The Thread is only 10 pages long and is still running with the car only half finished, but its still well worth a read as the engineering and build quality is second to none. The thread starts like this,

So i was going to swap the VR6 out of my mk3 track car into a mk2 jetta with a clean shell…or so i thought. Turns out that the jetta shell was far from clean, but it was free so i couldn’t complain . I gutted the car to find about an inch of water in the foot wells caused by a pin hole in the sunroof panel and plenty of sitting outside. I started removing the undercoating and got sick of being covered in sticky crap so i pulled out the big guns. I ended up removing the entire floor pan from the front firewall to the license plate tub. Now the fun begins…the plan has changed to create a mid-engined RWD 4 door jetta.

Followed by loads of photos of his little white mk2 Jetta getting cut down and completely stripped. It take the builder no time at all to start building up the space frame to house the driver and passenger and to house the new power unit and all the interior. The car gets a new heavy-duty roll cage and a test fitting of the VRT engine in the back.

Jetta getting the chop

Rear subframe in place, though it wont be used in the end.

The new VR6 engine in place.

I would continue with a full commentary of the whole build, but I am sure you would all prefer reading through and watching the car come to life with some excellent pieces of engineering along the way, including the billet hubs and completely custom suspension setup. Here are some highlights from the thread.

Centre bore mounthed split rims.

The Jetta finally on its wheels with all the spaceframe finished.

The rear suspension setup now looks nothing like the standard setup at all.

The front suspension it unique too, with two shocks dealing with two different plains of movement.

The car is truly amazing and will be a complete beast once finished. I will be watching the thread on Vortex with great interest. All of the photos in this blog have been taken from the Votex forum and have been originally taken by the builder of the car VR6-3.0.

I was wondering through the internet this morning and found something out of the ordinary (A shock for the Internet i know) and felt compelled to share it with you all.

As you may have guessed from the title, what I found was something rather unique and a nice break from the norm. I stumbled across a build thread on the mk1 Golf owners club forum by a very imaginative mk1 Jetta owner that wanted to do something a bit different. What he has done is take a 3dr mk1 Jetta and convert it into a mk1 Golf estate. As you can imagine this has taken quite a bit of chopping and welding, but the end product is very very good indeed.

The thread kicks off with a single tag line and a picture to get people salivating.

“My German buddy is using a Golf rear end to make a 3-door Mk1 Jetta into an estate car. Will be an interesting project”

Gotta mk1 Estate

The thread then develops into a normal build thread with only a few updates on the cars progress through its build. The basic premise of the car is to take a 3dr mk1 Jetta (very rare in the UK as they didn’t import many if at all) and chop the back off to replace it with the back end of a normal mk1 Golf. Because of the longer body of the Jetta this basically leave you with an estate mk1 Golf.

What makes this project even more interesting is chopping and welding such a large panel as the roof is not easy at all and to get a good finish you have to be pretty good with a welder. Here are some more pics of the project in construction.

Rear quarter shot before any welding

Rear wing after welding.

Other side all welded up with some arch work too.

Even just after welding the panels together the car looks great and something very different indeed. The last picture shows how much work must have gone into the welding of the panels as all the welds are done as to try and not warp the panels with the heat of the welder. this means welding in small sections along the panels to stop the heat building up in any one section.

If you thought the car looked effective in the above pics, just look at the car after some retro inspired paint.

Mk1 Gotta with some retro paint.

Another paint shot.

Now, there is a little bit of a split as to those who like this car and those who think it looks (for lack of a better word) fugly. But i think its something different and very cool indeed. I am sure you will make up your own mind as to what you think of the Gotta, but I say, in a scene that seems to be getting a little old and ‘done’, something that breaks the boundaries of what can be done is more then welcome.

Pretty much all of you that use Firefox will know by know, but Firefox has just released a new version of its browser that now lets you customize the look by picking one of over 3000 personas from the mozilla site. Other browsers have been doing this for a long time (Opera for instance) but because of the following Firefox has there are some really rather good personas to choose from.

Here are a couple that might interest some of you motoring mad readers.

• Drifting Subaru STi
• ABT Audi
• Kawasaki Ninja Zx6r
• Shelby GT500 1967
• BMW M3 GT2
• McLaren-Mercedes
• 1971 Dodge Challenger
• Porsche GT3 RS

There are loads more covering every theme you could ever think of so go and have a look. Personas for Firefox.

I have been to this show (the only show i go to most years) every year for the last 3 years and once again I was not disappointed with the quality and quantity of retro metal on show. This year I was without a car to go on a stand (i have been up in my Corrado G60 and Passat the last few years) but it still didn’t stop me from having a great time.

This post ties in perfectly with my last post as I got to experience some top fuel dragster action with one of the cars trying a little too hard (see the pic below), even if the were just demoing the cars for us. Once again the best car down the track was Pod’s own rocket car that blew us all way with a 6 second run.

As i mentioned the quality of the cars was great this year, especially those entered for the show and shine, with a wide variety of different models and styles of cars, all very well maintained and finished to a very high standard.

This year, as well as having the normal track action that Santa Pod is well known for they had a retro drift team there with three mk2 Escorts and two early Starlet’s. I was very impressed with the control and speed. I would post up a link to the drift team but i can’t remember who they were, sorry guys.

I have 177 images from the weekend, but here are a couple of my favorite cars from the show.

Drag wheelie

My friend Joe's Capri

Mk1 Astra with a RedTop

Datsun Sunny Slammed on Air

Mint Mk2 Escort

Rat Astra

• One Top Fuel dragster 500 cubic inch Hemi engine makes more horsepower than the first 4 rows at the Daytona 500. They have over half again as much horsepower in one cylinder as a Dodge Viper has in all ten. No one has ever successfully run one long enough on a dyno to get a horsepower reading. Current estimates are right around 6,000 horsepower.

• Under full throttle, a dragster engine consumes 1-1/2 gallons of nitro methane per second; a fully loaded 747 consumes jet fuel at the same rate with 25% less energy being produced.

• A stock Dodge Hemi V8 engine cannot produce enough power to drive the dragster supercharger. The fuel pump alone requires more horsepower to turn than the average street car produces.

• With 3000 CFM of air being rammed in by the supercharger on overdrive, the fuel mixture is compressed into a near-solid form before ignition. Cylinders run on the verge of hydraulic lock at full throttle.

• The 1.7:1 air/fuel mixture for nitro methane produces a flame front temperature measures 7050 degrees F.

• Nitro methane burns yellow. The spectacular white flame seen above the stacks at night is raw burning hydrogen, disassociated from atmospheric water vapour by the searing exhaust gases.

• Dual magnetos supply 44 amps to each spark plug. This is the output of an arc welder in each cylinder.

• Spark plug electrodes are totally consumed during a pass. After the run, the engine is dieseling from compression plus the glow of exhaust valves at 1400 degrees F. The engine can only be shut down by running the car out of fuel. There is no way to cut off the fuel; the engine stops only when it blows or the tank runs dry.

• If spark momentarily fails early in the run, unburned nitro builds up in the affected cylinders and then explodes with sufficient force to blow cylinder heads off the block in pieces or split the block in half.

• In order to exceed 300 mph in 4.5 seconds dragsters must accelerate an average of over 4G’s. In order to reach 200 mph well before half-track, the launch acceleration approaches 8G’s. To put this in perspective; a top fuel dragster, parked next to a Super Hornet on the steam catapult on the deck of an aircraft carrier, would be in the water and sinking before the Super Hornet was halfway down the deck.

• Dragsters reach over 300 miles per hour before you have completed reading this sentence.

• Top Fuel Engines only turn approximately 540 revolutions from light to light!

• Including the burnout, the engine must only survive 900 revolutions under load. They only survive about 80% of the time.

• Redline at 9500 rpm.

• Assuming all the equipment is paid off, the crew worked for free, and for once NOTHING BLOWS UP, each run costs an estimated $1,000.00 per second.

• The engine is entirely rebuilt every run, or every 900 revolutions. New pistons and rings, new rods, new rod bearings. Sometimes a new crank. The crew does this in about two hours between rounds.

• The current Top Fuel dragster elapsed time record is 4.441 seconds for the quarter mile. The top speed record is 333.00 mph (533 km/h) as measured over the last 66′ of the run.

• Putting all of this into perspective: You are driving the average $140,000 Lingenfelter “twin-turbo” powered Corvette Z06. Over a mile up the road, a Top Fuel dragster is staged and ready to launch down a quarter mile strip as you pass. You have the advantage of a flying start. You run the Vette hard up through the gears and blast across the starting line and past the dragster at an honest 200 mph. The ‘tree’ goes green for both of you at that moment. The dragster launches and starts after you. You keep your foot down hard, but you hear an incredibly brutal whine that sears your eardrums and within 3 seconds the dragster catches and passes you. He beats you to the finish line, a quarter mile away from where you just passed him. Think about it, from a standing start, the dragster had spotted you 200 mph and not only caught, but nearly blasted you off the road when he passed you within a mere 1320 foot long race course.

What amazing machines.

The video is not of amazing quality, but its well worth a watch.

Mclaren F1

Mclaren have developed a new upgrade for the F1 car that looks to be ready for introduction in this weekends British GP. The McLaren team have developed a new blown rear diffuser that has been pioneered by Red Bull and are expecting significant improvements.

Although the upgrade for the car is ready McLaren is letting the two British drivers decide whether they want the new changes on the cars for this weekend. McLaren managing director Jonathan Neale said  “We would like to take it this weekend and, if the drivers think it’s good enough, it will stay on, if not, then we will continue to develop the upgrade.”

A number of teams made aerodynamic upgrade for last weeks European Grand Prix, including Ferrari who were very impressed with the new changes to the F10, though other in race incidents stopped Alonso finishing as high as he would have liked.

Jonathan Neale also added

“In Formula 1 it’s rare there are golden bolts that will transform your car from uncompetitive to competitive,”

“Most teams, including Red Bull, made an impressive change to their diffusers to give them a good step forward.

“It’s one of the things we are working on as part of a package of changes that we are bringing to the next race and subsequent races.

“A lot of teams upgraded their cars quite heavily last weekend, we’ve been trying to pull forward a variety of packages we have planned through the season.

“Friday will be a testing day. A number of teams are working with complex projects like blown diffusers and f-duct systems, there are a lot of installation issues which require track time to get right.

“I’m confident that we’ve made a reasonable performance step. Do I think we’ve got everything we’ve expected? It’s hard to tell at this stage, I’ll wait and see what the drivers think.”

I think this weekends F1 will be one of the most exciting this year. With all the teams continuing to get to grips with all the new regulations and rule, continuing to develop each car to make the most out the current constrictions, two of the top drivers in F1 at the moment being British  and the brand new track at Sliverstone, its all starting to look like one of the best British Grand Prix’s in years.

This morning I followed a link to a gallery on Picasa that gave me exactly what i wanted, a build thread without any thread. The gallery is a record of one mans project to rebuild an old 1973 Triumph Stag with everything documented and uploaded so you can skip through the pictures and watch the car coming together in front of your own eyes.

What makes this Stag rebuild worthy of blogging about is the attention to detail that the builder has taken to every part of the cars rebuild. The car sees a full bare-metal respray with new panels as well. I would say that the car, when finished, is ‘as good as when it came out of the factory’, but i think that wouldn’t give the finished article any where near the level of respect as it deserves.

Here is the gallery in question picasaweb.google.com/markweedon/. There are over 370 image in the gallery, so sit back and flick through them all and enjoy the workmanship of this amazing rebuild.

Stag Bare-Metal Start

Stag Under Carage Shot

Finished Article

]]> http://www.motoring-news.co.uk/2010/07/05/bringing-a-stag-back-to-life/387/feed 1 http://www.motoring-news.co.uk/2010/06/30/porsche-intelligent-performance-hybrid/372 http://www.motoring-news.co.uk/2010/06/30/porsche-intelligent-performance-hybrid/372#comments Wed, 30 Jun 2010 10:05:07 +0000 admin http://www.motoring-news.co.uk/?p=372

That’s right, the title has ‘Porsche’ and ‘hybrid’ in it together. To be honest, Porsche have been playing around with the hybrid car idea for a while and have been looking to release a hybrid version of the Cayenne 4×4 to try and please those who want a massive Porsche but don’t want to feel like they are harming mother nature… Silly i know.

The Cayenne is not the focus for this post though. I wanted to write about another part of Porsche that is using the idea of adding an electric engine to a car to increase the performance instead of just replacing the petrol engine.

Porsche Intelligent Performance have taken a step back and looked at the whole hybrid car package from another angle. Instead of having the electric motor power the same wheels as the petrol engine and having it take over at low speeds they have decided to do something very different. The 911 GT3 R Hybrid was developed by Porsche Intelligent Performance to do one thing, Go Fast. The car sets about this by using a normal 911 GT3 engine, mounted in the normal place, powering the rear wheels but the car also includes an electric motor, mounted in the center of the car (for weight distribution) and powering the front wheels. The electric motor only comes in when a special button is pressed by the driver to give him that little extra power he/she needs to overtake or power out of a corner. When the electric motor is not being used it get recharged by the turning of the front wheels.

The car is fully focused on performance and racing, so you can forgive the fact that there is no saving of petrol to be found in the 911 GT3 R Hybrid. To test the new hybrid Porsche Intelligent Performance decided to throw the car in at the deep-end and enter it into the Nürburgring 24hr race. Known as one of the most demanding endurance races in the world the Porsche 911 GT3 hybrid ended up retiring after 22 hours and 15 minutes with engine damage after leading its class. Wolfgang Dürheimer, Board Member for Research and Development at Porsche AG, gives an outlook to the future: “The 911 GT3 R Hybrid has proven that highest performance and a unique efficiency don’t exclude each other. The vehicle shows the technological path to racing in the future.”.

I can see the idea behind the Porsche 911 GT3 hybrid catching on in the future. You could say that McLaren have already been using something similar in last seasons F1 car, but with mixed results. Anyway, here are a couple of videos of the 911 GT3 hybrid in action at the ring.

This week i have found a very nice example of a Series 1 106 Rallye for sale on a forum called retro rides. Retro rides is usually a great place to look for retro projects and older cars needing a bit of love, but this Rallye is far from a work in progress and looks as fresh as it did when it can out of the factory.

The S1 106 Rallye was originally built to  compete in international rallying in the 1400cc class. The car was then homologated into international group N and A rallying class meaning that Peugeot had to produce a certain number of the cars for road use to qualify. 1000 S1 Rallye’s were planned to be imported into the UK but the demand for the little hothatch meant that the number increased to meet demand.

The S1 106 Rallye has a 1.4 XSI engine that produces 100bhp, which is pretty good for a car that weighs 810kg (F1 cars weigh 600kg). The S1 Rallye also benefits from bigger anti-roll-bars for better handling and 247mm ventilated front discs for better braking.

The Pug 106 Rallye in question is a 1994 model with 134k on the clock. there has been some choice work been done on the car in that 134k including a head rebuild in 2010 at a 106 specialists, the fitting of a kent cam, 206 front brakes, lowered suspension and a re-undersealing of the whole car. The car has extensive service history and looks as good as it sounds. The price is £1700, which is pretty good from where i’m sitting.

Someone needs to snap this car up fast, as Peugeot’s of this quality are hard to find, let alone something as rare as an S1 Rallye.

Peugeot 106 rallye S1

Peugeot 106 rallye S1 quarter

Peugeot 106 rallye S1 rear