First Drive

[Guest davidimurray]

As my registraction finally came through last week, plates fitted on Sunday and the storm cleared enough for a couple of hours of clear sunny driving.

 

Mrs M and I donned out helmets and braved the elements. Took it easy but got a good 50 mile shakedown under our belts. Car felt great, very planted despite the wet roads and a surprisingly smooth ride. Had the wideband lambda running and could see that she needed a bit more fuel in the mid-range.

 

All in all a perfect shakedown, I'm a happy bunny

[speedtripledan]

very planted despite the wet roads

 

Dont be fooled by these cars one min they are planted next they can be side ways especially in the wet ! That 1st drive must have felt great ! hopefully see you at some of the shows next year ?

[Guest chris brown]

 

Dont be fooled by these cars one min they are planted next they can be side ways especially in the wet ! That 1st drive must have felt great ! hopefully see you at some of the shows next year ?

Well done but as Dan says be ready to collect it up on any corner in the wet. I found the LSD improved things but it will still go. The thing is because the car is so good you tend to corner so much faster and most of us are used to driving front wheel drive and forget how different a rear wheel drive handles

[Guest davidimurray]

Thanks guys.

 

I did take it nice and easy, perhaps I should have used the words 'well balanced' lol - I did go round a few roundabouts wondering if she would bite but she's was very well behaved.

 

Did open her up a couple of times in a straight and she went well. Interesting the difference between the 'old' pinto with lots of grunt low down and the modern screaming engines that you need to use all revs to get anywhere.

[Guest kevin booth]

Won't be long before you will be looking for more power. Then improving braking, handling and so on, it is great fun playing with the car over and over as you will find out. They are never finished.

[Guest peter2b2002]

i spent 20 years driving 4x4s before hopping into my 2b for the first time wheeeeeeeee it was even wurst going the other way after driving my 2b only during the 1st summer nearly rolled my Disco

peter2b

[Guest davidimurray]

And now the second drive......

 

Mrs M suggested we go out for a drive before Christmas dinner. Lovely empty roads up into the valleys. Got a little nervous when we started to see snow at the top of the bwlch but the roads were okay and I took it easy. Back in the lowlands and gave the the car a few beans on the straights, tweaked the carbs last night and mid-range was a lot better, think i need to go slightly larger on the mains but all in the tweaking.

 

So that's 100 miles on the car, one tank of fuel gone and a lot of smiles.

 

Merry Christmas everyone

[Guest Tim Norman]

One tank and only 100 miles! You were either giving it lots of beans all the time or you have a really small tank!

[Guest davidimurray]

One tank and only 100 miles! You were either giving it lots of beans all the time or you have a really small tank!

 

Might be a bit of both. In-laws wanted to see the car so did another 50 miles today, mainly on the motorway. Filled it up on the way and it took 15.5 litres - that's been used in 101 miles plus the IVA test. So that would make about 34mpg so far. The tank itself is 24 litres, but because I've had to use a motorbike sender to match my dash the calibration isn't great and doesn't really measure from full to empty fully. Hence when I filled up this morning, fuel gauge showed 15% with 8litres remaining. Hopefully that means I have a tank range of 150+miles.

 

So there we are 3 days of driving fun in an open sports car in the middle of winter - wonderful:-) :-) :-) :-)

[Guest Tim Norman]

My tank ia slightly larger at 55L and I can manage 250 miles if I'm sensible! Apparently that doesn't happen much!

Though you are right there is no better feeling than driving these cars on a "fresh" Winters day.