The Official AVForums Modified Car thread...Let's have a few more!

Grangey.

You are JOKING?!?!?!

All of the above highlighted in bold is exactly what id expect to see on any boy racer clio/corsa/whatever. Its like you had a field day in halfords, the only thing your missing from the exterior is lexus or cluster rear lights.

Sorry fella I dont mean to get personal, but frankly regardless of the power under the hood, if i was to ever see your car parked up I would snigger and and paint your car with the same brush as all the chavvy boy racer clios out there. I would simply clearly see a silver punto with angel eyes, a worn interior with mdf door cards and an attempt of an ice install, an appauling ride hight, and halfords parts. The only reputable thing about your car in my eyes is the engine work, everything else is just boy racery. As for lowering your car but finding the handling worse- that just goes to reflect the quality of parts you are buying and the diy aspect of your work. Get a proper fully adjustable set of coilovers on there and there is no way you could ever thing to go back to stock suspension.

If you had posted up a completely standard looking punto, decked on some PROPER alloy wheels (not cheap tsw/wolfrace/whatever other cheap crap halfords and the likes in max power are trying to push nower days) be it schmidt turbos or any proper euro quality alloy, and then posted up that engine spec, you would be getting high praise from me (ie something just like this http://www.puntosports.co.uk/forums/showpost.php?p=960571&postcount=9), but im afraid to tell you the engine cannot be seen with the bonnet down, and your figures will also be unknown to the public unless you were to stick dyno print outs on the rear windows, so most people will look at your car and label you a boy racer, not even an enthusiast, which given the work you have done yourself and the power etc you should actually deserve to be known as the latter.

Il also agree with other comments on here about your 20k "estimate", either you pay waaaay to much for that car or you have been completely blagged on cost for parts. I built my civic up from being completely bog standard and had all work done professionally, and given that lot only cost me in the region of 10k (and i can happily break down the costs) and it had significantly more work done that yours, i really fail to see where 20k comes into play.

alexs2

I wouldn't go into the overall costs of the work that's been done on mine,but if I'd spent nearly half the original price of the car on modifying it,I'd have been thinking twice about moving uprange in the beginning.

Everyone's perception of modifying is different to some degree,and for some,adding shiny bits is either the entire deal,or at least a part of it,and for others(myself included),adding only those parts which improve the performance in some way is enough.

I have to say that out of respect to my clutch and my bank balance I don't run mine up the drag strip,but I know the times that others with the same spec will do,from those that dont mind a clutch or two!

AVF Jay

The gts that blow up are usually due to people putting too much boost and ragging the car.

A well looked after punto gt will not just randomly blow up, it's like those who say coupe turbos are unreliable etc, those that say that are the ones that buy the cheaper ones at about £1000 and then rag the crap out of it.

At the end of the day modifying cars comes down to personal taste and it can be a way to personalise a car.

I've grown out of changing the appearance of cars, the way I see it is I'd rather buy a car that has everything fitted on that I want, e.g bucket seats,  brembo brakes etc

For example buy a punto abarth and you'll have everything on it already really, it just needs a few upgrades (not the ss kit as it's a rip off lol)

Everything I purchase for my cars has a performance benefit be it a suspension upgrade, brake upgrades, remap, bigger turbo, upgraded intercooler etc.

When I said boyracer parts I was referring to your off the shelf products pipercross filter, richbrook pedals etc

And also your wheels, me personally if I bought an unmodified punto gt all I would do is upgrade the turbo, intercooler, uprated clutch, lsd, get some brembo brakes from a coupe turbo, get a full suspension kit not just springs on stock shocks, upgrade the tyres, and some lightweight wheels bbs etc, and get a performance exhaust not a custom one or cheap off the shelf job.

The only superficial thing I would do to the exterior is get a machine polish Seriously though a few hundred would get you a full detail and is money well spent.

I think with modifying cars you get what you pay for, and often there is a fine line between tacky and tasteful although ultimately it comes down to opinion, what I like you might not and vice versa.

Matt_C

LOL, this thread has made me laugh!

I used to be a big car nut - in a way I still am, but I got out of the modifying malarky years ago - I run a little P-reg Escort I bought for £300 2years ago to get me from A to B nowadays, as there are more pressing things for me to spend money on! I think it's when I realised I had 2 cars plus a works van, but still lived at home with my mum?!?! LOL

Anyway, I have enjoyed some of this thread, especially AdamF's contributions. It's not even just the car I chuckle at, it's just the way he writes it and the statements used!

But I won't poke too much fun - I myself have wasted thousands and thousands on cars that just aren't worth throwing money at! £3k spent on an '87 XR3i (tho to be fair, that car won 1st place Modified Concours two years running), best part of £10k spent on two different S1 RS Turbos (tho to be fair, they were pretty damn quick!) before realising that all that money would have been better spent on a DECENT CAR in the first place!

A friend of mine really brought it home to me - he bought a 90 plate S2 RS Turbo, with a claimed 240bhp engine. It blew up not long after he got it, and straight away he went into starting a whole project. It ended up with a 2.1 litre ZVH hybrid, T34 hybrid turbo, proper stand alone engine management, fully mappable, more chrome and ali engine bits that you could shake a stick at; alloy rad, alloy intercooler, mocal oil coolers, etc. Leda coilovers, 4 pot brembo's and 2 piece discs up front, Saff Cos rear discs, full inside and out colour change paint job, custom trimmed interior, custom dash clocks, custom exhaust, yadda yadda yadda. IT was actually a VERY nice example indeed. Overall cost (not including the car in the first place - which incidentally was £3700) come to over £20k (receipts to prove). Suddenly found out he had a kid on the way, was still living at home with mummy, and needed to get a house, and prepare to start providing for a new family due in 9months, he put it up for sale. 8months later it hadn't sold. He eventually took £2,500 for it and the kid that bought it broke it up for parts.

People DON'T buy modified cars (at least not ones with full packages; I mean I bought my S1's with a few mods, but only basic stuff like air filters, exhausts, chipped etc - I'd NEVER buy a car that has had upgraded brakes or suspension. Who knows if they have been pro fitted or home fitted by someone that THINKS they know what they are doing [although I actually DO know what I'm doing, as I do most mods myself and am entirely confident in doing brake replacements and/or upgrades - just did my brakes myself on my ickle runabout])

So best part of £25k, not to mention insurance costs, and sold for £2,500.

Think I'll stick to houses!!!!

alexs2

Well...just goes to show again that it's a hobby that doesn't pay dividends!

I shovelled a fair bit of cash at a Sierra Cosworth that ended up with over 440bhp,and was by anyones standards,pretty fast,but when it was sold,it didn't recoup a whole lot of that.

Funnily enough,my Escort Cosworth,which was basically a GpN rally car before I bought it,did far better in terms of resale value,when it found it's way back onto the rally circuit after I'd had enough of it.

As Matt_C says,people generally don't buy modified cars,or at least unless they're looking for something very specific,but that's pretty rare.

I certainly wouldn't pretend that my current one is going to make me any money,but it can be returned to stock pretty easily,and hasn't been hacked about....in any case I have no plans to sell,and my son has his eyes on it.

apolloa

I think it's because like me, many people find the Escort Cosworth to be one of the best? It's the best looking IMO and is small too, it's like the ultimate GTI that can give your S3 a run for it's money or even the RS3. And if I remember correctly didn't it win a few rallies too?
I also think it's a rare car, don't see many of them.

Matt_C

The EsCos is a superb car. I wouldn't say tho it's small - barely shorter than a Sierra Cos (considering they have the same floor pan and chassis). It's main problem is it's old now - even the youngest example is 15 years old!

Arcam_boy

A modified car I.e brakes aren't bard to sell if you have the receipts to show where you purchased them and where you had them fitted as I have.

I've got a receipt for £2100 showing the brake kit and professional fitting by midlands vw. If I could of found a car with the same brake set up and decent mods ie kw coil overs h&r arbs etc etc I would happily buy the car and even pay a slight premium over a standard car.

I do like modified cars but only performance wise and unless I had a very serious peice of kit could never justify spending 20k on it.

20k in it's own right would buy a very nice car. I paid £19k for my r32 if I spent a further 20k modding that would take me to rs3, rs4 territory and it's the same through out.

apolloa

Huh, never knew they had the same chassis. Yeah, it's an old car but still looks nice, I remember seeing one with I think 20" or so rims once, damn it looked nice.. I'll say this, even though I am yet to see one in the flesh the Escort Cossie looked a damn site nicer then the yet to go on sale new Focus ST perhaps if you see it in the flesh it's better?

alexs2

Those that haven't been raced,crashed nicked or burnt make the survivors now quite rare,and even more so to find one that hasn't been badly modified.

A standard one wouldn't keep up with a stock S3 now,as things have moved along so much,and the one I owned was a motorsport shell with all of the rallying parts fitted:

Straight cut gearbox,short ratios.
Rose jointed fully adjustable suspension
Torque sensing diffs x 3
AP brakes with Pagid pads.
ALS and turbocharger adapted for that
Water injection etc etc
Welded roll cage and fire extinguisher system for engine and petrol tank

There was a fair bit more but thats about the basics of it.

It was quicker overall than my car in it's current spec,but a very twitchy and hairy drive much of the time.

It won quite a few rallies,but never strung enough together to win the championship.

The Escort Cosworth was based on the Sapphire 4x4 floor pan,and there were about 7145 produced in total of which 2500 were for racing homologation.

The body was shortened quite significantly compared to the Sierra,with about 28cms cut out of the shell....you'd be surprised how much difference that makes to the perception of size,as I'd had a Sapphire Cosworth before the Escort,and the Escort really was smaller,but also how it alters the handling.