Some of you may know that I got very heavily credit crunched recently. As a result I've had to review where I'm going with my two P6 projects. I decided there was little prospect of funding either of them to completion any time soon so they've both had to go :roll: . The Thai car has gone to Ian Wilson for him to build up as a 3.5 for his personal use. The English car has gone to Alan at Classeparts with the initial intention to use it as a base to reshell his, otherwise terminally rusty, VIP and to use as a demonstrator for some of his P6 upgrades. So this seems like a good moment to celebrate them both with a couple of pictures!
The good news is that I now have a P6 with an MoT and tax that actually works! I've christened him "Lucky" as he has 777 as the numbers in his registration. Lucky is a 1970 Swries 1 with only 41k on the clock, no rust at all in the base unit, four new wings and a respray. He finally made it home last week just in time to have his first rest in my garage for three months whilst I am in Thailand. In the past couple of weeks he has had the uprated brakes and Vitesse wheels transferred from the English car and he's gained his uprated front anti roll bar, a set of Koni Classics at the rear and a new pair of Rover police spec uprated dampers at the front.
Of course there are a few minor snags. The biggest of these is that he has had a D post repair (of excellent quality) at some point in the past and the metal has finished up further in to the body than it should have done. As a result the much vaunted skimmed Vitesse wheels are fine on the nearside but just produce a slight foul of the tyre on the offside rear. We've done a temporary fix by overskimming a spare pair of wheels, but I'm not happy with the amount of metal left araound the bolt holes, so it will be off to the bodyshop for a D post rejig when I get back. There's also an imtermittant hesitation that has nearly cleared after a few tanks of fresh petrol but not quite. I'll try a few more before I set sail to take my own advice to dmc sweeny! Then there's a major oil leak on the transmission and an oil leak at the front of the engine before i get started on bringing him up to my spec. I've decided I'll do the 4.6 swop and the ZF swap as two distinct stages so as to keep him on the road as far as possible. It'll all take a bit of time though!
So how does he drive then? Well the interesting bit was that the Vitesse wheels and 205/65 tyres alone radically improved turn in over the standard set up. And the steering is actually lighter than standard! So plans for a power steering retrofit have gone in the bin. With the anti roll bar and dampers I would say you can hustle through roundabouts as effectively as any modern car. Surprisingly the uprated anti roll bar doesn't seem to have upset handling balance in long corners. In theory it should shift that balance towards understeer. Hmm, the P6 confounds theory and common sense again! But what a splendid result!
The brakes are a complete revelation! I've never driven anything that stops so well outside of true exotica (Ur Quattro, AMG Benz, Porsche to name a few). They are widened standard calipers around a vented disc that has been microgrooved to work with EBC Green Stuff kevlar pads. The rear is standard as I think it is foolish to get too much braking on the rear in normal road conditions. Any future mods at the rear will be aimed at reliability rather than stopping power. Certainly I'm now much more concerned about the stopping capabilities of those behind me!! Groove whine is pretty moderate and only under braking, cetainly much better than some other cars I've used it on.
Just for completeness here are a couple of shots of Baby Rover who is my daily driver in the UK and has just celebrated his 30k mile birthday!
The good news is that I now have a P6 with an MoT and tax that actually works! I've christened him "Lucky" as he has 777 as the numbers in his registration. Lucky is a 1970 Swries 1 with only 41k on the clock, no rust at all in the base unit, four new wings and a respray. He finally made it home last week just in time to have his first rest in my garage for three months whilst I am in Thailand. In the past couple of weeks he has had the uprated brakes and Vitesse wheels transferred from the English car and he's gained his uprated front anti roll bar, a set of Koni Classics at the rear and a new pair of Rover police spec uprated dampers at the front.
Of course there are a few minor snags. The biggest of these is that he has had a D post repair (of excellent quality) at some point in the past and the metal has finished up further in to the body than it should have done. As a result the much vaunted skimmed Vitesse wheels are fine on the nearside but just produce a slight foul of the tyre on the offside rear. We've done a temporary fix by overskimming a spare pair of wheels, but I'm not happy with the amount of metal left araound the bolt holes, so it will be off to the bodyshop for a D post rejig when I get back. There's also an imtermittant hesitation that has nearly cleared after a few tanks of fresh petrol but not quite. I'll try a few more before I set sail to take my own advice to dmc sweeny! Then there's a major oil leak on the transmission and an oil leak at the front of the engine before i get started on bringing him up to my spec. I've decided I'll do the 4.6 swop and the ZF swap as two distinct stages so as to keep him on the road as far as possible. It'll all take a bit of time though!
So how does he drive then? Well the interesting bit was that the Vitesse wheels and 205/65 tyres alone radically improved turn in over the standard set up. And the steering is actually lighter than standard! So plans for a power steering retrofit have gone in the bin. With the anti roll bar and dampers I would say you can hustle through roundabouts as effectively as any modern car. Surprisingly the uprated anti roll bar doesn't seem to have upset handling balance in long corners. In theory it should shift that balance towards understeer. Hmm, the P6 confounds theory and common sense again! But what a splendid result!
The brakes are a complete revelation! I've never driven anything that stops so well outside of true exotica (Ur Quattro, AMG Benz, Porsche to name a few). They are widened standard calipers around a vented disc that has been microgrooved to work with EBC Green Stuff kevlar pads. The rear is standard as I think it is foolish to get too much braking on the rear in normal road conditions. Any future mods at the rear will be aimed at reliability rather than stopping power. Certainly I'm now much more concerned about the stopping capabilities of those behind me!! Groove whine is pretty moderate and only under braking, cetainly much better than some other cars I've used it on.
Just for completeness here are a couple of shots of Baby Rover who is my daily driver in the UK and has just celebrated his 30k mile birthday!
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