Advice required.... potential project

Fine people of RTOC, I find myself in a dilemma.

I sold my old Raider in 2007 to a mate who ran it for a while before taking it off the road to do some stuff to.. It's been sat there ever since.

While it was off the road he had all the kit off, it's been painted (again) from bare shell and is now a rolling chassis with engine out etc. It has had a pair of wings, no rot on it, although it may have been welded in the past. Usual areas are good. Could do with a pair of Jacking points and needs undersealing.

He has accumulated a lot of spare parts including engine, box, dash, doors etc..etc..

Anyway, he is never going to put it back together and has offered it to me, along with all the bits he has bought and accumulated among which are:

Everything from the car before it was removed, minus some bits & pieces but mainly
Complete engine from car, as it was when removed, gearbox, etc.

But he has amassed a large selection of nice goodies and a spare split engine ready for a build:
Split engine ready for
Wossner Pistons
Steel Liners
K Tec stage 3 head
K TecGrille mount I/C
Grp A Carb
Piper 285 Cam & Pulley
etc.

My reckoning is I will need to build the engine the following parts:

Bottom End Gasket Set
Head Gasket Set (Uprated)
Head Bolts
Studs
Nuts
Big End Bearings
Mains
Thrust Washers
Water Pump
Oil Pump
Alloy Rad
Timing Chain
Tensioner
H/O Starter
Plugs
Leads
Dis/Cap
Full Set of Silicone Hoses
Turbo T2/T25
Tubular Manifold
1 Piece Downpipe
Clutch & Cable
Refurb Gearbox

So a rough guesstimate of about £3k in engine parts for potentially something quite special?

Plus I would have to rebuild it from pretty much scratch. It needs a pair of front seats, black carpet and probably various trims, clips, nuts, bolts, washers, etc...

There are some pics of the car on my profile when I had it. It had some nice stuff done to it.

His dad has offered to build the engine for me :cool:
I believe he is more than competent at this, so no worries there really. There is also a local race specialist with a dyno cell (engine cell) who can offer a lot of advice on various things.

The problem is when I bought it around 2006 for about £1500 I never bothered hpi checking it and it has since turned out it is on the register from 1992. It's a '90 G plate.

So potentially it could be an awesome car, as said the shell is completely bare at the moment and it's way too good to scrap. :crap:

There is over £2.5k's worth of new bits let alone the complete car that is now a jigsaw puzzle plus the boxes and boxes of spares

I really like the idea of it but I feel the project may be too big for me and could spiral out of control and more importantly budget :crap:

Thought, idea's & suggestions welcome please :)

Or if anyone wants to come put it together for me I can supply lots of tea and biccies :coffee::laugh:

Nothing better than restoring a car that has a special relationship to you ;)

I really think you should snatch his hand off you have over estimatrd how much for the engine parts i would forget the tubuler manifold it will only crack i have all my recipts here as i have just done what you want to do mate if the shell is stripped then your less likely to find any nasty surprises and 2k with all them bits with it if you dont have it i would lol and if you need any advise i could probley help over the phone as your a long way from me but as i say i have just got to put interior back in mine and refitt kit :agree:

I think most people on here would buy their first 5 back if they had the chance mate. You could buy a running lump and box off a member or Mike or CGB to get it running as rebuild the original one to your spec. Go for it :agree:

Cheers for the replies fellas,

Yup, it's great I can see it completely bare. There is a brand new screen & bonnet also.

I could bung the running lump & box in and use the donor engine for the big build & refurb the donor box if needed, but really I only want to do the job once.

My plan was to do the engine build, refurb the box and mount to the subframe (which he has seam welded, polybushed and podercoated) and drop the car onto the subframe complete

I'm trying to budget worst case scenario really.

So stock manifold but get it gas flowed?

On the face of it, it seems like a great project, then I think.... Where do I start!! lol

Yea flow it and keep the gt turbo burbule lol just do one area at a time and a bonnet windscreen subframe its all good mate go for it you will regrett it else the help you will get on here will practicly build car for you :laugh:

Ok going to go down again later for another look.

But it's looking likely I will take it back on.

So with forged pistons, 285 cam, hybrid turbo I guess 200bhp?

Coupled with oem looks and a few subtle cosmetic mods it might make a nice 5 again :eek:

Depending on turbo and fueling yes very easy alot of people dont have forged pistons like i say i think its a great buy

Id buy it, sell the forged pistons/steel liners and that make some money back;)

Just use standard stuff with the piper 285 it will be just as good.

I generally find that projects always end up at least 35% or so above budget, maybe that's just me but i find it very easy to spiral out of control and i end up buying things that i could really do without but just can't resist. From what you have listed everything seems to be in order and once complete will be a decent motor.

One thing you must not underestimate is the amount of time and effort required to do a proper job, this i feel is where most projects fall by the way side. So you need to ask yourself what it is you really want, months in the garage or months on the road enjoying it, if the second one is what you want more then i would hold out for one complete.:agree:

That's some sound advice Phil, thank you :agree:

It seems to be all the little bits I know I will end up replacing. The £7's here and the £10's there and the 'while the engine is out - let's replace' type things.

Samco hoses for example £700 odd quid? Or am I looking in the wrong place :confused:

Lot's to consider but main thing is shell is solid, lots of nice extras. It would be a shame not to use all the stuff he's bought. He said a couple trips to Ktec and each invoice (parts only) was over £1k.

Oh forgot there is also a Mocal 10 row oil cooler kit with braided lines, GT Tuning half cage, brand new heatshield kit, K Tec strut brace etc etc

I'm sure you can get samco's cheaper, gtmatt off here works all over the world and he got some from China i think they were samco's not sure if they were the genuine article or not but they certainly looked exactly the same and I'm sure he paid half of the above at the most, so they can be had cheaper than that.

Personally with a list of parts like that and some of the work that's been done for 2k it's a steal;)

That's my felling really. It's almost a no brainer!

Even to bung the standard engine and turbo back in and build it back up and flog the bits...

I wouldn't do that though, I'd want to see it through as the project he intended really :agree:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Brigsy

Id buy it, sell the forged pistons/steel liners and that make some money back;)

Just use standard stuff with the piper 285 it will be just as good.

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Agree with Brigsy here :agree:
I'd also sell the grp A carb on and use a standard venturi'd one instead

Sounds like a good project, its rare to come across a rot free shell now-a-days

One thing you must not underestimate is the amount of time and effort required to do a proper job, this i feel is where most projects fall by the way side. So you need to ask yourself what it is you really want, months in the garage or months on the road enjoying it, if the second one is what you want more then i would hold out for one complete.:agree::agree: TOP ADVICE!!!!!!!!

From what you have described that is pretty much a full restore and as above its a massive amount of work what you think will take a couple of hours will take days etc.etc. I've just done one and half way through another and the time I've had to spend is just silly on them,

If you after the thrill of a five buy one complete with a little work needed that you can use, or by this one but don't expect to be driving it this year unless you have a LOT of time on your hands. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED lol:). But good luck whatever you decide

If you got the money and some where to put it etc, buy it! Your always be thinking its the one that got away if you don't.

But on the other side of things, there are some valid points made above about build time scale etc. Never the less, if ya got the space, money, do it!

If it turns out to be to big of a job for you after a few months?, your easily get what you paid back plus more moving on the project to willing members on here and at the very least you can say you tried.

You never know, you might surprise your self on the build and nothing beats the feeling once near the end when you take it for that first run and it pastes MOT knowing it was all you. :cool:

Definitely some good points mentioned...

I guess I could wait a long time to find the 'right car'.....
Or build it

But it's a mammoth task, will cost more, arguably, and end result will be still be on the hpi from '92
Shell is solid, no rot, straight. Lots of spares. £2k in new engine parts and the offer of his dad building me an engine
But I know it will go over budget, I know it will stress me out but I also know when done I will know it inside out and I will probably keep it long term.

I have the space. I have a double garage and driveway. I work for a massive motor factor so I can probably get a lot of 'normal' parts cheap

Trouble is I lack the mechanical knowledge and skill and I didn't take it apart :crap:

Well worth it when you have out your car together yourself from a shell but small bits do add up a lot especially if going back to fully OE but its making sure the more difficult parts to get hold of are already there as finding decent raider seats will cost a fortune and you will soon go out if budget quickly unless you have a lot of time searching for parts.

What company you work for?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Bigfoot

Well worth it when you have out your car together yourself from a shell but small bits do add up a lot especially if going back to fully OE but its making sure the more difficult parts to get hold of are already there as finding decent raider seats will cost a fortune and you will soon go out if budget quickly unless you have a lot of time searching for parts.

What company you work for?

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Unfortunately there are no front seats :( Rear's are there along with an uncut parcel shelf :agree:
That's my worry, it's all the small things that get out of control!!

I work for Mill Autoquip fella :cool:

I know Mike on here has front seats but not sure what he would want for them. Ahh the competition from down there then :). I'm in oakhampton beginning of this week.

I got some replica raider badges made up, a lot better than the copies on eBay. Plus somebody did do the rear window as well if it don't have it. Front grill is another expense if its not there

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Bigfoot

I know Mike on here has front seats but not sure what he would want for them. Ahh the competition from down there then :). I'm in oakhampton beginning of this week.

I got some replica raider badges made up, a lot better than the copies on eBay. Plus somebody did do the rear window as well if it don't have it. Front grill is another expense if its not there

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Comes with the open grille I orginally modified plus an oe grille (possibly de badged)
It would need the raider badges and some oe stickers ;)
Mint tailgate with the raider screen in too. It's all there really, just a big jigsaw puzzle !!

MPD then?! Okehampton is not far from me, wanna pop in & build me a car lol :laugh::laugh:

6 hour journey :laugh: yeah why not least most parts are there to start off with an don't need to find / collect them as you go along.

Yeah I work in the head office.

I sell/support/train diagnostic kit for Mill.

I heard a rumour you guys were looking for someone to do that for the S.W !!

I'm about half hour to Oke, I'm based in Exeter so an hour each way for me.

Shouldn't take us long to get it up & running ;)

My manager looks after garage equipment as well and more than likely will be wanting somebody in area but not sure what's fully happening with that side as main thing is to get all up and working to work along with the other branches which is reason why I am down there.

I wouldn't even worry about it not having a clean hpi...these cars are old now. As long as the shell is straight and no rust it will be far better than a clean hpi rotten shell.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Brigsy

I wouldn't even worry about it not having a clean hpi...these cars are old now. As long as the shell is straight and no rust it will be far better than a clean hpi rotten shell.

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Cheers fella, that was my gut feeling to be honest.

Everything will be documented properly :cool:

im breakin a raider ;)

Saw that mate, I've started a project thread now.

Might be in touch in the coming weeks to see what you have :cool: