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As Murphy's law would have it, just after I bought the Vantage, a tidy 348 came up for sale in Japan. It's quite rare to find a TB (solid roof). Most that come up are TS (Targa top). It's also quite rare to find one in such original condition out of Japan. Heaps of them have horrific aftermarket racing bucket seats, sports steering wheels, multicoloured dashboards, weird wheels etc. One thing that has been done is the sills and bottom of the bumpers has been painted red, which is how I prefer, rather than the original black of the early 348s and Testarossas. From what I can gather, it's a very early (1989) car, first registered in 1991. It also appears to be USDM spec with all the extra little rectangular reflectors. All the buyers guides say to buy as late a 348 as possible because they'd ironed out a lot of the issues by the later ones. I bought about as early as they come. Oh well. A familiar sight.

Phwoar. That Triumph in the second photo.

It failed compliance on a broken door release cable. There's a surprising amount of DIY resources like workshop manuals, parts catalogues, and forum guides on these, thankfully. The wheels are directional - the thick side of the spoke is supposed to be towards the front. At some point, someone has mixed up the rear wheels. It came with this lush briefcase of Ferrari paint tin lid openers and some flat tyre wind with an F40 on the can. It's quite low. Doors are amusingly thick. Supermarket car parks might be tricky. It feels really strange sitting so inboard of the edge of the car.

I've found doing skids is detrimental to fuel economy...

I have 6.6 Litre V8 in a car that weighs more than the moon. I do not work out such minor details as fuel usage. Which would have been interesting I think. Original 2 barrel (with custom drilled jets g) vs 4 barrel spread bore holley and eldebrock manifold Vs When it goes back together with cam and ignition upgrades I do average about 245 smiles/gallon

Hey people, In honor of my proud Dutch heritage, sometimes I find it to be a bit of fun to try and drive a car economically. It's pretty amazing the difference that you can acheive with some simple differences. As an example... My daily driver. Driving "normally" I will average about 5.5 litres per 100km. Driving "economically" in the last few days I can get low 4l per 100km or even dipping into the 3s. It makes the drive to work a bit more interesting, even if the financial difference is irrelevant. Regardless of whether a car is old or new there are some techniques that can help shave down that gas bill. There are a few interesting things that I've found out while trying to be as frugal as possible: 1. Knowledge is power If you've got a non oldschool daily, that's OBD2 compliant. Get an OBD2 bluetooth unit and a smartphone app that can show you realtime and "trip" fuel consumption. Seeing the numbers as you go, is what turns the whole thing into a contest haha. If not, the best thing to do is write down results. Keep a little notebook. Fill your gas tank to the brim, and record the odometer reading each time you fill up. There is an app called "fuelly" which is essentially a digital version of this that's quite good. But having the realtime info is definitely best if you can. 2. Your car has a particular speed in top gear at which it is most economical. When you drive too slow, you use more gas because your engine is running for longer to cover that same distance. When you drive too fast, your engine is revving too high and/or the aerodynamic drag becomes too high and you use more fuel. Most cars have their sweet spot at around 80-90kph for best economy. For older cars that are a little less aerodynamic, or with 3 or 4 speed transmissions this speed may be a little lower again. If you have an OBD2 setup you should be able to keep an eye on speed and try find that best spot. If you have to take an educated guess, stick with 80kph. 2. Engine braking happens all of the time Everyone knows about engine braking, but what is maybe not obvious is that engine braking forces happen even when you accellerate. If you are driving along on a flat road and your engine is doing 3000rpm. You've got 3000rpm worth of engine braking force that you have to supply power to, before any power can make it to the ground to help maintain your speed. If you're on a slight downhill, just chuck it in neutral. You'll not have the engine braking force dragging on your drivetrain anymore, so the only power the engine needs to make is enough to idle which is generally bugger all. 2. "Pulse and glide" Relating to the above, you use a LOT less gas when coasting in neutral. So coasting for a bit, then speeding back up, then coasting etc etc is actually very economical. Especially on larger engines that may have high pumping losses at low rpm. So for example accelerate to 105kph then coast to 90, accell to 105 drop to 90, etc. You're spending a much smaller percentage of time battling against engine braking forces. As retarded as this sounds, it probably makes the single biggest difference out of anything that I've tried. Dont be a jerk holding up traffic, or nauseating your passengers with this technique. As it's quite annoying. It would also get rather tedious on a long trip. But if you're heading somewhere on your own, maybe somewhere that's a regular trip and you want to try do it on less fuel than you ever have before. This is how its done. 3. Sort the basics If your wheel alignment is terrible and you've got a half flat tire, it's going to cost you some gas. Generally pumping the tires a bit higher pressure helps with economy. Dont lug around 100kg worth of crap in the boot, you're using gas to speed all that stuff up for no reason. 4. Idle while stationary is the worst. The ideal situation is that you're going at a fast speed, with minimal fuel usage. If you're stationary then you're using gas to not travel ANY kms. Dont leave your car idling in the driveway to warm up, get in and drive straight away. Your engine uses a lot more fuel when cold, so you want to minimise the cold period and also make sure you're at least getting some kms out of it. Driving it up to speed straight away helps warm the engine up a fair bit quicker. If you're at a set of lights and you expect to be there for more than 5-10 seconds then switch your car off (assuming it starts reliably haha) 5. The brakes are stealing your economy You've used fuel in order to accelerate the car up to a particular speed, then from here you're using up your hard earned momentum to keep moving forward as the car slows down. When you hit the brakes its like you're throwing away the energy you spent fuel on. I'm not advocating avoiding the brake pedal... But the point is that if you only need to get up to 30kph to get to that next set of lights in peak hour traffic. Dont blitz it up to 70kph and then slam the brakes on right at the end. 6. Aerodynamics are your friend If you wind down your window at 100kph and put your hand out, you'll feel your arm get blown backwards quite strongly. Imagine that same force applying across the whole front of your car, you need to use a fair bit of fuel to overcome this and keep the vehicle moving forward. A more aerodynamic car (like a coupe) will use less gas than a sedan (boo) or a wagon (blergh) although there are huge variations on this depending on how much thought was put into the design. Generally speaking more modern cars have lower amounts of drag, because they started realizing it passively improves fuel consumption regardless of the drivers behaviour. The measure for how slippery a car is, is called the Coefficient of Drag (C.D.) Most modern cars have a known CD value that you can look up. The lower the number, the less fuel it needs to use to push an object of that size through the air. As an example, a Honda Insight Hybrid might have a CD of 0.26. A car designed with no aerodynamic consideration could have a CD of 0.4. If you're looking to buy a new car that will be economical at 100kph, try find out its CD value. A car with a bigger engine but lower CD value can potentially be more economical if you're doing a lot of open road driving. Anyone have anything else to contribute? Feel free to discuss anything relating to being a cheap arse on the fuel front. Thanks to some advanced driving techniques I saved about 90 cents on the way to work today

Hey Peet bring the Aston or the Fezza (when complied) to the Burgerboes meet and I'll give you a sticker. $50 each. I assure you that is the normal price.

Imagine if some time in the future, your grand kids say "Grandpa, what was it like back when there was petrol? Did you have a car like Mad Max?" And you're like "I owned a pathetic car and then drove like a jerk to save myself an immeasurably small amount of money" Seeing them frown dissaprovingly would be awesome

The cupholders are conveniently located to get smashed by elbows when changing gear. I signed up for a track day but didn't have time to sort my 205 GTI. The obscure fuse box lid is ideal for fire extinguisher mounting without having to drill holes in anything important. This headlight cost $5000. Drove it in the rain once and it got condensation in it. It was warm at the pyramids yesterday.

I'd been looking for some kind of sweet coupe type thing for the last ~3 years or so. 348s were high on the list of ideal vehicles, but I was also keen on 456, 512, 911, Cayman. 348s and 456s seemed to disappear off the face of the earth when I was ready to buy. 911s skyrocketed in price. Caymans seemed a bit too bland, and 512s a bit extreme. I'm still a little bit annoyed for not buying a mint $25k 964 in 2013 because it was a C4 and not a C2, and I'd just bought a Megane turbo. So last year I said "bugger it" and bought this 4.3 V8 Vantage. It's a 380hp V8, 6-speed transaxle manual thing. Goes alright, sounds alright. It's the earliest, lowest power version of the Vantage. Later on, they tweaked the 4.3 to get more power, then went to a 4.7 with even more power, and a V12 version is also available. It has VE SS inspired holes in the front guards, a Ford Mondeo inspired front grill, and a Jaguar radiator fan shroud. The best of all three worlds.

So, I finally managed to get over a mild stone, floors are now floors again after fucking around trying to arrange a time when I could borrow a welder (thanks TGB for the offer!) now I just have the super un fun job of grinding it all back, welder was a cunt in spots, went super bird shit in one area. never figured out why. Oh well. Atleast its done looking forward to getting the drive shaft loops in and finally get the carpet and seat into this thing. And because this thread doesn't have enough pictures,

I have some cool friends. One of them is pretty good at taking photos. Thanks rotahoe for these photos. U da bes. Qcr dirtmasters has taken priority last couple of weeks, time to get back into this. Need to do a couple of things and then start it up. Not sure I said but the reason hardly any exterior trims are on is that it requires a respray.

3 more new posts above tonight ^ Fitment of the freshly chromed bumper and tail light bases, and rear trim etc First wedding for my mate, was best man so mrs drove the bridal party in it Talk among yourselfs //oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/34313-the-westpala/page-9

Having spent what little money leftover after his latest divorce settlement, Leyland P.I decided to treat his beloved Triumph to a much needed paint job. But alas, once again his rival has shown him up. Has our beleaguered hero not suffered enough?

tow truck driver must be like, WTF at this guy.

Somewhat unrelated, but its been very interesting driving around in a Tesla, because it gives you instant kWh/mile and projected range based on your current driving. A couple of times I've been caught out without enough range to get to the next supercharger (dat range anxiety), but managed to get there by driving extremely smoothly and turning off the AC, lowering the suspension and stuff like that. People have competitions to see how much range they can get out of a Tesla, I think the record is a ~2x increase in range over the EPA rated range (885km from an expected 430km, and that was only using 90% of the charge), by driving a constant 45km/h or something. I was surprised how much your speed affects your consumption. Also, I'm Dutch, and the Netherlands is planning on banning imports of consumer petrol and diesel vehicles in 2025.

Arch nemesis of Leyland P.I

Got tricked into thinking there was actual Princess and SW20 content. Ffffuuu

I drive my Jazz like a nana, get some good numbers going, and then the wife will blast round town in it, and ruin everything. It seems to get low to mid 5's with normal open road driving. If you drive smoothly and at sub 90kmh speeds, it can drop into the 4's. Kinda keen to build a cardboard whale tail, pump the tyres up to 100psi, and see what she can do.

Nah you can keep your Dutch card, because on average the fuel consumption by your 7 vehicles is SFA....

I have sectioned the tail unit so I can mock it up, the lines are looking good so far. I'm trying to keep things looking factory-ish, as in stock parts (albeit from different manufacturers) from around that era and avoiding things like led's and other new 'custom' parts. It takes a while trawling through eBay and online parts catalogs but I have found a few bits that should fit nicely such as a tail light from a Honda XL185 which will fit in the narrowed tail unit, an ignition switch from a Yamaha RS125 which will look tidy on a bracket under the tank, finding a genuine old Yamaha unit was important so I could have legit Yamaha keys for it haha. I sold the universal rearsets as I never really liked them and bought a set off a TZR250 and a kickstart lever off a RD350LC to help clear the new pegs. I'll be using the original clocks but will probably just run one at a time, so either the tacho or speedo depending on how close it is to wof time I guess. DANGER TO THE BRAKE LINING! Even though I'm going to be fabricating the seat pan I wanted it to fit like a factory item so I have sourced a cable operated seat latch and striker which will also make it nice and easy to remove since a lot of things will probably be jammed under the seat. I'm sussing out getting some parts vapour blasted so will hopefully have some shiny things to take pictures of soon.

I had a go at some "pulse and glide" in the Carina tonight. Previously just under 7l per 100km was the best economy I've managed. From tonight, 4.7l per 100km... Amazing difference! I havent managed anything anywhere near that before. That datalog though, hahaha

woah now, no need to make such a blatent excuse you dont HAVE to ride in my morris minor

Yes I know it's wrong model etc but still Vid of grass road side skid please

A good example of powering through a situation where braking wouldnt work. Would be if you were in an evo rally car, and your pace notes say that someone threw their baby in a basket just behind the next crest. You have to do a sweet jump or you'll squash the baby.

And if you can't get to Chris's then I've got one you can use.

Powerful cars save lives. And the environment (from not being written off and scrapped).

Regarding your second and third '2.'s, on cars I've had with instantaneous fuel consumption readouts, they go to 0 l/100km going down a hill in gear as the hill turns the engine over. Putting it in neutral, fuel consumption would rise to a few l/100km because the engine has to burn petrol to not stall. I don't know if that would be offset by how much further along the flat you'd get before having to engage drive again though. Also, I don't like the idea of people coasting in neutral in case the engine conks out and you lose power steering and brake boost. And if you have to power out of an emergency situation, there'll be more of a delay. e.g. when a Jafa changes lanes on the motorway when you're at their B-pillar, braking is useless and it can be better to power past them. *brmmmm redline* *bugger, I'm in neutral* *smash*

Use mine

Been busy working through the cert check list but heres a few comparisons of before and after Talk some stuff http://oldschool.co....westpala/page-7

Fucking hell. This forum just went next level, an Aston and a Ferrari!

Burnout and Tax the rich style vids please

Some of the crappy old shitters I drive will wear out their gearboxes prematurely if you coast in neutral excessively. This is due to the speed difference between the mainshaft and layshaft and means that the mainshaft doesn't get lubricated properly. This is only really a problem with primitive gearboxes though.

The first thing I noticed after getting the car was that the ride was not as expected, also there was a knocking noise from the front of the car. After inspecting all the main bushings they all seemed quiet tight. However, lifting the wheel up and down with a pry bar created the same knocking noise. This meant it was most likely either worn top hats or shocks, or both. I decided to investigate further: Don't worry, I was just loosening it without the spring compressor since it can be difficult without tension: Rest of loosening down with compressor in place: Horrible: So this is what I found with the shocks, obviously in need of replacement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bSMVl-JUfg Cleaned up the top hats as they seemed fine: Re-greasing: Cleaned up strut housings: New shocks: New dust seals and assembled making sure orientation of top hats was correct (it was not correct previosly): Re-installed with copper antiseize paste on all camber adjustment tabs/bolts: Went for alignment: NOTE: I haven't shown pics, but I also replaced both rear shocks also. They were quite worn too, although no where near as badly. Now as you can see the front and rear toe was hugely off. I'm sure the suspension refresh affected it a bit but to be honest it was completely off even before because it was a death trap to drive in the rain. Also as I mentioned above that the top hats were not oriented correctly (they have an arrow which should point out), I'm sure this also affected the alignment specs, maybe camber as it was noticeably easier to turn the steering after this (no power steering btw). After doing all this work and the alignment it was so nice to drive.

I'm getting about 16l/km edit: 16km/Litre( 6.25l/100k), but that economy is a total lie because I'm also running 25:1 on 2T oil at ~$50/l. So around ($1.98 / 16km fuel + ($50/16,/25)) = 12.375c/km fuel and ~12.5c/km for 2T? (LoL, just realised). A reliable friend who was watching his economy closely in a subaru and an audi said he got better $/l out of the BP 98 octane, because although it cost more per litre, the engine ran lower l/km. Unfortunately I'm not reliable, and cannot remember which of those vehicles that conclusion belonged to. edit: Oh, and a McLachlan of the clan McLachlan, checking in. You spendthrift wastrels.

One day hydrocarbons will run out. It's a likely fact. So I say better burn as much ad I can before it's all gone. I wanna use my share while I still can......

tl:dr, but pulse & glide works awesome (if you have a manual trans)

Also re nuteral on downhills. Most obd1/2 cars will cut fuel on deceleration so you could use more having engine idling while coasting

what clint is saying, is to rub a bit of dirt on it while the paint is still wet.

That would work well for me cos i live in papakura

Lol yet again you have proved that your opinion isn't even worth the bandwidth used to write it sr2... Wait, what? Are you saying Clint that if you move a steering rack you can't get a cert? What about all of the scratch built cars, and cars converted to steering rack?

Yeah I'm doing ~3400rpm @ 100kph with a 4.3 final drive which doesnt help anything. If I could find a cheap S15 six speed box and swap 6th gear over into mine. (It's possible apparently) The rpm at 100kph would drop to ~3000rpm, without adversely changing 1-5th as you would with a final drive swap. A bit more of a mission though!

Haven't read this but surely just hammer in sumo to clearance lol

I can just invisage UJ sitting out on the deck with a bitter cold southerly blowing and driving rain still cooking outside, while inside the potbelly is roaring away and the only evidence of the storm outside is a smattering of rain on the windows and the patter/roar of the rain on the roof. Bliss. Semi on topic question. Jamie, do you deal with cellulose based insulation much? i see it used heaps in the states but all we seem to use here is that fibreglass stuff. Or is this the polyester you are talking about? They get it in big bundles and feed it into a shredder that then pumps it through a hose and they just pump the ceilings with it.

Get some rat bait blocks on top of the foil if you still can, fuckers love to nest in the space between it and the floor boards

crown and Gloria about the same length

one does not need to fuck with the rack. I put you wrong earlier, rally car has TE71 X-member with KE70 rack mounts and rack, (AE70 unit is in spare shell) the RH engine brace is easily modified by machining (or grinding) the bosses off then counter sinking the holes that attach it to the block. get countersunk cap screws(may need to have heads turned down) to replace standard bolts. the bolt that retains the steering U/J to the rack is replaced with a button head cap screw in doing these 3 things, 15-20mm clearance is achieved taking the brace off allows the bell housing to flex, with inturn stretches flywheel bolts, resulting in flywheel walking off the crank. VERY FUCKEN DANGEROUS !!!!!!!

Before 15's Now 16's

big day... got some wheels 14x6 they will be staying white untill i have the car painted , good and bad news tho.... good news? the fronts fit and they have mad fitment bad news? the only turn this far... i think a smaller profile tyre should fix the problems tho The backs on the other hand dont fit at all because this is how close the stock wheels sit to the sub frame, thoughts on this?? been suggested maybe a bearing gone or the hydrolastic out of wack. i think a smaller profile tyre should fix the problems tho i also pulled off the rocker cover. looks pretty decent to me. i think my 29,000 miles are actually genuine