SHES BACK!!!!!

[jonmantagte]

hello there all im after some ideas,

i have just dusted off my 86 manta gte coupe and im getting her all welded up for her mot. So me and the misses can take her to the home land to see the xmas markets.

I have promised her that if she gets me there and back in one piece i will rebuild her engine when i get home. Now that im having her welded up and there is a bit more rust and now clean new welded plate then i like to see on her so thinking about complete strip down and to rip off anything slighty rusty and replace it all. So i have a few questions really,

1 Where is a good place to get new panels from ie dr manta, any where over here?

2 What could i do, in the way off giving her a bit more power? Different power plants and so on (i was toying with the idea of putting a calibra 4 by 4 set up on her but seems a lot off buggering about, Has this been done before?

3 If this was your car what would you do money no object within reason that is (im not a millionaire)

Any ideas would be very helpfull i still want to be able to use the car for road use and some track days aswell

look forward to your replys thanks jon

Today i finally got her back from the bodyshop now minus the big rust holes

but once again she is trying to set herself on fire i thought i had sorted this out by renewing all the injector pipes and fuel hoses. I get the feeling she is going to be a fussy one. Managed to park her in the lock up without her setting on fire which is always a good thing really after spending £350 getting her welded up plus the other £350 worth off stuff i have treated her to thats still waiting to get put on (some volvo 4 pots 2x new wings and quad headlights) i'm sure when its all on we will be talking again. i still have to get 2 new tyres and waiting on the headlights to get her through an mot i will put some pics up soon when i know how and when i take some

still would like to hear about engine swaps for when i come back from germany when she will be getting a compleate strip down rebuild and repaint

thanks jon

[Rick-Manta]

Calibra 4x4!? If you're on about the running gear then buggering about just isn't the word, it'd be an absolute nightmare. The calibra 4 wheel drive is set from a front wheel drive system (ie when you're in 2wd it drives the front not the back as is more common) in a manta you'll be looking at a complete homogulation (spelt right ). There are a number of engine options, it's dependant on how much you'd be looking to spend and how soon you'd want to have the car finished. By the sounds of things, because you're doing an out of storage mini-resto and I guess want to use the car regulary, then the 2.0CIH could be improved slighty or a 2.4 frontera engine would be an easy conversion. For track day use then to really have some fun you'd probably want the most common conversion which is the C20XE red top, this would cost you a bit more since you need to source sought after manta 1.8 items to fit an ohc engine to yours. As well as more power and the pickup of a 16v twin cam you'd also lose the weighty front end handling and have a more balanced car like the manta 1.8s, much more control.

With a cam swap, some head work, a decent exhaust system with four branch, K&N filter and use all top quality fluids and service parts. You should be able to get about 135bhp with the standard injection on your 2.0, I personally wouldn't bother with the cam change if you're planning on using it a lot on the road.