Mk2 with Rover V8 OK for Hill Climbing ?

[steve-v8s]

Hello

Advice please. I know very little about Ultima cars and have been wondering if an early one would be suitable for use as next years guided missile for Hill Climbing.

How well regarded is the Mk2 car and is the Rover V8 a good choice of engine. Any obvious tips when looking at the older cars would be appreciated. Does the Mk2 chassis for example go round corners and stop ?

[peterpsg]

IIRC, you'll probably find that there is not a great deal of differance between the early chassis and the current one in the GTR/Canam and that most of the changes in the latter models are cosmetic/aerodynamic/tweaking rather than any major structural revisions.

Hence, I'm sure an earlier one will handle in a similar way, just it won't look as pretty

If you attend the factory open day this Sunday the 7th, I'm sure you'll find lots of people able to give you advice, and probably the odd Mk2 floating around as well!

[B1 ECC]

I think it would make an interesting and different car for hillcliming, ( Not Caterfield). I've always thought that the aluminium Rover V8 with mods could be a good engine to aid a good handling chassis, forget the renault box it won't live with the standing starts. A G50 is a good compromise but you'll probably only need 2nd & 3rd

[Boosted LS1]

A turbo would help

Boosted.

[B1 ECC]

Supercharger would be better, turbo's take to long to spool-up on short blasts. (IMHO)

[steve-v8s]

As an additional point, has anybody got experience of getting an MSA log book issued with the original roll bar as fitted to the Mk2 car. I understand it is just that, a roll bar and not a full cage. What do the Scrutineres think of that ?

[B1 ECC]

I think from memory, if you enter in the Road Legal catagory, then the rules are more flexible, however you do come up against some thinly disquised race cars!

[steve-v8s]

Problem with Road Legal is you can’t run slicks which on my local hill seems to equate to about 2 seconds. Road legal does not require a roll cage but it is recommended. To run slicks needs an MSA log book so it has to comply with all the ModProd rules which define the design of the roll cage including the diameter of the tube. The factory web site details three different spec roll cages for the current cars, standard, FIA and RAC (which I guess is MSA). Someone must have already looked into this, any ideas anybody ?