Rite, feel free to slate away. I dont own a polo Yep, you heard that right i DO NOT own a polo, nor have i ever owned a polo. Now you'll all be thinking "why the hell has this muppet signed up then?" hopefully this will make you read my project.

I was told to sign up and post pictures of my car by a certain someone, you might be able to hazard a guess when you see what my car is.

So anyway, I'm Pie, I'm 22 and I'm from Worcester, so if any 'Worcstonians' are about and see me, flash your headlights, toot that horn and give us a thumbs up.

The story of this project began when I sold my 1293 (85bhp at wheels) mini in August and "moved up" in the world of car ownership and became the owner of a 1988 Metro Turbo. I bought it from Ross a guy on retro-rides and slowly made the 200 mile journey home, with both the metro and my mate Oli's green mini overheating.

Oli's mini was the bigger casualty that day, splitting the radiator on the journey up to Grimsby. Not to worry, we just kept topping up the rads and made sure the temperature gauge didn't move onto the red.

Here are some pics;

How it looked Originally;

How it looked when i bought it;

The following day i took the metro for a trip over to Olis so we could flush the rad through to try and sort the overheating problem. Whilst flushing the system through with the engine running we spotted the problem. The pipe going from the head to the radiator had a small split/hole in it. We took it off and plugged it with weld, along with a good flush, the problem was sorted.

Whilst Oli was busy moving the switch for the fuel pump to a new top secret location, i took the time to remove the seats and give the car a good hoover. Only to find the heater matrix was leaking. Bubbles galore in the passenger footwell, another job for another day.

We then turned out attention to the engine bay. After noticing a small amount of white powder on the block, which looked like it was from the head, we decided the head needed to come off for inspection. I wasn't going to chance it with the trip to the ring in less than a week.

It wasn't the best news, especially as all the money i had was going to germany with me. So after handing over £120 the head was skimmed, the valve seats had been recut and a new set of valve guides.

The Nurburgring trip.

Well apparently, some cars name themselves and due to the fact i hadn't given a name to the metro, it picked Dover to choose its own! :(

It had made the trip from Worcester to Dartford without skipping a beat, getting 200+ mpg with an average speed of 70 ish lol.

All 50 retro cars met at Brands Hatch at 7am, had their run packs dished out, applied stickers, put on new tshirts, and took millions of photos. We then set of for Dover to catch the ferry at 10:30.

As we came out of the Massive tunnel going through a hill (how cool is that!! every year it amazes me without fail) the metro found itself a name! It was to be known as "Smokey".

Smoke poured from the bonnet vents, and through the passenger side of the dash!! My passenger, Rich (dressed as Scooby Doo) found this really worrying! I just told him to open the window. We pulled into the garage next to the port, and i opened the bonnet to inspect what was going on. There was oil all over the rocker cover and some had gone onto the manifold. I wiped the majority off, filled the tank with fuel, and set off. After getting into the lane for the ferry, bonnet was up again;

Again the oil from the leaky rocker cap was wiped off the cover, and a good coating of bodge tape was applied to said leaky cap.

After smoking out the lower deck on the ferry, and making it off the other side, we pulled up into a lay by. Well it wasnt REALLY a lay by, just a bit of grass next to the road that RCC and the cornish took over, with a few other additions. Again up went the bonnet of the 'tro and out came the compression tester. The results showed what can only be described as "Sh*t". Results were something like 10-12-6-8, conclusion; Rings are fecked.

So the options were;

1) Ring up and get a hire car resulting in a fail

2) Carry on to belgium, leave car at hotel and pick it up on way home.

3) Take the car all the way to the ring. Then possibly get pistons with rings ordered to campsite, fit them and take it easy home.

4) Be a man, drive it to germany and back home

Option 1 was out the window as soon as it entered my head. I was not going to be the first non-cornish casualty. So i would soldier on to belgium, see what it behaved like and decide that night.

The journey to the hotel was, surprisingly ok. Windows down, music up, topping up with oil (for the car) and fags (for myself - loving the 3euros for 20 european cigarets) and all went well. That night thought about the options for the tro, and i couldn't bring myself to come half way and leave the car in the car park in belgium, defeat was not a word i knew!

So onwards we would battle.

The following morning, oil levels were checked and all seemed well. The car wasnt loosing oil!

So on we went, with the car smoking and everyone smiling and having a good time. Moving from the terrible roads of Belgium, the smooth twisty mountainous roads of Germany, i knew we were close and so did the metro. Uphill it smoked REALLY bad, other than that it just smoked bad.

FINALLY i saw the ring, we turned left and i knew it was less than 1 minute away. After signing my name and getting my wristband i made my way to the campsite, i was met with a small cheer as i entered the campsite. The majority of people were surprised the mighty "Smokey Tro" had made it.

It also made it all the way home too, speeding past the RCC lot just after Leeds castle after i had to change my NSF wheel after coming off the ferry. As i came up the ramp the tyre must have popped. I didnt hear or feel anything, until i was up the ramp and off the boat, the car was pulling to the left really badly, as we reached customs i was informed by a passer by that i had a flat tyre!! So with 3 people lifting the car, i managed to get the jack underneath, wheel off and spare on, lucky i had put that in the day before we'd left!!

Since then, the metro has pretty much sat outside my house waiting for me to get a minute so i can get the engine out and stripped.

Tonight though i had some news, a mate of mine said another mate of mine had a 1275 Turbo engine and he'd as how much he wanted for it. So Tommo rang me tonight, he has a Metro Turbo block, pistons and rods in good condition that he wants to sell. so ill be hoping to go see if they are good this weekend. Then ill put it back to standard 1275 Turbo, sell the 1330 parts i have left, and start saving for a better engine.

Recently been looking into a different engine. Firstly was looking into putting the k-series into the metro, although the later metro suspension and brake setup is needed, which means if i DO ever sell the metro i wont be able to put it back to standard as easy as the second option. My second option, would see a costly visit to Specialist Components. I am looking into the K1100 16v option at the moment. The k1100 head, be it 8v or 16v, can fit onto the a-series block with slight modifications. SC currently have a 1380 with K1100 16v head, this produces 150bhp at the wheels. They reckon with a turbo strapped onto it you should see the 200 mark. But thats a long way off, as i said it costs a hell of a lot, but would mean if i sold the metro i could easily put the standard 1275 Turbo engine back in as it keeps the same subframe breaks suspension etc etc

So the first jobs are to get the metro back on the road, insurance and tax run out end of this month so might declare it SORN until its ready for the road. I will also drain all the fluid from the hydrospastic suspension, and fill them back up, then cut the struts, which is the correct way to lower the car. I might also look into some up-rated shockers, and other little parts, but main thing now is just to get it back on the road.

Ok so heres some pics;

So maybe you now know who to blame for my project thread on here

Anyway, feel free to slate it or praise it. Either way, I'm just glad you looked at the thread.

pie

bloody good read dude, glad you joined up

sweet man, epic little mission there to the ring and back!

did you chance taking it on a trip round the ring or not?

Not this year dude. I wasn't going to risk taking it on the track, if i dropped oil or anything and caused an accident, not only would i have a guilty conscience of knowing the car shouldn't be on the ring. But i would also have a HUGE bill on my hands. The charge for closure of the ring, and when you think they have 3 barriers open and each lap is 21 euros, lets say the barriers let 1 car through every 15 seconds;

so 4 cars a minute = 4(cars) x 21 euros= 84 euros.

84 euros x 3 (barriers) = 252 Euros.

Lets say it would close the ring for at least 15 minutes; 252 x 15 = 3780

And thats JUST to shut the ring off. You then have to pay for the crew to mop up any spillage's, and if the accident you caused damaged the armco, then the person who had the accident will not only be claiming for their brand new Porsche 911 GT3 but the pieces of armco too (200 euros a piece if i remember correctly)

So no i didn't go on this year lol Last year i took my blue mini round, and the year before i went round a few times in my 998 mini.

This year i went round as a passenger in a blokes mx-5. Now before you slate the mx-5, i USED to slate them, but after this, no way will iEVER slate them again. This lap was AMAZING, i have never drifted the third section of the ring before, but this guy (Al clark of Fast classics and Trackday films) did, and it was awesome.

The metro WILL be going next year, there's a trailer for the dvd we did this year on the site; www.bh2nRetro.com

some awesome cars there, and even a polo!! we took 50 retro cars and a polo and TVR over there and met another mini owner and a camper (that went round the ring). Definitely worth a look, and maybe some of you lot will join us next year.

pie

i may well go next year dude

want to race :p

EDIT: how are you finding tyres or how were u finding them with front camber like that, mines lower so I'm guessing worse i can see its going to KILL the tyres

Edited 10 October, 200817 yr by POLOMON

Tyres are fine, I'm running Potenza's but ill probably go with yokos as i still get mega discount from minispares.

tHAT LOOKS AWESOMEEEEEE :p

think i saw this up near hosham once

Edited 29 May, 200917 yr by PortsmouthBMX

This year i went round as a passenger in a blokes mx-5. Now before you slate the mx-5, i USED to slate them, but after this, no way will iEVER slate them again. This lap was AMAZING, i have never drifted the third section of the ring before, but this guy (Al clark of Fast classics and Trackday films) did, and it was awesome.

Yep, one lap of the Ring with Al and you'll be desperate to own an MX-5.

You don't see these that often. Nice to see some are still about... well at least one