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I blame BiAS! Ever since he built his Superleggera Cinquecento which most of the Area 52 guys have now driven/been passeger in, there has been much talk and a growing yearning for more lightweight stripped out cars from the A52 guys. Myself included. It's a proper hoot...having owned three Cinquecento Sporting's myself and loved them all, driving Ian's one has brought home what an absolute blast it is to have something light and fun made lighter and even more fun. You can see his build thread here: retrorides.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=readersrides&thread=101478&page=1So I got thinking about what cars would be good for a budget 'group build' - something for the playweekends, something for everyone to really have some fun with.... Ian has already done a Cinquecento, so they were ruled out straight away. Peugeot 205's and 106's seem to be popular, so do Saxo's, AX's, Fiesta's etc....but I wanted something you don't really see many people use. Then I stumbled on a for sale ad in the budget section and that was it, the £100 Ford Ka was bought from ZetecVan (thanks Dude ;D ) and the project had begun. Here are the photos from the for sale ad:         A call was made to Matt (StealthStylz) who offered to collect the car for me, store it at his place for a few weeks then bring it down to Area 52 on the next play weekend. LEGEND! On the day he was due to collect it, Mike (ZetecVan) offered to have it trailered to Matt's for £10...too good to turn down. Thanks Mike! ;D A short while after I got a text from Matt to say that the car was sat on his drive...the project was suddenly a reality. Happy days. |
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I have a weird appreciation for KA's when they're on a track. Especially when they have the capability to actually look quite mean. Look forward to seeing this evolve  |
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All I need to do is get the insurance sorted for Matt to drive it to Bristol straight to an MOT at a garage near Area 52. Job done! I knew the Ka was going to need some welding, it had been made very clear in the advert and I was well aware of how Ka's like to dissolve, so when Matt sent me some pics I wasn't at all surpised...in fact, the rust wasn't as bad as I had been expecting. Here is a copy of the PM Matt sent me: So there we have it....a £100 base vehicle in need of some welding and some serious weight saving measures to start making a fun car. The basic plan is to get it to the unit where it will be stored until after the Gathering - then we'll be getting stuck in the first Playweekend in September (2yr anniversary of the playweekends!) Once we start work, the car will be stripped to a completely bare shell where we can then get to work on the welding. Rich is going to get some new sills in for me at trade price (Thanks Dude  ) and I want people to use this as a 'learning car' so most welding repairs will be done by people who aren't confident or have no experience of welding. You can't beat practice for learning. All under the watchful eye of Area 52 resident experts like BiAS, Grunty, B8D etc... While the welding is being done, the subframes and running gear can be cleaned up and painted - I want this to be a really nicely finished car. Anything worn out will be fixed or replaced. This won't be an 'all expense' build, but rather a demonstration that a nicely made, fun car can be built without costing the earth. Resourcefulness will play a key in keeping the costs down....saving money won't mean cutting corners. Think back to the Teenage Dirtbag....most people have commented on the quality and extent of the build, yet it cost me less then £1,000 including the car, the expensive wheels, hard top, respary...all the things that would easily have meant a budget nearly four times the amount. I want to apply the same principles to this car. To make it really great but ideally for under £1,000 (there, I've set myself the target now!) |
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jrko
Part of things
Posts: 23
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there are a few of these rattling round with zetecs in em.......you could pick up a mundano for next to nowt
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craig1010cc
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 2,993
Club RR Member Number: 35
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I'm liking this alot (as I have a big soft spot for Ka's), if you need the loan of a haynes, just ask as I've got one for the wifes Ka. They can't half rust though, just goes to back up my argument that they are the real new mini  Have a look here for interesting parts www.trackdesigns.co.uk/ford-ka-parts.htmOh, and a coat of PRU blue would work well on it |
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As part of the build, the car will be getting a complete respray inside and out (colour not being disclosed yet ) as well as re-worked suspension, better wheels/tyres, a cage, bucket seats, harnesses etc.... Once it's stripped to a shell, the work will be carried out on the welding as well as doing some shell strengthening in the form of stitch welding the shell (3/4 on 3/4 off) then making our own cage. We won't be entering any FIA type things or 'official' events other than track days, so a self built cage will save us a lot of money ;D As for a slight improvement in power - the Ka's Endura engine will probably work a lot better with a lot of the weight removed from the car, and the handling set up to allow it to make the most of the momentum (i.e. once up to speed, not having to slow for corners) but then the other day I found myself buying this:    Oh yes....1.7 16V engine donor which with 123bhp is more than double the Ka's original ranch of horses.  I am collecting the Puma on the way back from the Retro Show tomorrow and the powerplant, gearbox and loom ( complete loom) will be coming out next week. The idea is to use the entire loom from the Puma and transplant it into the Ka so that there are no awkward splices and joins from one loom to the other. The most popular conversion is for the Zetec from a Focus or Mondeo, but they are a fair bit heavier whereas the Puma engine is supposedly pretty much the same weight as the Ka lump. A 2.0 Zetec might be slightly more powerful, but at the expense of weight. As we all know, extra weight over the front wheels isn't ideal for handling, so the Puma engine was the obvious choice. It's not always about the most power, but the appropriate amount of power. More news to come when the Puma is back in Bristol ;D |
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Awesome, glad it's going to be a A52 special |
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Mark
Posted a lot
Posts: 3,818
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Should be a cracker! I'm quite partial to the old ''add lightness'' ethos myself as my E21 only weighs in at 980kg or so. Now it's got over 200 brake it should be quite nippy. Your Ka should be great on the brakes and thru the bendy stuff. So will it be a Pu-Ka?
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BMW 320d (fridge on wheels)
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Potter
Part of things
'E who dares wins,eh Rodders??!
Posts: 304
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Gonna be awesome!!
Keeping an eye on this one for sure!
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More cars than sense or money!🙄
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hamps
Posted a lot
www.medwayrscentre.co.uk
Posts: 2,077
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cool do a cambelt on the puma lump before fitting! them engines are very unforgiving! |
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Colonelk
Posted a lot
Posts: 3,740
Club RR Member Number: 83
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bagsy a go at some bodywork welding :-D need practice with that! And the cage building!
One other thing, call me mad, call me boring, but wouldnt it be a lot easier to make the (much more solid looking) Puma into a track car? haha! Yes I know, no awesomes engine swap or anything but arent they supposed to be great handlers from the off? Plus I don't think Ive ever seen one "done" well.
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craig1010cc
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 2,993
Club RR Member Number: 35
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Awesome, glad it's going to be a A52 special Thanks Dude, The most important thing is that it'll be fun and lots of people involved. 'Project X' was very much the same - a group build for anyone/everyone to get involved in and it was a lot of fun. 'X' was kept secret throughout the build right up to the unveiling at the Gathering so there was no build thread which meant no one ever got to see the level of work involved in building it. At the Gathering, everyone saw a fun little car, but only those that were at the Playweekend and all the long evenings leading up to the Gathering will ever know the amount or effort that went into making it all work. Only the other day Ben & I were discussing how easy it was to forget the sheer hours and hours that were spent by many people getting it together. This is why I wanted to do this build as a running project from the outset so that the rest of you can see the work that will have gone into what will actually look just, to the rest of the unsuspecting world, just a stripped out track slag. I hope you enjoy the build. The idea of this thread is that it won't just be written by me, everyone involved will hopefully put up their own involvement, photos and thoughts about its progress. It's a group build after all, so fingers crossed this'll be a group build thread ;D Should be a cracker! I'm quite partial to the old ''add lightness'' ethos myself as my E21 only weighs in at 980kg or so. Now it's got over 200 brake it should be quite nippy. Your Ka should be great on the brakes and thru the bendy stuff. So will it be a Pu-Ka? Colin Chapman's words are something I really want to drum into everyone involved on the build, "Less is more". I don't have a target weight, but the Ka will be weighed as soon as I get it, then again at the end of the project just to see what we have 'added' (as you say) in terms of lightness. Fingers crossed it'll be worth it? As for the name - PuKa is certainly up there along with TracKa but I'm open to suggestions Gonna be awesome!! Keeping an eye on this one for sure! Thanks Dude, I hope we don't disappoint you? Fingers crossed we won't? do a cambelt on the puma lump before fitting! them engines are very unforgiving! As said above, it's not going to be just a case of shove an engine into another car....everything will be gone through properly and built carefully. It's going to have a lot of love and detail going into it...if you've read my Dirtbag build thread you'll know what I mean? If you'd have seen my old Delica you'd know what I mean ;D |
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craig1010cc
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 2,993
Club RR Member Number: 35
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Dam you Bruce, you've had me searching for Ka's for the last 2 hrs and now I'm wondering how I can gain ownership of the wife Ka Project X was great fun, so many people working on it at different times, was a good feeling to be part of it |
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Ian
Part of things
Posts: 977
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plans sound like fun, I wish I lived further south!
Mind you I really like Pumas so would be tempted to make that as light as possible instead.
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bagsy a go at some bodywork welding :-D need practice with that! And the cage building! Sure thing Dude. It's about getting involved (as you should know from 'Project X' and I want people to start working in areas that are outside their usual comfort zones. There would be little point having Ian & Alan doing all the welding, James doing the wiring, Rich making the exhaust etc....that would just be too obvious and easy. I want people to learn from this to give them the confidence to carry these things over onto their own cars. Sure, there will be some guideance from those with more expertise, but I am confident that we can build a very neat, very respectable car out of this whilst having learnt lots of new things along the way. One other thing, call me mad, call me boring, but wouldnt it be a lot easier to make the (much more solid looking) Puma into a track car? haha! Yes I know, no awesomes engine swap or anything but arent they supposed to be great handlers from the off? Plus I don't think Ive ever seen one "done" well. No, you are not mad...it is me that is mad for thinking of taking a good engine out of a good car and sticking it into a rusty Ka. But that wouldn't make for as much of a project, as much of a challenge and as much of a good build overall. The Ka is a very good handling car, I've even read a few places that some motoring jouralists rate the handling as better than the Puma's! (not stating that as an actual fact, more an observation of what I have read) The smaller, lighter Ka should be a brilliant track car and I would rather see the challenge of building that than just turning the Puma into a track car personally. A certain person on here is so excited about the PuKa track car that he's dying to build one himself! I am aware that the 1.7 Puma engine has been transplanted a number of times, but the majority (every example I've ever seen) have still maintained the comforts and things like the dash etc... As you will know, this will not be the case with the A52 version ;D Thanks Dude, I am pretty confident that it'll be do-able in house...the trickiest part is usually working out how to splice the two wiring harnesses together, but in this case there shouldn't be that issue due to using the complete Puma loom. I'll send the guy a message anyway and point him to this thread in case he wants to give some input/advice? The most common way to do the conversion is to do a hybrid and fit the Puma engine to the Ka gearbox and buy an 'off the shelf' mount (like the one you showed in your first link) which makes life a lot easier. Like the guy in the eBay advert, I want to use the Puma gearbox to maintain all the ratios, so will need to look into fabbing a new set of mounts all round. Might not be the 'easy' option, but it hopefully will be the more suitable option for a matching powerplant and drivetrain Maybe his input there could be useful? If not, I am very, very confident we can make it all work...it's only mounts afterall, which is only a case of fabrication. That we know how to do... |
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Colonelk
Posted a lot
Posts: 3,740
Club RR Member Number: 83
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Wasnt messing, was just a thought  |
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craig1010cc
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 2,993
Club RR Member Number: 35
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bryn
Posted a lot
Posts: 3,913
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Crikey Bruce, sounds like a plan. £1K should easily do that... ;D
I, like the Elk reckon you'd be better concentrating on the Puma. Dynamically they're great, you'll have a load of work anyway to get it trackable and it could also look amazing.
Trouble is, you'd be left with the KA. So I say cut the floor out of that, rusty anyway, bin the mechanical bits and build a spaceframe bike engined KA. Longer term, but smaller to store and maybe unique? Ka panels would lend themselves to replication in carbon or GRP, a whole new skillset could be learnt?
See you tomorrow ;D
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Volvo, Buggy, Discovery and an old tractor.
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[*]
[*]
) and I want people to use this as a 'learning car' so most welding repairs will be done by people who aren't confident or have no experience of welding. You can't beat practice for learning. All under the watchful eye of Area 52 resident experts like BiAS, Grunty, B8D etc...
