horney™
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 1,289
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Apr 29, 2019 13:42:40 GMT
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I've pondered a long time as to whether or not post a thread on here about this car. How long? I've owned the car 18 months, that's how long! Some of you may have seen at the Gathering in 2017 when after a few too many shandies I bid and won the chance to be the last car up the hill. I didn't have a retro car with me, or my licence, or any money, or helmet. Somehow Ian and the gang made sure I could do it and so there was me in my modern going up the hill climb. Here's the car the day I collected it:  Untitled by Nicholas Horne, on Flickr  Untitled by Nicholas Horne, on Flickr  Untitled by Nicholas Horne, on Flickr  Untitled by Nicholas Horne, on Flickr What will follow is 18 months of overspending, tears, blood and trophies. More later tonight if there isn't a gathering with pitchforks because it's kinda modern. |
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Last Edit: Apr 30, 2019 9:39:58 GMT by horney™
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Apr 29, 2019 14:50:23 GMT
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I'm in...but purely as there is a 1320 sticker in the window so assume there will be some drag strip action?
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96 E320 W210 Wafter - on 18" split Mono's - Sold :-(
10 Kia Ceed Sportwagon - Our new daily
03 Import Forester STi - Sold
98 W140 CL500 AMG - Brutal weekend bruiser! Sold :-(
99 E240 S210 Barge - Now sold
02 Accord 2.0SE - wife's old daily - gone in PX
88 P100 2.9efi Custom - Sold
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horney™
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 1,289
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Apr 29, 2019 21:32:17 GMT
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I'm in...but purely as there is a 1320 sticker in the window so assume there will be some drag strip action? You're going to be disappointed. It has done one solitary run up Santa Pod in a rather unexciting time of 14.6 seconds in my hands and as Mini in the Park is no longer at Santa Pod I doubt it will see a 1/4 mile again any time soon. It's cut and paste time! |
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horney™
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 1,289
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Apr 29, 2019 21:37:17 GMT
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Picked it up in August 2017. Pulled up outside the house and before I'd even got out of the car had the following whatsapp from the wife:  It was indeed rather loud and would need to be rectified. Not only for the sake of my marriage, but to be able to use it on trackdays. Loud noises: The car itself is a 2002 pre facelift Cooper S in that common grey. It has a white roof that had been wrapped black. The owner before the guy I bought it from spent a LOT of money on it. Brief spec: JCW engine fitted 2015 after OE engine failed ARP Headbolts Cat race cam from 1320 550cc injectors Orranje Stealth Airbox Airtec Intercooler 17% reduction pulley on the charger Janspeed manifold Custom manifold back stainless exhaust Mapped by 1320 at 225bhp at the wheels with a 500rpm rev limit increase AP Coilovers 11mm Wheel spacers Sparco Assetto Corsa wheels with ditch finders It is frankly stupid. I love it. It needed a fair bit of tidying up. The bonnet had bad laquer peel and one of the A panels is dented. It needed a damn good clean inside and out. My only plans for it were to fit a facelift gearbox with LSD, quiten down the exhaust, remove the black wrap, replace the damaged panels and drive the wheels off it. A couple of pics that aren't mine.   |
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Last Edit: Apr 29, 2019 21:40:32 GMT by horney™
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horney™
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 1,289
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Apr 29, 2019 21:42:45 GMT
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Last Edit: Apr 29, 2019 21:45:03 GMT by horney™
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horney™
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 1,289
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Apr 29, 2019 21:49:55 GMT
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October 2017 - Competed in my first event in the Mini, the Farnborough District Motor Club Sprint Royale. Due to the rules around boost multiplications to CC I was in the 1800 to 2300cc class. My competition was a group of EP3 Type Rs, a Fiat 500 Abarth, an old school Alfa, an MGA and a Clio 182. My main aim was to try the car out, get a feel for competing in it and decide if it’s the right car and class to compete in or to focus on my MX5 for that. I knew the other R53 was turbod and running over 300 whp, I knew everyone else was on semi slicks and I knew a at least one of the civics and its a driver were well seasoned Sprint competitors in a very well developed car. I had power but no decent tyres, far from ideal suspension set up, no LSD and standard brakes with Mintex 1144 pads. That's all my excuses in early. I had no illusions about walking home with a trophy. I had a great time though. The car was brilliant, wheelspin city, but brilliant. Took me a while to dial in to FWD having only ever done these kinds of events in RWD cars. I haven’t properly tracked a FWD in over 5 years. The result was out of 10 in class I came 4th, 3 tenths of a second off third. The 3 Civics making up the top 3. Yup, I beat the 300+ whp R53. I think he must have been having an off day as it looked blisteringly quick off the line. The day proved that the car had potential. I was around 2 secs off the front guys over a course that took them around 57secs. Sounds small but it was quite a lot. However I reckoned with some proper tyres, the wheels pointing and cambered like they should be and more seat time from the fleshy lump behind the wheel we would be capable of claiming some trophies for the cabinet. Here’s a couple of pics from the day plus a video of my fastest run at 59.63 seconds.   MrsHorney grabbed a video of me leaving the line. December 2017 I took the Mini to the PistonHeads sunday service at Silverstone and did a short track session. Was good fun but even with the mintex 1144 pads and fresh fluids the brakes were truly terrible. Pics:     The pics show it also badly needed camber plates for the front, soooo much positive camber under load. Video of a couple of laps: |
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Last Edit: Apr 29, 2019 21:51:04 GMT by horney™
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horney™
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 1,289
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Apr 29, 2019 21:58:41 GMT
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January to April 2018 I then spent too much money, in some kind of order:
Fitted all new bushes and ball joints on the front end
Fitted 2 new wheel bearings on the front
Fitted new driveshafts
New driveshafts kept falling out
Damaged gearbox seal
Replaced gearbox seal and fitted good used OEM driveshafts.
Driveshafts now stayed in the gearbox
Fitted Gen2 Cooper S front brakes and braided lines all round
1320 fabricated a standard mini cat into the decat pipe
It’s now much quieter
It made 207 at the wheels on their dyno
Picked up a cheap facelift gearbox with LSD
While fitting above found the radiator was near dead so replaced
Clutch slave failed during gearbox seal, so replaced
Coilovers raised to a sensible height
Replaced a rear wheel bearing.
Won some Cobra Mini specific seat mounts and sliders on eBay
Won a cheap but perfect condition 18 month old Cobra seat for above on eBay
Fitted frame and seat
AD08Rs fitted all round
Wheel alignment done
It’s was well worth it though. The car drove perfectly and put a real grin on my face.
Here’s a video of the 9am track session at Castle Combe Spring Action Day 2018:
May 2018 and first sprints the year completed. It was the Farnborough District Motor Club Dimanche Sprint at Rushmoor Arena.
Car went really well and I knocked 1.5 seconds off my PB I’d set in the supercharged MX5 back in 2016, in doing so bagged myself a 1st in class. I think a perfect run would have seen me dip into the 53’s. I came 11th overall. Amazing!
Here’s a short video:
June 2017 was the Abingdon Motorsport CAR-nival, 2 days of cars and competition. On the Saturday there’s a 2 course sprint for nearly 200 cars and also an AutoSolo. On the Sunday stage rallying.
2017 was my 3rd time at this event competing in the sprint. My two prevous attempts were in my supercharged MX5 and frankly I sucked. I need to dig out my old times, but the first year I finished 10th out of 11 in class. Ok, so I wasn’t last and in those days the class structure was 2000cc and above so I was against all sorts of mental machines in the road going classes.
In 2017 the class was 1600 - 2300cc and with the multiplier for forced induction the MINI is in the upper limit of the class. Competitors were other MINIs (an R56 and R53 converted by 1320 to Turbo with over 300bhp), a Firsta ST, a couple of boosted MX5s and a collection on NA vehicles such as Clio’s and a 205 GTi.
This event has two courses. Abingdon being fast and mostly flowing, Bentley being more point and squirt. The format is 2 practice runs and then 2 timed runs on each. The combined total of your best time from each course is you time.
We did the Abingdon course in the morning and the R56 and the Fiesta absolutely destroyed me in the times. The young lad in the R56 posting times 4 seconds faster than me on a course that’s less than a minute in length! The Fiesta guy was a bit further ahead. I managed to squeak in front of the R53 Turbo by a small margin. Morning finished 3rd in class, time for a hotdog, a coffee and self addressed pep talk.
The afternoon course is the one I prefer and I fooled myself into thinking I could make up some of the time I was down in the morning against the top 2. Who was I kidding? I was better at this course, but only enough that the deficit was smaller to the top 2 but they were still quicker. I got closest to the fiesta, being only a 1 second slower on this course. The R56 romped away again.
It was enough to secure 3rd in class though. I was chuffed to bits as going into the weekend I expected to be 5th or 6th having reviewed the entry list.
Here’s a video of the best run from each course.
Some things I took away from that weekend?
1 - 20 something lads who stage rally an Evo are unbeatable in their daily MINI.
2 - Fiesta STs with 300+ Bhp are epic.
3 - My bloody suspension was clonking and it was getting worse
4 - I needed more power
5 - I needed better brake pads
5 - I needed to be less of a pussy
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horney™
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 1,289
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Apr 29, 2019 22:03:03 GMT
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The day after the Abingdon Sprint I thought it would be fun to try and win a second trophy in one weekend in the Concours at Beaulieu National Cooper Day. So I jet washed the car at a petrol station the night before after unpacking all my race gear and then got up dead early to convoy down to the New Forrest with MrsHorneyMX5 in her 1979 850cc City.   In the concours:  I came last. I had a great day though and chatted to a lot of people about using these cars for grass roots motorsport. I fitted some Ferodo DS2500 pads to make the thing stop better and I removed the fog lights and cut the inner arches to get some cool air in there as well.   Next up, to get rid of my steering clonk I fitted poly void insert bushes into all the engine mounts and replaced the drivers side engine mount with a Vibratechnic one. At great expense.    It didn’t fix it. In fact it seemed worse than ever. Then a man on facebook said “try nipping up the two bolts that hold the inner ball joint to the subframe.” A 1/4 turn to one bolt which already felt f$%cking tight and would you believe it? Clonk gone. I spent a lot of money to fix that but at least I now have a rock solid engine and new driveshafts. Lol. I bought some spotlights and covers because, well I think they look cool OK?   I went to Castle Combe and did a trackday. Knocked several seconds off my PB in my old supercharged MX5 so rather happy with that. Here’s some pics:   This video is a mixture of myself and my Dad driving (you’ll like me telling him off for passing the Aston in a corner) and contains 15 mins of us overtaking pretty much every other car there. These include an Exige, some red badge hondas, an M2 and even an Ariel Nomad! I bought a horribly expensive Coolerworx shifter tower.   Not as easy to fit as you’d hope. Required the shifter cables from a facelift car for a start. You need to drop the exhaust and heat shields to fit it from below, you have to strip out the induction area to fit the other end of the cables and then cut up the centre console to get the plastic work sort of back in. An easier job if your MINI is a post 2004 facelift car as at least your cables are the right ones! Also fitted an OMP steering wheel boss, resistors for the airbags and a cheapo Motomec wheel. I went for a cheap wheel as I wasn’t sure if I’d want flat or dished for the driving position and £55 was an OK amount to spend to experiment, not £300 on a proper wheel.  The whole thing felt so much more “race car”. The shifter is incredible. It brings the top right up by the wheel and the throw is super short, very weighty and very precise. It needed a bit of adjustment and due to the fact my gearbox has done 120,000+ miles the linkage on the box itself needed a refresh to remove the last of the slack in the whole system. The drive home from fitting this little lot was an absolute hoot. |
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Last Edit: Apr 29, 2019 22:05:02 GMT by horney™
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horney™
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 1,289
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Apr 29, 2019 22:09:13 GMT
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October and competed in the my third sprint of the 2018, picking up another trophy along the way. Dead happy. Short video here: October 2018Pistonheads Sunday Service at Silverstone. It was a bit moist.  44988362_10161046180870322_1907975836120645632_o by Nicholas Horne, on Flickr  44999786_10161046180850322_7971289259325784064_o by Nicholas Horne, on Flickr  45017732_10161046180700322_6101860402499420160_o by Nicholas Horne, on Flickr  44948723_10161046180690322_6299845509943132160_o by Nicholas Horne, on Flickr November 2018 Brands Hatch trackday. What a hoot! Love Brands and it was the first time I'd driven the MINI on an undulating circuit. Wow, the AP coilovers were soft, I have some melted wheel arches now. They did work well though. Sure they're soft and there's some roll but they were so well damped that they give shed loads of grip and handle the kerbs superbly. Anyway, pics and vids:  181115_SR_BH_Cars_2334 by Nicholas Horne, on Flickr  181115_SR_BH_Cars_2769 by Nicholas Horne, on Flickr  181115_SR_BH_Cars_2782 by Nicholas Horne, on Flickr  181115_SR_BH_Cars_3116 by Nicholas Horne, on Flickr  181115_SR_BH_Cars_2100 by Nicholas Horne, on Flickr  181115_SR_BH_Cars_1457 by Nicholas Horne, on Flickr  181115_SR_BH_Cars_2222 by Nicholas Horne, on Flickr |
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Last Edit: Apr 29, 2019 22:10:32 GMT by horney™
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horney™
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 1,289
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Apr 29, 2019 22:15:29 GMT
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At last we arrive at 2019! After Christmas it was time to get my wallet out and splash the cash. First up was a rear 4 point cage from the excellent AMS Fabrication near Goodwood.  Untitled by Nicholas Horne, on Flickr  Untitled by Nicholas Horne, on Flickr  Untitled by Nicholas Horne, on Flickr Really stoked with it and can't recommend Sam enough. He has Jigs for MINI and MX5s so give him a shout if your after some roll over protection. I then went to Autosport and bought some new seats as the Monaco Pro was not at all comfortable for me and I knew from having them in an MX5 that Sparco Sprints fit me like a glove.  Untitled by Nicholas Horne, on Flickr  Untitled by Nicholas Horne, on Flickr Mid fitting snack  Untitled by Nicholas Horne, on Flickr And in with the belts.  Untitled by Nicholas Horne, on Flickr Next up I wanted a livery and I was really chuffed with how this panned out. I've always loved the look of the Kanjo civic race cars. Here's a couple of examples:    So I wanted to emulate that style on the mini and my friend Josh has a vinyl plotter so we ordered a bunch of sticky back plastic and this is the result.  Untitled by Nicholas Horne, on Flickr  Untitled by Nicholas Horne, on Flickr  Untitled by Nicholas Horne, on Flickr  IMG_0764 by Nicholas Horne, on Flickr  IMG_0768 by Nicholas Horne, on Flickr  IMG_0782 by Nicholas Horne, on Flickr  IMG_0779 by Nicholas Horne, on Flickr  IMG_0772 by Nicholas Horne, on Flickr  IMG_0788 by Nicholas Horne, on Flickr  IMG_0775 by Nicholas Horne, on Flickr  IMG_0789 by Nicholas Horne, on Flickr  IMG_0776 by Nicholas Horne, on Flickr  IMG_0777 by Nicholas Horne, on Flickr  IMG_0791 by Nicholas Horne, on Flickr Next up coolant tank. This is a known week spot on these cars as they perish and crack as well as the caps failing. There's a few decent replacement tanks on the market from Airtec, canton etc but I've gone for the DaveFab one. It's new to the market but the Dave's have been knocking it out of the park with MX5 bits for a few years now plus this is designed and made in the UK. Really chuffed with it.  Untitled by Nicholas Horne, on Flickr  Untitled by Nicholas Horne, on Flickr  Untitled by Nicholas Horne, on Flickr  Untitled by Nicholas Horne, on Flickr I went to a massive "cruise" for the first time in years last night and it was quite amusing.  Untitled by Nicholas Horne, on Flickr |
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horney™
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 1,289
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Apr 29, 2019 22:17:24 GMT
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horney™
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 1,289
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Apr 29, 2019 22:18:03 GMT
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horney™
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 1,289
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Apr 29, 2019 22:19:04 GMT
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I took the MINI to Donington Park at the end of March for the first track action of 2019. After the first time out at 9:30 I had an excessively smoking front drivers side brake, which seemed odd. On closer inspection the CV boot had split and it was CV grease that had been splattered everywhere that was burning off. Doh! A quick run to GSF in Derby and a replacement driveshaft was sourced. Massive thanks to my buddy Brian for giving me a hand swap it out allowing me to get back out in the afternoon.  Untitled by Nicholas Horne, on Flickr  LHP_1864 by Nicholas Horne, on Flickr  Untitled by Nicholas Horne, on Flickr  Untitled by Nicholas Horne, on Flickr  LHP_4361 by Nicholas Horne, on Flickr  LHP_4370 by Nicholas Horne, on Flickr  LHP_4472 by Nicholas Horne, on Flickr Highlights video: |
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horney™
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 1,289
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Apr 29, 2019 22:22:39 GMT
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Beginning of April and Curborough was awesome fun, what a great little layout to hoon round. Quite hard to get it all right in one single run as they layout we were running was quite complex. Very easy to over shoot an apex. I fitted some new Carbotech XP10 front pads which were ace however the extra heat has murdered one of my discs. Anyway, enough rambling, you just want pics and videos:  Untitled by Nicholas Horne, on Flickr  Untitled by Nicholas Horne, on Flickr A few other MINIS doing the day as well:  Untitled by Nicholas Horne, on Flickr One mullered disc:  Untitled by Nicholas Horne, on Flickr  Untitled by Nicholas Horne, on Flickr Onboard fastest lap run: Outside run shot by a friend: Such a great day, killed my ADO8Rs though and the MOT was booked in for a few days later. New tyres were ordered and as the car was immobile while I was sourcing some new discs I swapped the wheels over to a set of MG Hairpins I had. This was to keep it rolling while the proper wheels were getting the tyres fitted. I quite liked the look!  Untitled by Nicholas Horne, on Flickr  Untitled by Nicholas Horne, on Flickr New boots mounted to the SPARCOs and new front discs fitted:  Untitled by Nicholas Horne, on Flickr  Untitled by Nicholas Horne, on Flickr  Untitled by Nicholas Horne, on Flickr MOT passed for another 12 months. Just one advisory for slight play in a front wheel bearing. Found some blossom:  Untitled by Nicholas Horne, on Flickr Went to a PH Pub Meet:  Untitled by Nicholas Horne, on Flickr A little job this weekend, fit my DRE Sequential Shift Light. I bought this back in 2016 for my Supercharged MK1 MX5 but I never got round to fitting it and it's laid hidden in a cupboard ever since. It was pretty simple to wire up off the back of the OBD port using pin 9 as the RPM trigger feed.  Untitled by Nicholas Horne, on Flickr  Untitled by Nicholas Horne, on Flickr All lit up  Untitled by Nicholas Horne, on Flickr Video of it in action: Since then I've tweaked the settings a bit so the lights and flashing happen earlier in the rev range to take into account my reaction time etc. I'm going to get a good friend of mine to work with me to 3D print a mount that will make it fit better on the steering wheel cowl. I also did some performance testing to see what numbers my Ultragauge thinks I can do.  Untitled by Nicholas Horne, on Flickr And that brings us up to date! |
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An interesting tale, these sound like a cracking car to have fun with. I like the write up too, used to follow your threads on Edition 38
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keyring
Part of things
Posts: 913
Club RR Member Number: 47
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Love what you’ve done with the car, the vinyl looks great. A friend has one and said they’re great fun, seem to be great cars for the price bracket they are currently in! Plus you get that supercharger whine  |
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Loving this write up and the car. Great work.
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horney™
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 1,289
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Thanks all, was expecting a bit of a slatting with it being a bit modern for this parish.
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pobsey
Part of things
Posts: 25
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I am a little biased but these are great little cars, with a few choice mods they do put a silly smile on your face!
Nice work Horney
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ChasR
RR Helper
motivation
Posts: 10,309
Club RR Member Number: 170
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Thanks all, was expecting a bit of a slatting with it being a bit modern for this parish. A few peeps are like that, but while this is on the edge, it's certainly getting on a bit now and it's at a price point where in reality, most 'non-car' people will call them an old knacker, and as such the values will stay low. An interesting car for sure and one I've flirtated with buying for a very long time! I almost bought one 4 years ago, but back then £3k didn't buy alot of MCS IMHO; most felt flat to drive and had electrical issues in additon to shot switchgear. It's not stopped me from wanting one but I'd like to try a sorted example. Is this on Pistonheads as well? Fair play with all of the work going in! I'm fearing my M3 will go the same way, but I love how it can be a cruiser as well as a brute on track, even if I'm not the quickest there  . |
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