friend and I are on a budget, maximum 1.5k with us doing the full build (chassis, engine strip and rebuild with a few more gee gee's etc etc) and the locost is the best option for us financhially, plus we can spec it as we desire... boggo running spec to start with then smart / tart up at a later date

[singlecoil]

Andy, it sounds to me as if you should get hold of a copy of the Haynes 'Build Your Own Sportscar on a Budget' manual.

See also
http://www.haynes.co.uk/forums/index.php

and http://www.locostbuilders.co.uk/
if you haven't already

The 4x4 gearbox can't be used, nor can the front uprights. I'm pretty sure the rear diff is LSD and is considered well worth having.
A straightforward 2ltr pinto engined car will be the simplest and easiest, and won't involve swapping components for units that may or may not be OK

[Andy_sx]

singlecoil said:

Andy, it sounds to me as if you should get hold of a copy of the Haynes 'Build Your Own Sportscar on a Budget' manual.

See also
http://www.haynes.co.uk/forums/index.php

and http://www.locostbuilders.co.uk/
if you haven't already

The 4x4 gearbox can't be used, nor can the front uprights. I'm pretty sure the rear diff is LSD and is considered well worth having.
A straightforward 2ltr pinto engined car will be the simplest and easiest, and won't involve swapping components for units that may or may not be OK

SC, thanks again, my friend picked it up this afternoon and i have it downlaoded somehwere, but not sure where.

thanks for the heads up rear gear box and front upprights, will bear thet in mind.

thinking logically about it i think the best way to go will be pinto first (my first time driving a rwd car, so turbo lag wont be appreciated) then take things from there.

fortunately we are both handy with the spanners and welders and have an annoying attention to detail when building / fixing things so hopefully it should be of a decent quality

[Andy_sx]

well the bullet has been bitten and a sierra 1.6 was purchased last night!

plan is to get a road running car built to a basic standard then work on it from there once its on the road!

all in after doing all the sums £1500 should be doable considering how little we spent on the donor car

[Spleeble]

The 1.6 is very under powered and there are very few tuning parts available for it. My advice would be to bin it and get the 2.0, but the chances of finding a good pinto ready to go are remote. The history of them will be questionable, you won’t know how many miles it’s done and it will need a rebuild. This can be expensive as new pistons, rings, cams and gaskets soon add up. I have a 2.0 sat in my garage which I removed from my kit car in favour of a Duratec as it needed a full rebuild and new cams.

[Andy_sx]

Hi Spleeble, thanks for the advice.

I understand that the engine isnt very powerful, but in all honesty that is part of the charm of the donor car. It will be the first time for either myself or my friend who im building the car with to drive a rwd car, so not having too much oomph is a good thing, and we can swap the engine out easily enough at a later date.

the plan is to get something sorted nice and cheaply to get us going that we can tinker with and sort from there

[singlecoil]

Andy_sx said:

the plan is to get something sorted nice and cheaply to get us going that we can tinker with and sort from there

I think that is an excellent plan. If you can establish that the 1600 is working properly, producing some power, not burning oil etc then I would go ahead and use it.

As you say, you can always change it later.

[Jon Ison]

Yup, go for it, my locost started life with a 1600 pinto on board, that made way for the massive 893cc's of blade engine which is soon to be ousted to make way for a nice little busa engine that happens to be lurking in the garage.

Moral ? Its never finished.


edit to add you ought to take a look on........

www.locostbuilders.co.uk

You will find this site better than any build manual and crammed full of like minded guys building, tinkering on a budget, some are put off by the word "locost" take a look on there you will see innovative ideas/plans/methods and finished projects that look and perform far from "locost"

Edited by Jon Ison on Wednesday 9th July 16:50

[S7Paul]

singlecoil said:

Andy_sx said:

the plan is to get something sorted nice and cheaply to get us going that we can tinker with and sort from there

I think that is an excellent plan. If you can establish that the 1600 is working properly, producing some power, not burning oil etc then I would go ahead and use it.

As you say, you can always change it later.

Fair enough, but it really depends how much time you want to spend fiddling with it (i.e. changing engines). My 7 had a 2.0 Pinto, and that was just about tolerable, though it wasn't long before I wanted more power. I ended up with a big valve head, fast road cam, twin Dellorto's, etc., and that felt about right. I just think a 1.6 Pinto is SO gutless you'll be fed up with it after a week. If I'd kept the 7 I would have been seriously looking at changing to a Vauxhall 2.0 Red Top motor.

[Andy_sx]

S7Paul said:

singlecoil said:

Andy_sx said:

the plan is to get something sorted nice and cheaply to get us going that we can tinker with and sort from there

I think that is an excellent plan. If you can establish that the 1600 is working properly, producing some power, not burning oil etc then I would go ahead and use it.

As you say, you can always change it later.

Fair enough, but it really depends how much time you want to spend fiddling with it (i.e. changing engines). My 7 had a 2.0 Pinto, and that was just about tolerable, though it wasn't long before I wanted more power. I ended up with a big valve head, fast road cam, twin Dellorto's, etc., and that felt about right. I just think a 1.6 Pinto is SO gutless you'll be fed up with it after a week. If I'd kept the 7 I would have been seriously looking at changing to a Vauxhall 2.0 Red Top motor.

SC, we have purchased a working car that we will be collecting tonight (its not quite as cheap as my saab or alfa which were completley foc, but its cheap enough to keep us well under the £1500 budget we have set to get us on the road) so will be checking everything tonight before handing over the cash. Plus i can use it as a run around while at work (i work in a port) so can make sure all is as it should be

S7, while i understand where you are coming from, both my friend and I have no problems with tinkering at all, and engine swap is relatively easy and we will be building the car with this eventuality in mind. The main thing is that we are both relatively young (23 and 24) and this will be our first step into something like this, so theres no point getting the big oomph before we know how to drive this type of car. Get used to what we have and we can then work from there.

This will be the first of 2 that we will build aswell (naturally, it will be one each) but as a first venture this should work quite nicely as we can both do everything needed and we have the equipment aswell.

All in all, I'm ever so slightly excited about this little project, plus it will stop me buggering around with my day to day cars and give me the oppertunity to clear the drive of my 4 cars down to the locost and a sensible daily driver

[Andy_sx]

And the donor car is sat outside my office now!

has a completely duff battery, but other than that runs great, pulls pretty well for a mere 1600 cc's and will happily break traction when provoked, and thats in a dog of a Sierra body shell, so should be entertaining enough for a while in a little chassis with some tin foil draped over it to get through the SVA a nice £100 spent there me thinks

[Spleeble]

Andy_sx said:

And the donor car is sat outside my office now!

has a completely duff battery, but other than that runs great, pulls pretty well for a mere 1600 cc's and will happily break traction when provoked, and thats in a dog of a Sierra body shell, so should be entertaining enough for a while in a little chassis with some tin foil draped over it to get through the SVA a nice £100 spent there me thinks

£50 and you can have my 2 litre (205 block I think), another £30 you can have the inlet manifold, another £50 and you can have the twin webers (40's I think) another £30 and you can have the Burton cam cover (very desirable)!

[dern]

Andy_sx said:

And the donor car is sat outside my office now!

has a completely duff battery, but other than that runs great, pulls pretty well for a mere 1600 cc's and will happily break traction when provoked, and thats in a dog of a Sierra body shell, so should be entertaining enough for a while in a little chassis with some tin foil draped over it to get through the SVA a nice £100 spent there me thinks

Good effort, you'd get more than that for it simply weighing it in.

[Andy_sx]

Spleeble said:

Andy_sx said:

And the donor car is sat outside my office now!

has a completely duff battery, but other than that runs great, pulls pretty well for a mere 1600 cc's and will happily break traction when provoked, and thats in a dog of a Sierra body shell, so should be entertaining enough for a while in a little chassis with some tin foil draped over it to get through the SVA a nice £100 spent there me thinks

£50 and you can have my 2 litre (205 block I think), another £30 you can have the inlet manifold, another £50 and you can have the twin webers (40's I think) another £30 and you can have the Burton cam cover (very desirable)!

Oi Speeble, this is supposed to be a cheap project with all the nice bits later... dont go tempting me to buy things i really shouldnt just yet!... however, you may have an email in a couple of months! we will see what happens

Cheers Dern, my thoughts exactly. thats the perk of e-bay, alot of non thinkers out there that just sell without realising that they needen't have spent 7 days replying to e-mails etc etc and just cashed it in for the same cost! bonus for us is the budget is looking very able even with Speeble tempting me!

just need a new batt for the Sierra and i will use it to run around the docks in and make sure nothing is awry before pulling it apart