http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol ... 637535.ece


^^

Sources on Rover article all look good to me-but as I neither read the Times or watch a great deal of telly I'll bow to your superior knowledge

most(some) looks right to me too but just be carfull with it

You believe what you see in the media but refuse to believe a peer-edited encyclopaedia?

I personally don't trust either. I usually get my information from Wikipedia, then find trusted sources to back it up (it's much easier to find good sources when you know exactly what you're looking for)

hehehe well there you go what/who can you trust....

my dad has been using it and said lots of things he looked at were complete utter rubish inaccurate he is 60years old iam willing to believe him as he has owned most cars and been in automotive world race testing etc and he has all sorts of as some one once put it meaning less pieeces of paper called certificates o-levels and all sorts

My dad is a million times more intellegent than me add his experiance...

well you will probally say he is wrong too becouse he is a old fart
but he hasent lost his marbles yet and i am willing to believe him

Go ahead tell me what iam ment to believe/trust info wise

Yeah, anyone can edit Wikipedia, it is a great start to finding info, but you do have to delve deeper. I'm glad it hadn't taken off when I was doing my degree, soooo many people seem to be using it too much. However, all should bow to that which is unencyclopedia, which Steve_P showed me a month or two ago. Much more useful!

Wikipedia is fantastic! Yeah, you have got the problem with peer editing, so I'd be wearing on controversal subjects, or ones where facts are unclear. Also care needs to be taken with facts, particularly obscure ones.

For common subjects it's great, especially when you want to wast a bit of time. Read about something, and link to something related, and something else, and something else...

Ok, so I'm mostly pulling your collective legs...but perhaps I should explain why our car scene's love of the RV8 annoys me...

We seem to have a very conservative car scene, and which engines are deemed 'cool' is a perfect illustration of this. I was involved in the kit car world for a summer a couple of years ago. You could basically have a Ford Zetec, a Vauxhall XE, or maaaaybe a Rover K-series. (Chortle). If you were getting a bit crazy, you could have one of the Honda VTAK y0 engines, or a Toyota 4AGE or whatever their VTAK y0 motor was called. The bigger cars all had RV8s, or if you were really splashing out, SBCs. A great many awesome engines were being overlooked. Why so conservative? Better the devil you know, I suppose.

The reason this annoys me? Well...it's the reason so many great cars - our own included - have been totally overlooked by the UK car scene. "That's shit" (a 300), "You want to get rid of those Solexs and get Webers", and "you'll blow it up with nitrous" are typical of the sort of BS you'll hear from even quite knowledgable punters at pretty much any UK car show you attend.

Anyway...a little bird just told me the RV8 powered thing refused to work today...

cheers

James

I think you're right James - it's the better the devil you know attitude. And then that attitude get's adopted by others - 'look he's used a VTEC, we'll do the same' kinda thing and it snowballs from there.

I was having a similar dicussion with someone about this a while ago - the engine you listed are very very good (the Toyota 4AGE is a personal fav due to being so far ahead of it's time), but as you say so many engines are overlooked. For example the XE is a decent engine, but the Pug Mi16 is just has good, maybe better - it's was based on the legendary T16 rally engine and has some great attentions to detail (the exhaust on my BX is a work of art) and has more power than a standard XE but I dont think I've ever seen one used outside of a PSA car!

Unfortunately we're now at the point where there's off-the-shelf kits to bolt in the popular engines to many cars - why bother trying to put something else in there for roughly the same net result but with loads more work/money designing everything yourself.

The RV8 powered thing works fine (ish). but a break in at my Dad's garage meant that the work that was suppose to be done on it last week wasn't

When you take a look at the UK hot rod scene of years gone by there were two engines used for the rods - RV8 and the Jag V12. In more recent years everyone has stopped using them and all gone for a 5.7 SB chevy lump. Reason the RV8 is to small and not as well built as teh Chevy and the Jag lump is verfy heavy and a little rare.

In the customs the number one engine conversion was the Fiat twin cam (now a very rare engine) and the odd idiot would use the Ford pinto. The Pinto in a way was a good engine to use as there is a great list of off teh shelf tuning parts (these engines need all they can get).

With todays reto rides we have a lot of possible options of strong revvy engines to pick from. The problem with the 300 series is once you start going for very big power is how do you get the power to the rear wheels? With the gear box at the rear thing are complicated to upgrade so for many points of veiw putting very big power engines out of reach for most of us.

If all you want is quater mile action then a SB Chevy is the way to go. If you want to use the car on the road and use it to piss off teh maxipants brigade then stick with a 4 banger.

classicswede wrote:If you want to use the car on the road and use it to piss off teh maxipants brigade then stick with a 4 banger.

I like it....perhaps they should be christened Maxi-brats?

cheers

James

no i dont think 'maxi-brats' quite works. sounds a bit odd.

how about 'power rangers'?

A M R wrote:no i dont think 'maxi-brats' quite works. sounds a bit odd.

how about 'power rangers'?

You really sure about that?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfOACVCOJsM

Theres lots of reasons why people choose common engines. The reason Rover V8s, Ford Crossflows/Pintos and Fiat twin cams were used is the ease with which you could buy one. You could (and still can if you're lucky) get a complete SD1 V8 for around £100. You then get to test drive it to make sure the engine is OK, and get some spares to sell on afterwards. Its the same with Crossflow/Pintos there was an astronomical number of them in scrapyards, and everybody knows that Fiat twin cams were great but the car they were in rusted away so there were loads of them in scrapyards too. Vauxhall XE's are dead easy to find too.

Theres also the amount of 2nd hand tuning parts available for them all, plus the ease of installation. With a Rover V8 you need to run a fuel line to the carbs, wire up the coil and starter motor and away you go.

Matt

Same reason why some prefer still carbs