The Banana

Well I've had this a week now and its downright awesome. By far the most fun I've had with a car so far. It only took me a week before swapping the wheels over from the GTR but I think its worth it. A bit of hammer time later and 18x10j et18's with a 15mm spacer now fit.

Holy resurrection

I've neglected this blog for too long. I should post some more really, does anyone read this anymore? Ah well here's a mini update just in case.

Its been ten months, yes ten whole months since the last post and in that time I've pulled my tired old 1989 BMW E30 318i Touring apart and its now almost back together. Now me being me couldn't just rush putting it back together quickly to get my quick fix of drifting fun, no no no... I have to get overly familiar with the car and how its put together and then put it back together slightly differently with more modifications. Its an affliction I have, Bon Bon calls it "brainaids", I call it car related o.c.d. Whatever it is it haunts me in my sleep.

So yeah, its been overhauled. Here's some pics and shizzle.

It all started off with some "minor" wheel arch persuasion

The rears got persuaded a bit more.. shouldn't have gone this far really

One thing led to another and an E34 535i lump landed on my doorstep

Then I made some coilovers

And pulled the whole loom out

The car obviously needed an extinguisher and battery box so plates were made for them

It got tarted up a bit

It got rewired completely

It got a bit angry looking

So I lowered it to make it happy again

The cleaned up and tidied up engine went back in finally with a new engine loom

Its now waiting for a few finishing jobs and waiting for its refurbished rear end to come back from sandblasting. It still needs its polycarbonate windows fitting and a lick of paint. Keep watching.

Autosport International 2008

The Autosport International Show is without doubt the best motorsport orientated show in Europe. Its packed full of newly released cars, new parts, concepts and a massive array of memorobilia stands. This year it was bigger than ever with the introduction of the Pistonheads show which showcased some more performance car orientated products and machines rather than pure motorsport parts.

If you're into your motorsport or are busy preparing your track weapon then this show is definitely not to be missed.

Axle progress

The rear axle I'm using for this build has come from a rally spec Ford Escort Mk2 and so has a lot of stregthening and various bracketry and bits that I don't need for the kitcar so it all has to be modified or cut off to make room for the trailing arm boxes. I've been grinding and cutting on the rear axle casing for two whole nights now and I've cleaned up one end completely to the point where I can test position the trailing arm boxes. There's not much to show for two nights progress but at least it looks rather shiny!

Here's what the original setup was (left side of the axle)

and here's the cleaned up right side of the axle with the trailing arm box just taped roughly in position for the photo.

Chop shop continues...

Some more progress then. I've got all my nuts and bolts together so that I can mock the rear suspension up and as I thought I was going to run into problems with the trailing arms hitting the top of the Tiger chassis on upward strokes so there was nothing else for it but to completely chop off the rear section of the chassis to make way for a completely new tail end. This should be entertaining...

Shortly after chopping through the tubes:


After cleaning up the remaining bits, its now ready for new sections to be added:

Tiger Cat E1 progress

The Tiger is finally beginning to take shape. I've managed to get 90% of the front suspension together for mock up purposes now, all that remains is the top ball joint. I need to find out what ball joint is used for the Cat E1 front rocker arms before I can set about finishing and tidying up the ball joint cups fixed in the Sierra hub carriers.



I've had a bit of a garage clear out too to make some more room to work in so I've ended up throwing most of the body panels on the car to see how it looks... its getting there... slowly.

taff*tune hoodie

Well here's the first taff*tune hoodie to materialise. The quality seems great and they've turned out better than anticipated.

If you're interested in getting one yourself, get in touch with me here