[davedave]

(Original post by westydriver)
My insurance is about 520, thats Dads policy with me as a named driver and I am 23, 5000miles per year, agreed value of 15K, European cover and breakdown assistance. Insurance on my Integrale is £670 with 3 years NCB so if you shop around you can get good deals!!

Hopefully 4 years to wait at the very worst then (I'm 19 now). Seems like if I can get insurance at all it'll be relatively cheap compared to 'normal' cars. I guess they understand you're going to be trying hard not to crash what you've spent a lot of time making! I've been given the go ahead from my parents to scrap their old caravan to make into a car trailer though for taking the car to trackdays

(Original post by stevoboy)
No sold the car before I passed my driving test so only driven it without insurance on private land (with the land owners permission)

Although insurance for my dad was surprisingly cheap, about £250 i think fully comp - actually cheaper than he pays for an N reg polo 1.6. As westydriver says if you shop around you will probably find there is quite a variation in price. Also with the bike engine some insurers may refuse to cover you - about 4 or 5 I phoned would not touch anything with a bike engine (although this was 2-2.5 yrs ago when bike engines werent that widely used). To be honest with the bike engine the car isnt really all that suited to road use. At low revs there isnt a massive load of power and the clutch is very light making it difficult to inch forward in traffic, so you wont be missing out not being able to drive it on the road. Really its more of a track style car to be thrashed hard rather than just open up occasionally on the roads. On a track it is much easier to use all the revs and really make the most of it, but its handy to have it SVAd so you can drive it to the trackday without a tow car/trailer.

My car had a zx9r engine which was definately not slow (145ish bhp) but for around the same price now I think you could pick up an r1 (160ish bhp?) which would probably be a better way to go. The 12R engine is probably the ultimate but I remember them being about £2-2.5k. Also if you can you may be better off getting a fuel injected engine to help pass SVA emissions - I think all 12R engines and some late R1 engines are FI, but most 9r / fireblade engines run carbs which work fine, but it is difficult to get them to pass modern SVA emissions test.

I think whichever engine I choose will be fast enough to produce a massive . ZX12R engines are coming down in price though and I've seen engine 'kits' which apparently come with most of the bits you'd want to take from the bike for about £1.4k. I think I'd be looking at about £1k for a fuel injected R1 engine. The ZX12R engine should produce more torque at lower revs and be more driveable at road speeds as well as being a fair bit faster on track. I saw a video of someone's ZX12R engined car on a dyno and the sound was amazing

(Original post by stevoboy)
Not the same bike, but still impressive none the less :

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...+turbo&pl=true

or if one engine isn't enough......

http://www.vsocial.com/video/?d=18098

.......meanwhile, back in the real world

Get the 12R..... you know you want to The hayabusa is similar in terms of power vs the 12r but to put it in a kit car you really need to dry sump it which is at least another £1k. The 12r will run happily with no sump mods at all, or with just an accusump. As far as I know Chris Allanson with the twin engine 12R car runs the engines with standard sumps and they are fine even though it will pull 1g when accelerating and 1.2g cornering.

A nice couple of videos

Yes I think I definately want to I guess the only thing holding me back from the ZX12R engine is the difference in cost which considering how much the car's going to cost in total isn't overly significant.



Thanks. Dave.

[westydriver]

Thats the beast, shes a '92 Evo 270bhp, I quite like the quirky Italian interior to be honest! Rather rapid too!!
The whole LHD really doesnt bother me and once you get used to it, its fine!

[OMGWTF]

Lovely, the wheels suit it too. They look like the stock Lancia ones. Did you get them painted? (I think the black suits the red rather than them being silver)

[Richard 45]

Check out www.locostbuilders.co.uk which is a locost car building community...helped my dad build an MK Indy a few years ago and have finally gotten around to upgrading the engine. Should be very similar to the caterham csr260 but at a quarter of the cost

It is one of the best things i think i have ever done and would well recommend it. The only problems now is the lack of rear wheeled drive cars to break up...sierra's seem to becoming more and more scarce.

That westfield is that the XE in it? (lovely looking car btw)

[dhutch]

(Original post by Richard 45)
It is one of the best things i think i have ever done and would well recommend it. The only problems now is the lack of rear wheeled drive cars to break up...sierra's seem to becoming more and more scarce.

Yeah, thats something ive heard a few times.
- Ive even talked to a guy a who built a sevenish using the rear axle of some big pickup. S'all geting a bit heavy though by the time you get to that.


Daniel

[Richard 45]

BMW though are keeping the rear wheeled drive thing alive...although they make things like the diff so bulky they dont even match the stuff off a sierra.

You got the book by ron champion?

[dhutch]

(Original post by Richard 45)
You got the book by ron champion?

Yeah, i must have read it 20 times, its about the only book ive actally ever bought!
- At the moment its only really a "pie in the sky dream" im up to eye ball in stuff to do already, and cant even aford a banger to get to a track.
- Most of my time at the moments going to RC cars, racing most weeks, any time i can get a lift down to any of the clubs.
- And anytime that gets left winds up being poured into my course, solicalizing, or working at the union as lighting crew to pay for new RC kit!

But im well up for in the near future.
- I can weld fairly competantly, got a double garage and small workshop (about 150sqft) at home. As well as access to varous other people kit, including all the uni workshops atm.
- Next year im out on placement for a year, so depending what i end up doing, there is a posablitly of maybe starting somthing then.

One way i looked at geting into it was to buy a failed project, and start from there.
- However, even if i get a good one, im still not sure it would ever quite be the same as doing at myself.


Daniel