Potential Project Car - Should I?

ryanpetit

ryanpetit

ryanpetit

Associate
Joined
5 Mar 2010
Posts
392
Location
Brighton
Hi all,

I've been looking for a project car to keep in the garage and tinker on at weeks for a while now. A guy at work is selling his 2000 Tiger E1 with a 2.0 Pinto engine running twin webber carbs.

I'm thinking it could be great fun as a weekend car and should be easy to work on with my amateur mechanic type knowledge. I also think at the price it's been offered to me (£1500) I could sell it on easily if it wasn't being used.

Is this going to be a pain to get kit specific parts for? Also is it going to be a nightmare to move on if I decide I need my garage space back?





Cheers!
 
[TW]Fox;21481072 said:
He clearly knows something about this car which you don't and is counting on you being gullible in order to get shot of it.
Click to expand...

This has crossed my mind, and I am having a proper drive of it tomorrow to make sure everything tracks strait.

He is about to buy a new Nissan GTR and doesn't seem to bothered about selling it either which way so I am hoping he just wants rid.
 
Dogbreath said:
Unless there is something dodgy (e.g. it hasn't been registered correctly) then £1500 is an incredibly cheap for this car. It could have a completely blown up engine or a knackered gearbox and it would still be cheap.

In terms of 7-esque cars it's not the best (it uses the entire rear suspension for the Sierra donor which is both very heavy and has pretty awful geometry), but it will still be a lot of fun to drive.

Check the V5 and ensure it's registered as what it is (i.e. a Tiger E1) rather than a Ford Sierra, and if so get it bought.
Click to expand...

Just checked the V5 and it says Tiger E1. Had a quick drive of it at lunch, and it's great fun....easier to drive than I expected.

It is running a bit rich I think as it was spitting fuel from the carbs but should be easily sorted.

There is another person interested who may be given first dibs as they were interested first, I will find out this weekend. If they don't take it, it's mine. :cool:
 
It's now mine! :D

Driving it home from work tonight, it even came with 6 months tax with its 12 months MOT.

I'll start a project thread once I've got it home and started playing with it. :cool:
 
The drive home on the motorway was raw to say the least, turned off after 15 mins and went the windy B-road way.

What an experience. The noise, acceleration and grip are better than anything I have driven to date. It does have a bit of a stutter around 3-4k rpm which seemed to get worse, I'm thinking the carbs need tweaking or maybe a dodgy HT lead.

Other than that, chuffed to bits!
 
To be honest I haven't pushed it that hard in the bends yet until I've given it a good going over, but thanks for the heads up.

The guy at work I bought it from dropped off some doors, a roof and a rain cover for it today as well which is a bonus :cool:

I'll try and get a video of it running this weekend and see if I can can capture the weird stuttering.
 
It's home!



But not without issues, and I need some advice on carbs.

It's running twin Weber 40 DCOEs and it has a spluttering problem at around 3k RPM. It doesn't do it when it's cold and presumably the auto choke is on, but does when its up to temp.

The spark plugs are pretty rusty so I'm going to change them to make sure its not an ignition problem, but fear that would happen across the whole rev range.

The previous owner told me the carbs were tuned at the MOT last month, but I can't help but think something needs adjusting one them.

This is the first car I have owned with twin carbs so any advise you be appreciated:

 
Perywinkle said:
New plugs and getting the carbs balanced should sort you out.
It might be worth investing in a carb balencer as I found webers had a tendancy to go adrift after a while.
Dead easy to do after a bit of reading on how they adjust.
Get some filters too, before you suck something in the engine doesn't like.

If it's still a bit rough after that it might need a rejet asuming the engine is in good nick.
Click to expand...

Got some new pipercross filters on order :)

Thanks for the advice on the carb balancer, I'll look into how they work. Would I not need to get it rolling roaded after in any case?
 
Ste said:
Easy way to get a (very) rough idea on carb tuning is to stick a bit of flexible tubing down just into the inlet and listen to the pitch of the sound at the other end. The pitch will vary depending on the amount of air the carb is sucking in, it should be the same sound across all of the inlets.

Obviously to do anything more you want some proper measuring equipment (balancer) but it might give you a clue as to what's up for now. If you can get the carbs roughly right it may be worth investing in a proper tune up, usually £300-500 for full setup on a rolling road including full carb adjustment. Which thinking about it is a reasonable investment usually, but compared to the £1,500 you've spend on the car is a bit steep :D

Bargain :)
Click to expand...

Thanks, I'll give this a go tonight. If I have no joy trying to tune it myself I might as well get a specialist to do it so I know it's right.

Another job tonight is changing the plugs, fitting a new battery and removing some of the surface rust from the chrome work :)
 
Perywinkle said:
Heya mate.
Did you ever register for the southern kit car club?
We've got a run out his weekend staring at buck barn if you're interested.
Click to expand...

Hi mate,

Thanks for the offer, but I sold the car a couple of weeks ago. Did a fair bit of work to bring it up to scratch and then it sat there unused so had to let it go :(
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom