Ok thought I'd stop pissing about and get a thread up. Now I know it's a Ka (which to many is a joke to start with) and it's only got a 1300 engine, toy town brakes, blah blah blah, plans are in place to man it up just need to get the cash together!
Ok so here's the story (or you can skip to the pics)... German built and registered, Left hand drive, imported to UK early on in it's life. Owned by one German lady petrol head (she replaced this with a Mustang), purchaced from her by a good mate to get used to a left hand drive for an up coming rally. After that was used as a run about then given to me. The first thing we done to it was completely strip it out and bang in some Recaros from a Series 1 Escort (I think, I took them out of a Sierra so who knows). My original plan was just to thrash it on the local club events while working on some thing for next year, so I didnt really want to spend much on it hence some of the ghetto mods you will see!
Seen it needed tyres anyway and not wantin to spend on wheels too, I went for 185s on the 13 inch steelies.
Had fun throwing her about on the local race track. Done half of the Autotest season, really enjoying it and holding my own against Cossie engined MK2s and Racing Pumas etc. Something started to set in though, it was becoming more than just a quick fling, I wanted this to be my project. I set about looking into more power, zetec seems the cheaper more straight forward way so sourced an Escort to rip the engine out of:
Told it was an 1800, but saw its a 1600. No loss though better than the 1.3! And got 4 vgc 15" alloys with nearly new tyres in the deal too, all for £25! Started working on the engine, stripped and cleaned the head, all was going well but wasn't convinced it was the best thing to do. Needed to get a few things sorted on the car before the engine gets changed so....
This is how it starts, the green has to go. Need to get it sorted for the second half of autotest season which starts first saturday of october.
The seats we fitted were just welded direct to the floor, seemed like a good idea at the time. First up I ripped the driver's seat out so I could get at the floor. Not too bad really, just needs 2 patches on this side and a bit of sill attention.
Ground back and zinc coated
Exploding discs!
The door kept getting in the way so I got it out of the way
Not really happy with the finish, Im blaming the gasless mig. Need to get stuff done in a time limit though so I can always come back to this at a later date.
Then I ran out of welding wire! So I moved onto removing spot wleded brackets for the likes of rear seats etc, while I was working on the c pillar area I noticed a plastic bag full of foam stuffed in there! Only way to get it out was to keep picking at it with some long nosed pliers like a bird's beak! What a mess!
My plan is to get what I can done between events then do a major strip down over the winter break. Hopefully get the zetec in then too, although I have plans for so much more.
This month I'd like to:
Fit side mount seat brackets + fabricate mounts from inner sill to tunnel
Fit bonnet pins and boot lid springs
Remove inner skin on boot lid
Make and fit foot well plates
Make door card for passenger side
Fit wheel spacers + axle spacers
Upgrade brakes
Fit brake bias valve
Make vertical hand brake lever
Respray inside and out (need to come up with a colour scheme)
Maybe get some styling bits like mirrors, spoiler, roof scoop etc.
Maybe get shocks ordered if I have enough money left
Well if you are still with me this far thank you for reading and hope you like the story so far. Its a pretty lame build for this forum I know but I plan to make up for it soon enough!
Comments welcome and please suggestions for a quick ratle can respray!