Not much better than a rally V8...

"BiTurbo228 - Dr Frankenstein of Spitfires" (biturbo228)
12/19/2014 at 13:31 • Filed to: None

They cut in with some Foo Fighters which is irritating, but the first 20 seconds or so are excellent

DISCUSSION (11)

Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney > BiTurbo228 - Dr Frankenstein of Spitfires
12/19/2014 at 13:34

So awesome. Which reminds me of the TR8 rally car:

BiTurbo228 - Dr Frankenstein of Spitfires > Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney
12/19/2014 at 13:46

Aww hell yes. A TR8 is on my bucket list of cars to own. I wonder if you could squeeze a Jag IRS into the back to replace the live axle. If you can in an MGB I can't see why you couldn't...

twochevrons > BiTurbo228 - Dr Frankenstein of Spitfires
12/19/2014 at 14:04

Heh, I used to take mine hooning down forestry roads on weekends when the loggers weren't there. It was the perfect environment for it – lovely winding gravel roads, and since they were wide enough for two giant lorries to pass each other, there was plenty of space to correct for any mistakes. Good times.

I've got to say, having tried to emulate them, I'm quite in awe of the drivers who rallied a car as ludicrously tail-happy as the SD1. That takes guts.

BiTurbo228 - Dr Frankenstein of Spitfires > twochevrons
12/19/2014 at 16:23

I wish there were some sort of gravel roads anywhere near me. I'd love to hoon down them in my sportsbarge jag :) the closest i've come is some doughnuts in gravel parking areas in a national park ;)

twochevrons > BiTurbo228 - Dr Frankenstein of Spitfires
12/19/2014 at 22:25

Inappropriate sportsbarge hoonage is best hoonage. I got up to similar shenanigans in the Triumph 2500 that I had before the SD1, as well. There's something quite magical about drifting something large and luxurious down a muddy gravel road. Definitely worth doing, if you can find somewhere!

New Zealand, where I'm from, an awesome place for driving – there are plenty of gravel roads around, if you know where to look, and even the main highways are often fun drives. No good for getting anywhere in a hurry, but with a nice car and not too much traffic, there's a lot of fun to be had.

Of course, now I'm living in Minnesota, with a fleet of incredibly fun-to-drive cars, and roads that are either completely straight and flat as far as the eye can see, or with ludicrously low speed limits. The 850R is a bit of an exception, able to munch up highway miles with aplomb, but the Scirocco and MGA are definitely better suited to B-road entertainment rather than doing 70mph in a straight line for hours on end.

Thankfully, for the trips home, my parents have great cars that I can borrow (currently, an Alfa 156 estate and a Citroën BX 16v), and I definitely make the most of them!

On the topic of BXes, how's yours coming along?

BiTurbo228 - Dr Frankenstein of Spitfires > twochevrons
12/20/2014 at 05:57

I suppose i should be greatful that i have the utterly fantastic country road network in the south of england to play with. You have to watch out for deer, but you can see the reason why britain was first and foremost a sports car manufacturing nation.

I didn't know you had a scirocco. Is it one of the 80s ones or the modern one?

My little bx is getting there yeah :) i've not long finished the welding on the front wings, now there's just some welding in the boot and the non-functional headlights to fix then its off to the mot man :)

twochevrons > BiTurbo228 - Dr Frankenstein of Spitfires
12/20/2014 at 10:11

I'll admit, I'm a bit jealous. Just as my 850R belongs perfectly in the frozen tundra of the north, the roads that you talk about are the natural habitat for my MGA. It's one of my goals to spend some time living in the UK while owning some kind of British sports car – it's only right!

I haven't posted much about the Scirocco, mainly because I'm rather embarrassed that I haven't had it on the road for several years. It was a barn find, and although it's cosmetically pretty rough, it only has 30,000 miles on it. When it's running, it's an absolute hoot to drive – after all, it's just a Mk1 GTI with a chopped roofline, and everybody knows how good they are. Unfortunately, its 20-year dormancy has played havoc with the mechanical fuel injection, and it has all sorts of weird fueling issues. One day I'll strip the metering unit down and try to get to the bottom of it, but for now, it's just gathering dust. Really, I have nowhere near enough time to work on all my projects, and my plan to manual swap my 850R will do nothing to improve the situation. The Scirocco ends up fairly low on my list of priorities, but at the same time, I can't quite bring myself to sell it.

Glad to hear that the BX is coming along nicely. I have a soft spot for them, and it warms my heart to know that somebody is getting one back on the road. With road salt, and their tendency to rust, they must be pretty thin on the ground in the UK by now. I remember dismantling a parts-donor BX 16v that had spent only a couple of years of its life there before being imported to salt-free NZ, and even then, it had some pretty shocking rot in places. I really need learn how to weld...

BiTurbo228 - Dr Frankenstein of Spitfires > twochevrons
12/20/2014 at 10:54

Yeah an mga would be excellent on the roads near where i live :) if you ever make it over to the uk you're more than welcome to have a spin in whichever of my cars are on the road at the time :)

Yeah i haven't posted much about the mas, porsche or mg for the same reason. They're sitting there with work needing to be done but i haven't got time to do it :S i want to get the mg or the porsche on the road next summer though. Only minor work needs to be done on either of them, but til we've built a garage it's weather-dependent :S

Yeah welding's a great talent to have. People tend to freak out over rust holes so you can get cars a lot cheaper if you dont mind patching things up :)

There's more bxs around than i thought, they must have been popular here, but i've only seen a handful of nice ones for sale in the past 6 months or so, so the population is mainly beaters. One of the ones i saw was a ~300 brake turbocharged 16v though. Nice to see someones putting a good deal of effort and general mentalism into them still :)

Manual Transition > Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney
12/21/2014 at 14:56

A brutal reminder of just how long it has been since I last saw a Triumph on the road.

twochevrons > BiTurbo228 - Dr Frankenstein of Spitfires
12/24/2014 at 21:27

And the same goes for you if you ever end up in Minneapolis. That said, my wife and I are planning a UK trip sometime in the next couple of years, so I might have to take you up on that offer! I spent some time living in Southampton when I was young, so southern England is definitely on the to-do list.

I have high hopes for this summer, too. I'll finally be done with university, and (fingers crossed) have a job lined up that will provide much-needed car-improvement funds without soaking up too much of my time. Hopefully, I'll get the Scirocco back on the road, and do a suspension and steering rebuild on the MG. On top of that, my neighbour has a TR4a that I've promised to lend a hand with, so it should be an action-packed summer!

The weather-dependency thing gets me, too. My garage is ludicrously small, and there's no space to build a bigger one, so I end up doing almost all my work outdoors. Sometimes I'll borrow my in-laws' garage for bigger jobs or if there's something that can't wait for the weather, but even then, an unheated garage in the depths of a Minnesota winter is not a pleasant place to be.

With no vehicle inspections, and salt on the roads for almost half the year, the rust is absolutely appalling here. Holes in doors, entire sills gone, that kind of thing. I hate to think what the floors and suspension mounts look like on those cars. I'd actually say that people here don't freak out enough about rust. I, on the other hand, prefer my cars to be structurally sound, so I'd probably better learn how to do something about it.

BiTurbo228 - Dr Frankenstein of Spitfires > twochevrons
12/25/2014 at 07:56

Cool :) I look forward to updates over the summer :) I remember being surprised at just how much cash I had coming out of university into a job, and how much I could get for the projects I have :)

I'd love to see some pics of the TR4a :) one of my favourite cars that (although my favourite TR sways from TR5 to TR6 to TR8 depending on what time of day it is...)