What sort of car do you drive?

Im driving a bmw for the last 6 years.

 

I drive a Citroën C3, the first car I bought brand new. Nice and cosy ;-)



And a Citroën Jumpy 1.9 Diesel for heavy duty stuff ;-)



I've always owned French cars (either Peugeot or Citroën), very affordable and durable in my experience.

 

A volvo 850 and now also a Saab 9-5 ARC

Not my picture:

Power: 164 kW , 220 HP SAE @ 5,500 rpm; 228 ft lb , 309 Nm @ 1,900 rpm
Engine: 2,290 cc 2.3 liters in-line 4 front engine with 90 mm bore, 90 mm stroke, 9.3 compression ratio, double overhead cam and four valves per cylinder w/Turbo Compressor

 

2002 Lincoln Continental


275 ft/lbs of torque baby!! It's a blast to drive in the snow.

 

What is that? A Citron of some sort? I know what you mean on the strapped for cash thing though. I'm constantly fighting an up-hill battle every time I want to custom anything on my car.

We have them in Japan but ours will only run the car for 10 minutes before cutting off the engine. Actually very handy I guess on cold winter mornings like now.

Yakumo

 

That's a Renault Scenic..

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/44/Renault_Scenic_blue_vr_old_model.jpg

 

Heres mine Vauxhall Astra SRi, just awaiting its 2.0 turbo engine conversion, everything is getting done properly, fitting some 308mm brakes up front, front mount intercooler, will soon be remapped to approx 260bhp while i await a bigger turbo to run 300+ bhp later this year.









Oh and heres the bad boy awaiting fitting, just a few more bits to source then she'll be going in.



As you can see, brake disks look stupidly small in the front at the moment, will look much better once the bigger ones are fitted (also got some wilwood 4pots i might fit when i get time after ive swapped the engine)

Still got its original 1.8 engine in for the moment, but will be coming off the road early next month.

Cheers :thumbsup:

 

Its not so much the cash (actually it is too) but more the huge space i have in this car. The wife and i always joke about having all the windows blinded so people wont recognise us :lol:

 

No offence, but I am curious. Why not just buy a better car?

 

It's often cheaper to build a performance car than it is to buy one. :thumbsup: I'd have to spend twice what I spent building my car to buy something newer that has similar performance.

That sounds like a pretty cool project, Dano. Are you doing a buildup thread on a car forum anywhere?

 

Well deffine 'better'? i personally think once i'm getting something like finished it will be 'better' than pretty much any car i could have bought with the money i'll have spent on it.

Its a complete custom car made to my taste, so for one its unique, fair enough alot of odds and ends can simply be bolted on by any idiot, there are plenty of people on the road in their bigger engined audios, bmw's, mercs, subarus etc etc that will look at my car and expect it not to be that fast as i'll also be leaving the 1.8 badge on the boot lid ;-)

Of course at such a time someone trys to 'burn' me from the lights or decides they'd like a run, then i'm sure they'll soon become upset when they find out the truth :lol:

Those that know me know what i'm like, i mod virtually anything and everything, so my car of course comes big on the 'mod it' list, ive been spending the majority of my time and money on my car over recent times, so especially those who know me over at xbox-scene will know i'm not around as mujch these days.

I wouldn't always say its cheaper to build a performance car than it is to buy a 'newer' one, it may be cheaper than buying one brand new, but again it depends to what level you build the car to. My brothers Corsa has had some money spent on it, he could have bought a big expensive car shall we say, but his car really does upset some people on the road, shall we say the Subaru NR1 limited edition guy wasn't happy, the guy in the Audio RS4 tried a few times and eventually gave up, along with a long list of other cars hes had abit of fun with.

His car is currently running approx 250bhp, the limiter needs raising some more and further fine tuning, so it'll be limiting at around 8,500k over the current 7,250k hes currently got it at.

We completely rebuilt the engine with brand new forged components, its got a forged crank, conrods, pistons, over sized valves, high lift cams etc etc oh and its on throttle bodies. :evil:

Obviously being completely N/A theres no turbo lag etc, the only problem is he needs to sort himself a strong gearbox, its no fun changing the ones from the standard 2litre, it eats the gearboxes alive, and the first set of hardend performance drive shafts its snapped one of those within the first couple of thousand miles :lol:

Infact, heres a photo of his engine just after we had fitted it and got it running, bearing in mind the bay is very untidy and now looks somewhat better, the engine had probably ran approx 1000miles or something along those lines when this photo was taken, still running in.



His car is of course still a work in progress, and i doubt you'll ever say its 'finished' its basically a complete race spec engine.

Oh and to answer your question about the build up, i haven't as of yet started one on the forum where i hang out for the Astras, but i did make a few posts over at xbox-scene in the car section, you'll see the car when i first got it, and as ive slowly built it up.

http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=645035

Feel free to nip over there and take a look :icon_bigg

Cheers :thumbsup:

PS sorry for the long post all.

 

If you're the type of person who likes to make something better, than why not?

Once you try it (and are successful), then it's a blast doing it. It's the journey that is half the fun of doing it.

When I have the time, money, and storage space. I want to have two project cars. An Import and muscle car.

 

I drive at the moment this shitty car...



Because that i can pursue my real hobby :love2:

 

I can understand it to an extent, but it's the base vehicle that I don't understand. Better off to get a larger older vehicle and give yourself a better framework, surely? Each to his own, I guess.

 

An Astra in the UK is hardly a small car, its considered a family car to be fair, so is hardly small.

And who is to say you can't weld further on the seems and add bars to tie the whole thing together more?

To be honest, sometimes i wish i had a small car, it would be so much faster for the engine size and power and would be great fun to throw around, i miss small cars to a good degree.

For instance my brothers car, its the shall of a Corsa, but not much other than how it looks externally would make you think that, everything about it has changed one way or another, its been worked on in just about every area possible, and still currently is being increased to a better spec, try finding one from the show room as a performance car that has what this can offer, thats half the reason people modify, besides the unique point.

EDIT: i don't know how cars fair over in the US, but here in the UK a car that would be considered 'older' would probably be somewhat knackered and rotten, a larger car has major things working against it on a power to weight ratio. Older means its more likely to be weaker in areas that will be rusted badly, more so it won't have todays frame work technology meaning its probably actually weaker on an impact etc.

I see many older crashed cars, and they are such a mess, newer ones come away much nicer looking. For instance an older car runs into the back of a newer one, the older one will come away looking like its hit a wall, the newer car may have a cracked reg plate and scuffed paint work.. In my opinion it doesn't take a great deal of thinking which is the better base model.

Of course you then have the original shell design to look at, some cars i think are plain ugly, some of the ones that are now a few years old such as mine, i think are the better looking ones, this in my opinion plays a big part, i wouldn't at the moment at least buy a new astra, i'd rather throw my money at an evo or simillar.

 

It's that the same engine of the Calibra? If yes, it's a great engine! It's still used to this date, even on WTCC.

 

Old bmw

 

Nah mate its the newer revision if you wish, i'm guessing you'll be talking about the C20LET (2litre turbo) or the C20XE which is 2litre N/A which is what my brother has in his car pictured above, but its on throttle boddies.

The C20 engines are indeed great engines i agree with you 100%.

The Z20LET engine is the one i have which is the newer 2litre turbo model if you like, its a good bit lighter block and head etc, but in some respects the C20LET does have some advantages, but i think once done properly the Z20LET will be the better option for myself.

Cheers.

 

Jeez Dano, are you sure those are tyres on that thing and not rubber bands? wow!

 

this one is in my top 5 list of cars

i'll never be able to get such a beauty...