cheers nathan. love the work you did to the xr4x4. chris, my son, agrees with you on what should be done with the shell. i won't decide the outcome till after sand blasting and have seen what comes back to me but he will probably have it. i won't realisticaly have the time to do another project and in fairness i don't think the shell is too bad so could be the ideal project to break him in gently. he will not be having the cossie 4x4 gear sat in workshop but may give him the xr4x4 2.9 car i have and let him get on with it. 150 bhp will be enough for him to have a bit of fun and should also be more reliable.