MK2

I'd go with Roy with the Mk1 Escort, I had a coupe set up for rally years ago and theyre a damn fun little car, bit hard too find these days because people like me kept munting them into rocks and trees Guess a bit more looking around and you might be able too lay your hands on a SSS 180B for about 1-2k at the most for a decent-ish one. Leaves a lot of money for spares and fiddling. Plus its a 180B, no one ever suspects the 180B heh! Owned both, had me a lot of cheap fun and thrills in them.

If you can happen on one, try and pick a good sized compressor with a 50-100L tank and a belt drive rather than a direct drive compressor on it from things like closing down sales, auctions and the like. You'll probably spend about the same as a cheapo one from a store. Belt drives are comparatively quiet, which is a sanity saver if you have too live with it running for a long period of time, they do need oil and filter changes every couple of hundred continous hours of use but seem too be in my experience a little better than the direct drive beasts, which use servicing about the same time as a belt drive. Grinders and sanders need to use about a minimum 75-100L tank of air at 90psi and will run about 6-15 cubic feet of air a minute through them. Rattleguns are pretty good they only use about half that and most everything else tends too be much much less. Dont forget if youre running a spraygun too make sure its got a good condensor on it though. Like the bloke there said, get what you pay for

Ouch, stabbed in the eye! Nasssssty interior... hell even if it did get done properly it'd look like 70's gay nightclub.

Impaling them on the front lawn as a warning too others, also keeps the local kids from playing on it.

He's a premium dealer. By that I mean you'll see a lot of cars which are cheaper than the ones he has in other peoples private adds and other car lots. But I mean you kinda take your life in your own hands picking out 2nd hand cars, least with Dom's you know its going too work, not f**k up or break down (well as much as you can expect from a performance car!), some dodgy chop job or stolen. Pretty handy for parts, services and support too. Dunno how much my word is worth Makes any difference I've bought one car off him (I still own), friends have bought another 3 over the last 6years, end of this year I'll probably buy another of him because he's not a crook. Up to you, if you can find an inspect a 2nd hand car which is the same condition for less money then by all means buy it.

Bodykit is hideous, looks like a kitchen untensil. Dont mind the green paint, but its just not something I'd be seen in. Interior is f**king horrendous, get a spec of dirt on anything then it'll just look horrendous and filthy, whoever got those floor mats should be punched in the head. Whoever thought the blue, white and green would look good together needs a handicapped sticker because the poor c**t is obviously blind. (I'm not against a light coloured interior, my Sil is done in light leather but just the inserts, seats and glovebox) Tint the windows... Bit hard to tell what it looks like mechanically, what the suspension and under-body looks like (you never know he could have been doing Dukes of Hazzard jumps or kerb humping which is why it got the respray), lot of bling on the engine but theres a whole lot of bling anyway so who knows what sins the rest of it is hiding. I mean, did he need that respray or did he just do it because he likes Kermit the Frog green? To surmise, the person that did this obviously had more money than sense and will be waking up from their crack high and trying too recoup the costs to fuel some other deranged activity. For a first car, dont touch it, for the last car on earth, consider walking which you might end up doing because it'll get boosted from any street within an hour and cops will just stick canaries on it, just because they can. Being a young dude, full of beans, semen, testosterone and liable to fall off the road doing something dumb once in awhile, hit things and easily riled up into racing bogans at the lights, dont get this one. Get yourself a mechanically solid thrash box that wont cost you a lot of money in bent/blown up parts and panels, save up 2 years worth of money and get yourself something really nice.

Har! I dunno, current conditions I can see this commo going exactly the same way the P76 went. Great V8 engine for the time, pretty good build quality, lots of room... fuel prices that went through the roof. Leyland hit rock bottom, pulled out a backhoe and started digging. Wheels Magazine if I remember correctly liked the P76 enough too give it car of the year back in 1973 too. Least Holden got themselves a nice big blimp too advertise it on. Which can be either indicative of the car itself or its potential too cause something spectacular when it crashes economically... Just depends on your level of cynicism really

Guess if youre going too that much trouble to make it all nice and shiny wouldnt it be better while its in bits too get them anodised (assuming theyre an aluminium/aluminium alloy?) and keep corrosion off. Never have too paint or polish them again either!

About the only thing I could think of it doing would be inducing a galvanic voltage too the chassis, but that shit is normally only done too boats and stuff with a zinc surface on it. ed- read the above guys post, he knows more about it

Aww man thats a spot of bloody awful luck

About the closest they've got is the SC430's and some of the other stuff they hurl around in the GT300 and GT500 races. For a 'rough' (very rough!) comparison of sorts, be interesting too see some of the 3U V8's with the taps opened up on them for Australian V8 supercars. Course, that'll never happen...

All's said and done about the fuel consumption thing, the fact is they have a guzzler on their hands that no one is going too buy especially if you look at the utility aspects of a 4door sedan compared too other options out there. -Got a wife and 2kids, dont tow anything. Plenty of mid-sized cars out there which will do the job just fine, couple of them are pretty polished bits of work so theyre not a step down in luxury, safety or comfort. -More than 2 kids, people tend too buy either big ass van or a big ass 4wd, added utility of the 4wd means you can tow things or go soft-road in it. Van means you can lay the seats down and chuck big things in. -Tow things? Any of the big diesel 4wds do the job better than anything else out there. So I dunno. What really is the majority, market share for these things? Fleet sales? Know a few that tend too be going mid-size rather than full sedans for their sales and travelling bods because theyre a hell of a lot cheaper, especially if its for around town stuff. Press wont be kind too these people as the Skaife interview will show and it'll be a hard sell for GMH too move this beast. As for the sports car comment on the GTR, jez. Least its a 2-door It doesnt have f**king cup holders Goes fast Has a race history People actually race them... How much more bloody 'sporty' does it have too be?

Reason cars all look the same is because of 3 things- Current fashion, designers nick bits off each other all the time. Be it clear lights, Xenons, body panels, spoilers, towel racks or body kit, its not exactly new. Plus the fact, car designers are just like any other contractor, put money and food in one end, shit comes out the other end you can call your own, happy days. CAD-Windtunnel design, basically. Chuck something in a computer with wind tunnel simulation and ask for something efficient, it shits you back a car with whatever drag co-efficient you asked for. You do it again, ask for the same co-efficient and guess what? SAME SHAPE! No suprise there really. Economy of material, combined with CAD, windtunnels means you enter, your desired drag, desired size and desired price. Hey presto (literally) it shits out another SAME SHAPE! wooo... no suprise. Anything else, like bits of grill, flared arches, towel racks, cup holders, antennas, badges and other crap is pretty much bolt-on and has very little too do with the actual engineering or aerodynamics. They can bung all that shit on all they want and call it 'proprietary' that defines their mobile hunk of shit from the competitions. I have no faith in locally made... um I mean 'assembled' (oops, nearly slipped out ) cars because I guess too be blunt, too the point and succinct. Theyre f**king hunks of crap. Owned Fords and Holdens all my life, tell you now I wouldnt touch this with a pole. Ford and Holden already had they chance too burn my money away recently and they can crawl in a hole and die for all I care.

MrT pity the fools at tyre places when the first Hyundai Excel is going too be rolling in too get these fitted and has too find himself some 120mm spacers.

Whole V8 supercars thing was bullshit from the start, people blaming poor attendance, poor ratings for the motorsport in australia dying off so they started this inbred fest which we've been fed for the last 13 odd years and Joe Average probably thinks is the only form of motorsport in this country. Personally I hope Ch7 does a horrible job, it dies and they roll its wallowing, boring carcass into a nice big deep hole for all I care. Hell the only real sales of falcadores are for fleet now, the vast majority of new car buyers figured out theyre crap ages ago and either spent a little less or a bit more on something else from overseas, (not that theres a lot of local product left in a ford or holden anyway...) At least if we got a proper touring car championship in this country again I'd like to see it an international event, wouldnt have to Group A but they could at least have more than two brands bumper to bumper. Theres tons of local motorsport in this country with real competition and vehicles that dont have a half million or more pricetag on them which are far more accessable to people than some painted up two-brand race which has only served to distance people from the sport in its own way. Sadly SBS is the only one that bothers covering it and it's got nowhere near the amount of timeslot to do much with it.

Well, theres a filter of some sort on the fuel pump itself usually and another fine filter on the fuel rail so the chances of something reaching even the injectors is pretty remote, most of the time a fuel blockage happens is because someone didnt bother changing a fuel filter when they should have and blaming 'dirty' fuel or fuel tank.

Definatly in the new car markets the imported vehicles from europe and japan find it hard to compete in terms of price, locally they seem to still come up against buyer preference for Fords and Holdens rather than cars Mitsubishi makes and it seems like its only a matter of time before they end up in the drink, even though the locally made Mitsubishi's are pretty much as 'domestic' as any of the Fords and Holdens. While the large car market is definately going to hell in a handbasket, all it seems to need for smaller and mid size cars is to find a product from overseas and rebadge it with a Ford or Holden bit of bling and it sells. The only other real inroad into car sales seems to come from the Korean markets that for awhile made a killing selling new cars cheaper than second hand ones, until people figured out they where probably better suited as a boat anchor than an automobile... almost universally horrible things. Second hand market, personally I'm loathe to buy a new-shiny thing off a lot for the simple reason I hate paying that much tax on something which apart from a few models doesnt tend to have the build quality that impresses me at all. Here the playing field is so much more weighted in favour of the grey-import and locally imported cars its just not funny. Even if you dont want a performance car a bit of hunting around the grey market scene will net you something with all the bells, whistles and customer comforts than anything locally new will cost about three times the price at the very least and probably twice the price of something second hand thats locally thrown together. Back when I first started looking at imported cars there was horror story after horror story thrown about how hard it was to get parts, but to be honest when I landed mine here the damn thing never broke down in the first place! Lastly for a consumer wanting to buy a car with low kilometres, honest history and well built you'd have to be mad not to consider a grey market car over something local in the second hand market. I'll buy something aussie built in a second if they make it good and go like the clappers, but they dont so I dont waste my money. They want my money, make something worth it.

NZ was good to a point, you can get good cars from overseas that would have normally been considered a prestige vehicle, but it did basically send 3-4 factories and half a dozen parts manufacturers into the drink. Domestic manufactuers shit bricks when they hear the words 'grey-import' because it means looking down the barrel of high quality*, competitively priced european and jap cars. *well in some cases, some are right dogs too but you get that in the 2nd hand car business.

Pretty sure none of the bucket and fixed back seats are ADR approved in this country matey for street use. So even if it is engineered and deemed sound, the actual seat structure itself isnt bearing the little ADR sticker on it somewhere will net you one free ticket. Thats my interpretation of reading the rules on rta.nsw, might be best to give them a call though to clarify it.

Volvo 244DL, preferably in burnt orange with comprehensive insurance and a bowls hat. I'll paint little aussie, japanese and yank flags on the sides for 'kills' No, actually. It'll be a late model R32GTR.

Not suprising, I've owned electric pencil sharpeners with probably more torque. You'd be suprised what people will chuck on their cars in an effort for perceived power, kinda like the young bloke at work who does our onsite security who owns a sube RX. Its not a bad little car, runs alright when its not in the panel shop from him hitting things/other road users with but anyway the muppet shows me this X-Force muffler he's found near a speedhump near where he lives. Finders keepers, doesnt seem damaged and all the bits on it are ok apart from where some bogan drove over a speed hump too fast and scratched it, leaving it behind and not noticing it... So I figure I'll help him swap it out with the original on the Sube and leave it at that if he wants a chrome cock hanging off the back of his wagon for whatever reason. Goes buzzing off sounding like a happy flat-four chainsaw and comes back the next week. "Aw man I can feel the difference!" 'Where? From your ears bleeding?" "No, serious bro it just feels like its got more power." You cant make people understand these things with rational logic so I gave up trying to make them.

Coupe-this has answered most of your Q's but I would recommend that you do a 2.5inch system on it because the lighter density gas exhaust does tend to give some fairly good scavenging effects and the extra mass-velocity when its opened up was worth it, plus you've already got headers on it so thats a good start. My old 351 in the landau I got converted over to gas in the early 90's and it really isnt that much of a drama as far as corrosion goes but you really have to use good quality oil in them as it burns fairly dry and hot.

Oh yeah, that would be the stuff to ingratiate your neighbourhood with at 6am when you fire up the beast for work! vvVVVVVVVVVVVVVVOOOOOOOOOOP! VVVOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOP! FFFFFFFFFSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSH! *rumbling engine noises*

Well, diesels, turbo diesels too have no throttle, its all controlled by the injectors and not a throttle plate, so seeing as backpressure is created by a pressure difference between the manifold and turbo outlet pipe when a throttle plate closes, they dont have to worry about a pressure wave going the wrong way down the tube and belting into the blades. Considering even most of the little 4cylinder turbo diesels seem to run a minimum of 14-15psi and trucks run about 40+psi and they dont have a BOV it seems surplus to requirements. Theres all kinds of pnuematic assistance on big trucks and buses for all kinds of shit, not sure which shit it is making the noise I'd have to ask my dad he used to work for International. edit- and yes in noisy environments with trucks using compression brakes, buses and noisy fuggen bikes I hardly think some noob with a noisy BOV is hardly going to kill anyone from a ruptured eardrum.

I get about 7.5k/L around town because I'm a bit frisky with the pedal, maybe 9-10 if I'm in grandpa mode. Highway is much nicer, leans out to about 14k/L, has a 55L tank. Thats on an SR20DET S13 Sil with a fair few mods on it now I guess and a 5spd, they arent a very good learner car in terms of behaviour and theyre certainly thirsty. The 20DE is a much, much easier beast to live with and their economy is on par with pretty much most other 2L 4cylinder cars. If you want to save up a few grand more I'd recommend an S14, quite couple of them over here locally with the 20DE in them stock and a much better behaved animal on the road. The DET in the S14 is also a blacktop which is a much more refined bit of gear compared to the redtop which is getting kind of agricultural now I suppose but just depends what youre into really.