Panic... over!

[wedg1e]

So there we were, the son-in-law and myself, sat in the Esprit at a traffic light.
Behind us crouched the lithe shape of a Ginetta G27, sucking hungrily through its twin twin-choke Webers.
I heard the throttle being blipped: Matt and I exchanged glances.
The light went green and we turned right. The Ginetta stayed close, paused to strike. The road was clear, I was sure he'd go for it; I would have.
So I floored it. I don't often do it, as the 21-year-old 912 could do with a timing belt, oil seals etc., but honour had to be satisfied. One glorified kit car against another, perhaps.
The revs built, the Ginetta hung on. Now I'm 13 stone and Matt must be 16. The Ginetta has a guy about my build and his teenage son, who must be 7 stone wringing wet.
More pedal, 7000 rpm and into 2nd. Ginetta still there. Now he must go for it, surely? No, he's still following.
As the revs built through second, so did the noise. Quickly check the oil pressure. No worries, temperature OK; strange, it's not normally that loud.
The end of the rev counter was reached and third was grabbed. Hey! A gap is opening! Sure enough, we're slowly pulling away. But... holy cr@p, I can't hear myself think!
We run out of road, we turn left and the Ginetta goes right. Exchange of horns, big grins. I reckon he backed off.
We continue on our way and I spy a Blingon. You know, some 1L French hatchback, adorned with tacky spoilers, silly lights and replete with a 'crue' of youths. There's probably pumping bass as well, but my ears are ringing. I drop it and go, baseball capped heads swivel in surprise as Satan's Sleigh annihilates them in a howl of derision.
I'm getting a bit concerned about the noise. The harder I nail it, the more it sounds like the exhaust has blown to bits, but when I cruise it's the same as normal.
I drop Matt off and go home.

A few days later, in between rain showers, I decide to go out for a quick blast. Start her up and she sounds OK if a little lumpy. OK, OK, she's ALWAYS lumpy...
Round the village and I can hear the roar coming back at me off walls. Out on the open road and floor it and it sounds like a Spitfire flypast. Sounds bloody great, but I bet Mr. Plod would have things to say.
I go home and it rains for two days, practically non-stop.
Today I decided to do a bit of woodwork (well, only insofar as MDF might be loosely construed as deriving from similar fibres as wood) so I move the Fiat and the Esprit so I have room to work.
While the Esprit warms up I decide to climb in the engine bay and see if I can work out where the exhaust is blowing from.
I can't. It isn't blowing. What the hell...?!
Then I spot it. The airbox cover. It's fallen off and is wedged down the side of the engine. Luckily the filter element is still there as well.
Aha! It's bloody induction noise, not exhaust....

[jk1]

Good one!

[rich 36]

good one, no damage then.

[GKP]

[quote=wedg1e]
One glorified kit car against another, perhaps.
quote]


Not so sure about this statement. I thought you said you were in the Esprit, not something you'd made yourself?

[wedg1e]

GKP said:

[quote=wedg1e] One glorified kit car against another, perhaps. quote] Not so sure about this statement. I thought you said you were in the Esprit, not something you'd made yourself?

Lotus and TVR suffer from that same tar-brush. They both used to supply kit cars, though neither has for a very long time. They both ransacked mass-market parts bins for the essentials, becasue all those parts cost a lot each.
Now TVR make a huge percentage of their cars these days, compared to the 80's; and so do Lotus, so you can't really level that criticism at either of them.

However, going back to the days of the S3 Esprit, there was still a gooodly percentage of the make-up of the cars that was outsourced, so the 'image' bit is reinforced in those who can go part-spotting and say 'oh yeah, Marina door-handles' or whatever. This of course doesn't happen with the younger generation who wouldn't know a Marina if it ran over them
Then there's the construction. I used to shake my head in wonder at the lash-ups I'd find on TVRs. Then I bought the Esprit.

There are some areas, such as the means of attaching the firewall trim panel to the firewall (a length of dowel and four pipe-clips FFS) that positively stink of 'send the tea-boy down to B&Q and see what he can find'. One the one hand it's simple and quick, lightweight even. But to Joseph Q. Public, brought up on a diet of Jap/ German 'perfection' it looks like a bodge. The comparison could be drawn with how you or I would proceed, if faced with the same problem.
I once p155ed-off the spares guy at Harrogate Horseless Carriages (TVR dealers) when I said 'anything the factory can do, the owner can probably do better' and I reckon in some ways that applies to the Esprit of that era too.

Don't get me wrong, I like both products, and one of the things that appeals is that 'hand-built by real geezers in a shed' feel; the personal touch... the fact that I can look up under the nose of my TVR and find the signatures of the three guys who laid-up the fibreglass shell, one summer day in 1987.
But I'm a realist: I know that both cars are hopelessly outclassed in so many ways these days that it defies logic to own one.
But if we give in to that mentality we may as well all drive bloody Subaru Imprezas, and that would be a sh!tty outlook