steve20vt

Not my taste but somebody spent some serious money on the door modifications

The new rear dampers turned up yesterday, the usual excellent Bilstein quality. I'll get them on at the weekend, then hopefully it won't be long before I get the fronts sorted too.

Small update, I thought the handling was a little on the wet side and I could feel some fluffyness from the left rear and right front. I sent the Mrs out for a drive in it and followed in the other car. As suspected the left rear damper is not damping so well in spite d looking fine and passing a physical bump test. I've decided to invest a little in this car as it's so nice, I've also decided that coilovers would destroy the ride completely. So while trawling round for rear dampers I decided to use Bilstein B6 units, these are sport models uprated over stock but not too hard. I've used B8 versions on other cars and could live with the extra hard ride of those so I imagine the 6's will be softer. They're not exactly cheap at £560 a set of four but my relentless pursuit of improvement knows no bounds.

I used to wonder what the point was too, then when you do its so much fun. It requires lots of skill to master (something I don't possess) and drifting an auto is even more difficult.

It's an old fiat marea five pot turbo diesel with some tweaks. I get some interesting looks from Mr audi abs Mr bmw when they get left behind. And it still gets 40mpg

I've bought lots of cars on ebay, sometimes some corkers, sometimes some lemons. I don't buy to sell on, they're usually to break or tide me over between projects. I've never spent anymore than 2k on a car and there's usually at least a couple of "bangers" on my drive at any one time. I couldn't imagine spending a big wad of cash on a car only for it to be worth next to nothing in six months. I'm a huge fan of late 80s to late 90s cars. I'm comfortable working on them as I did my apprenticeship in 93 at a Mercedes main dealer. Cars all look the same now due to safety restrictions. Remember when the Renault clio came out, now look at the latest one, big fat ugly blob.

http://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item.view&id=111788333457&alt=web Ebay link

Christine that's her, couldn't remember her name. She's begrudgingly selling it. I've looked all over but the kit doesn't seem to be in production any more. If I had the spare time, space and big enough wheels I'd like to create a version of that kit. It's a very early 90s craze that swept the scene but quickly became tacky. I think the tacky phase has finally past and the 90s retro big body kit on period cars could be a winner. I recently saw a genuine metro 6R4 , what a machine. Cars like the above kitted celsior look awesome, but in the metal (or grp) they look even better.

I bought my current LS on eBay a few months back, I was lucky to get a low mileage car with full history, a years test and no major problems aside from a few bodywork issues for £600 I tried to replicate that last week with an impulse buy, again an eBay special. The description was a bit vague, the mot had run out, but the owner insisted it was in very good conditions and with pass with flying colours as there were "no faults" I won it at £566, great I thought. A 93 mk1 with low miles, what could go wrong..... I turned up with my trusty trailer in tow to find a complete and total utter shed. Remember this car has "no faults" Within five mins I found An illegal tyre Corroded front and rear discs Bad rust on the off side front floor / sill Dash display not working Power steering inoperative Power steering fluid all over the bottom engine cover Sump leaking badly Blowing egr pipe Cat flanges rotten and blowing one side Engine breathing badly and burning oil Then the not fail able items Leather cracked and frayed Engine oil low Central locking inoperative Rotten off side rear arch Every panel scratched There was probably much more but I'd given up by this point, I pointed out that as the car was very obviously not as described I was legally relieving myself of the deal. Thanked him for wasting my time and left. He messaged me a couple of times on the way back saying first he'd take £450 then another of £400. I declined It goes to show that you can find very poor LS's that have been used and abused and only fit for scrap. Of course the seller said it was his brothers car and didn't know much about it, only that he'd had it about five months and in that time never cleaned it once by the look of it. Who in their right mind tries to sell a car advertised in very good condition with no faults but leaves it filthy and full of cobwebs. It was on a housing estate with open parking spaces and looked like he had a few cars for sale, some jacked up with wheels missing.

I really like this, Youd be terrified of driving it anywhere narrow, and would steer well clear of car parks, but it looks so mean and powerful, screams German touring car, or who remembers thunder saloons! I'd like to think if the Japanese did super saloon racing this would be up there with a well engineered twin turbo charged set up putting out 800bhp Incidentally the highest output I've heard from the 1UZ engine was 1400bhp, tasty. I know of a Dutch Nissan drift car putting out 850bhp from a single turbo'd 1UZ but I digress.

I know who's car this is, his brother owns a wide arched celsior. It's too much for me but the black celsior looks amazing! That ones not his, but a lovely lady from Adelaide. People are definately shocked when I tell them my LS is a four litre V8, always followed by "what's it do to the gallon" I just say that's not important, if I want fuel economy I use the diesel.

If I had to choose id be the rapper! Or the android cop is quite mean.

My thoughts exactly

Got round to sorting my indicators out, now they operate where the side lights used to be using offset pinned amber bulbs and holders from some fiat headlamps I had kicking around. Then fitted the 5w sidelight bulb holders into the fog lamp apertures. Then finally removed the indicators and blacked them out.

Any more updates on this, great project.

Here is an odd vid from the USA but you'll get the idea. There are cheaper Chinese copies available on eBay. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PDgB303Go6U

Thanks for the info. I've looked at varex silencers but they're very pricey for my style of shoe string. I'll be using QTP electric cut outs. I frequent lextreme and drifworks regularly and various ls400 / 1uz Facebook pages like driftmoto etc. The 1uz would be so much more popular if there was a cheap and easy way to manualise it without resorting to adapters, but there are more people doing it. The r154 supra box is popular in the states but very expensive over here. Nev at driftmoto sells a kit to fit various bmw boxes that are strong cheap and plentiful. There are some seriously powerful 1uz engined cars out there making insane power. I fear if they become too popular the "scene tax" will be imposed and prices for 1uz engined cars and parts will rocket.

It's perfect on the side you see when taking the pipe off, it's the intake manifold side that gets gunned up. You can thank the EGR system for causing most if not all of the muck.

That's the reason I got the LS, my plan is to transplant the 1uz into the coupe, supercharge it and use a bmw gearbox. Then go and upset the drift boys. I can confirm there are very few fiat coupes without rust these days. There are now "usual" rot spots to look for, it's not going to be long before they start going up in value being so hard to find a mint one. I've broken three very rusty ones over the last year.

My other car passion is a fiat coupe 20 valve turbo and fiat marea. If your talking about rust Fiat invented it. My coupe is the same age as my LS and you'd think the lexus was only a six year old car. Even though the fiat is galvanised (the minimal amount) it still has significant rust issues in major structural areas. Luckily I have the facilities, equipment and and skills to restore it to its former glory, time and money are the hold up for me.

Removal was simple Very clogged up and there was zero visibility through the body A good clean with some generic parts washer fluid, then some carb cleaner and a blow through. And finally a shot looking through the body to show the gap round the butterfly. Looks like an eclipse.

Thanks amberine, my wife had to have emergency surgery last night and had been taken to hull royal infirmary which is the other side of the river Humber for us. Thankfully the OP went well and she's had a badly damaged disc removed from her spine (all she'd done was twist and turn to go back upstairs) Anyway she's going to be fine and since I've had a couple of days off work and traveling to and from the hospital I've had a bit of time (in between looking after the baby) to have a quick look at the stalling issue I've been having recently. A quick search turned up what I'd expected, the throttle body. Last night it petered out as I pulled onto the drive and that was it for me, so this morning I pulled the throttle body off and gave it a thorough clean. On idle before it was running so rich it would almost choke you. It would also be constantly adjusting the idle and coming off the throttle sometimes would only drop the revs to 1000rpm which meant I was still maintaining speed when I should be decelerating. I'll post up some pics of the before and after, but the difference is a huge improvement. It idles sweetly without hesitation or missing, the exhaust smells so much cleaner and the throttle response is much more crisp. Job well done and it only took about half an hour.

You misunderstand. The side light is now where the fog light was in the headlight unit. The original indicator will be smoothed out.

The car is beginning its transformation, I know tastes differ and the majority won't like it but that's just the way it is. If I think it looks good that's all that matters. Now I've bought some wheels from eBay, they came off a 400 so I knew they'd fit okay, to be honest they're not really my favourite choice of wheel as I hate chrome, but they'll be getting refurbished in a different colour. They're a Team Dynamics wheel in 18" with 245 45 tyres fitted, I've a replacement tyre coming as one is border line and i need new wheel nuts. I had to t them on and while the chrome hurts my eyes, the handling was much better and less boat like. I have a kind of plan for the bodywork, staying true to the 400 two tone theme but black and white. Bottom half black, the top white pearl. Same for the wheels, wheel face black with the chrome rim bits pearl white. Anyway some pics of the wheels fitted

I know exactly what you mean, now I'm on the hunt for another to finish my drift project.