Thousand Dollar Supercar

I might change the exhaust system one day, because the header design looks rubbish and it has cracked and been welded, plus there's a welded hole in the (original?) rear muffler. That's a while off though. The car's obviously much smoother to drive than my Alfa. Sunroof open, windows down, elbow out the window, seat reclined a bit etc. I think I can get to like it. It needs a bit of improvement for the full experience though - the steering wheel might have to go, and I need to get an air vent working and replace the sound system. I used to own a Mitsubishi with a lot in common with the Rover - comfortable but gutless, oil-burning, ill-handling, under-braked, thirsty.. and the Mitsi was more expensive.

Would you like me to put Grandpa's sheepskin seatcovers back on too? He thoughtfully included them for me in the boot. If only he'd left me his tartan blanket for the back seat..

The first job was to take out Grandpa's venetian blinds: Each individual element of the blinds was free to get blown out of alignment by the wind, totally blocking rear vision. So they had to go. Impressions of the car.. No rust so far, apparently original paint, car has done 120,000 miles and drives quite well. But there's something about it that isn't car-like. I'm not used to the crank-driven fan and the dislike of revs and speed.. it's vaguely reminiscent of a truck. But a soft, cruisy and growly truck. The train-like air horns are cool and entirely appropriate. I can't wait until all the gauges and gimmics are working and the car gets a new stereo and is running well again, but this may not be that easy. Problems: Torn steering rack boots Possible small leaks in radiator Cooling system in general is going to need work - temperature gauge reports car never gets close to warm, heater core most likely rusted solid Engine stumbles at idle Oil pressure warning light randomly comes on or flickers despite heaps of apparently new oil in the engine. Might be an electrical fault, might not. This last one is the most concerning because the 6-cylinder SD1 engine is known for oil blockages starving the **EDIT**camshaft**end edit** of lubrication. The Rover SD1 forum have recommended I find the cause of the flickering oil pressure light before continuing driving the car. Not really my area of expertise. Just as well it's the holidays..

Ahh, the Grandpa Special. Grandpa buys a car and keeps it in his garage out of the weather until he's too old to drive, then some irresponsible unappreciative type picks it up and runs it into the ground. Trouble is Grandpa doesn't always buy the top-of-the-line V8 sports model. Sometimes he only buys the straight 6, like this. Rover SD1 (for "Specialist Division, car number 1") 2600SE 2597cc belt-driven SOHC 12-valve crossflow inline 6 engine Twin SU carbs 136hp @ 5000rpm, 206Nm @ 3750rpm 5-speed manual, RWD Weighs about 1350kg Sports handling assured by solid discs up front, drum brakes at the back, a live rear axle and a giant steering wheel that isn't actually circular. My one has: vacuum gauge for "economy" trip computer (which conveniently doesn't measure fuel consumption any more) sunroof, electric mirrors, electric windows, power steering, colour-uncoordinated blue interior height-adjustable rear air suspension (Citroen wannabe fail!) with its own pressure gauge and inflate/deflate buttons air horns that sound like a train I had been back down to one car (my '88 Alfa 33) for a while, after I sold my backup Alfa and then was presented with an opportunity to give back my newschool company car. So I was in that same situation of knowing the Alfa needed work and trying to work towards not having to rely on it every day. A friend and I went to the Turners classic car auction, and I looked this SD1 over briefly and trundled it round the test loop. Before I knew it I'd bought it, and I drove it home that same day! All I can say is that I thought the bidding would go higher, cos some old fogies seemed to have their eye on it. I guess they knew something I didn't, but anyway... Discussion Thread; //oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/26722-thousand-dollar-supercars-rover-sd1-2600e/

CORRECT! I did indeed buy a mid '80s Rover SD1. Thar she blows: Honourable mention to bubblegoose, who recognised the shitbox Rover interior, and also to the person who posted the photo of the boat. I got carried away at the classic car auction and bought this without really thinking things through. Don't worry, I'm not selling the Alfa - I gave back my company car, justifying a second oldschool heap, and this one will provide a real contrast. I thought it would be pretty invisible but it gets more attention than I expected - much of it from old geezers! Alas no, it's a manual 2600SE, with the not-so-trusty overhead cam straight six and twin SU carbs. But anyway. Apologies for not having something very exciting at the end of my guessing game.. I will start a thread for grandpa's Rover in the User's Projects / Build Ups section.

Now that IS cheating! Luckily for you (but not very luckily for me) I need to work out whether the new car has cooling and/or lubrication system issues before I drive it too much. I drove it to work yesterday - you picked the wrong day to stalk me!

It's in this section purely because other people are allowed to post in my thread here. Might be an old car. Might be new. Here's a clue that might put Escorta out of his misery: Or it might not, because nobody takes photos of armrests!

As undetecible says, there are cars with petrol flaps on horizontal surfaces.. No. Hondas are gay. Nice CSI sleuthing, Ladaspeed, but nobody with a specific guess has got it yet. What say you now?

Euro trash? I'm not going to give hints because I figure there are some very knowledgeable train spotters on here. For example if I'd bought a Mitsubishi, you'd have picked it already! I want more specific guesses, and I'm gonna keep silent till the next clue. They'll get easier.

Okay, so I've bought another vehicle, and before the moderators shut me down I thought I'd run a guessing game. I'll post up a new picture every day or so, and y'all have gotta guess what I bought. One guess per picture, and I'll check if anyone's right before I post the next shot. I'm (hopefully) starting off with a photo that's not easy, yet has some clues..

You are entirely to blame for all the empty seats at our table! I will, however, allow Ned's excuse of bankruptcy by Alfa.

I can pick you up in the rickety Alfa.. That evening I should get it back from having cracks around the door catch welded , and I'll just need to re-fit the door trim. Barring any disasters there'll be plenty of time. Where do you live? (send PM if you want) I'm in Hillcrest.

Page 18 of that engine manual shows the camshaft, and the intake and exhaust lobes for each cylinder aren't lined up with eachother. It must be as Fuel theorised (cos he does kinda know everything..) - a wasted spark system where the cylinders move together but are in opposite phase. Still idles at 800rpm though!

How many cylinder firings per turn of the crankshaft in a normal 4-cylinder engine? Two? Say such an engine idles at 800rpm. This Subaru 700 could only fire its two cylinders simultaneously every second crank rotation, i.e. 0.5 firings per turn of the crankshaft. Does that mean it idles at 3200rpm to compensate? Or does it just idle slowly making distinct sput...sput...sput...sput noises? Imagine the puffs of steam from the exhaust on cold mornings. You so need a loud exhaust on this car!

What a weird little thing! It's obvious from that engine diagram that the two pistons move up and down simultaneously, but do the cylinders really fire simultaneously too? Surely they'd be on different strokes, e.g. one on compression while the other's on exhaust? But if they can build a 700cc manual car without a rev counter, who knows..

I'll be there. Classy pizzas is what us Alfa drivers do, don't you know. It's because we're all cultural and stuff. I believe I shall order the Pinot Noir Champagne.

I've also been to the electric karts, twice in the last few months. They understeer more than they drift, and they're not the typical rattly rickety fixed-with-a-four-metre-crowbar karts that every other dirty old kart track has. The guys at the electric karts place remind me of OSH, but apparently it's OSH who won't let them increase the speed of their karts - at best the karts are pegged at under half their maximum power. So due to the OSH-ness of the guys and the value of their karts, there's strictly no nudging, and because of this plus the still-not-that-fast speeds and too-short races you can guarantee there'll be no passing without the guy infront screwing up badly. But I'll still go if enough other people are. The Alfa club scored the rounds at this track based on fastest lap time rather than finishing position, which is much better given the difficulty of passing anyone.

The Alfa club meet is the exact same time as the oldschool meet each month. I might swing by there to find out whether I won the go-kart championship or not, then turn up late to Burgerfuel and find you guys are all gone.

I was exaggerating slightly, but I couldn't think of anyone who would really want to come and help lift oily engine parts. Most people have better things to do, and accordingly they'd probably want a share of the liquid payments, meaning less for me..

I'm a bit limited this weekend cos I'm flying to Christchurch midday Saturday, coming back 3pm Sunday. Saturday morning could work but only if it's early enough. You don't know when collection is required / would suit, Testament?

I live on the shore and have access to a ute, but I have no mates. Are there people at each end who could help me lift stuff?

I pulled the air intake elbow thingies off the black car and compared them to the ones I was going to replace them with. The existing ones didn't look that much smaller than their replacements, plus Weber Specialties had done a nice job on them so I wanted to prove that changing them was justified. I found that this casino chip would not fit into the existing enlarged 36mm intakes: I was able to pass the chip through the 40mm intakes with no trouble. So the 40s went on. I also took some tiny nibbles at the gaskets between the intakes and the carbs cos they looked like they might be acting as restrictors. New intakes fitted - they look.. just the same I noticed the enlarged 36mm intakes had been made very smooth and the intake ends had been flared as much as possible. There's not much flaring on the new 40mm intakes, and I just attacked the casting marks with a wonky drill-mounted grinding stone before sanding the insides with coarse sandpaper. I vaguely remember reading that intakes don't want to be perfectly smooth for some reason to do with swirl or turbulence. Shall I adjust my design? (I rather suspect it will make no difference and I should go fix real problems..) Next induction point to look at is the flexible cold air pickup pipe, which is smaller than the decayed factory one it replaced.

Black car: Failed WOF, got new brake cylinders to finally cure rear brake imbalance, passed WOF. Backlighting in LCD clock failed again, so I replaced the bulb with a red LED, for extra satanic-ness. Found some proper 40mm carb-to-airbox air intake elbow thingies, which I'll use to replace the undersize-but-bored-out 36mm ones the car currently has. Grey car: Broke the electric window mechanism on the passenger side this time, but that's not my problem cos the car is.. SOLD! The first non-crashed car of mine I've ever sold in my life. My cousin bought it as a runabout because his car's transmission died. He is a bit of a mechanic and has worked as a panelbeater, so I think he's up to the task. He's slowly restoring an MGB too. While organising all my service history receipts for this car, I made the mistake of totalling them up out of interest. Never do this! At least having this car gone will give me more free time and money and allow me to focus more on the black car. Company car: Panelbeating completed. Has more grip with the new tires so is less frustrating in the wet. The transmission and I are getting to know eachother better. Another tech at work is hunting for an identical Atenza. I pointed out the 4-speed auto is gay and he pointed out the later models with an extra gear are too expensive, and he's too wussy for manual. Toyota drivers. *sigh*

Here's that article I mentioned to you at the meet on Tuesday: http://www.autospeed.com.au/cms/A_107768/article.html I wonder if it allows remote linking of images?

That must have been one of the best turnouts we've had in a while. =) To anyone who wasn't there, this was because thminiman actually showed up in a mini ( ) but it had big carb intake trumpets sticking through the firewall into the passenger compartment.