Weaver

Thanks for the words of encouragement Simon.
It truly is a beautiful car (it's Magenta Red) and is totally standard both mechanically and cosmetically even down to the original alloys.

My friend is getting an early WRX probably about the same age as your old car Simon. If he does leave me choking on his dust I guess it won't remain mechanically standard for too long

I haven't tried powersliding it yet as I'm still getting used to rear wheel drive but hopefully I'll be as good as Mr Sideways one day

I think one of these is appropriate as I look like this every time I drive it.

Luke

[This message has been edited by Weaver (edited 31-01-2000).]

Mike Rainbird

Dear All,
See, it has been worth while me posting on this board - managed to convert one of you to the true path , just another 2,088 to go!
LOL
Mike

[This message has been edited by Mike Rainbird (edited 31-01-2000).]

SDB

Just re-read my post. I hope you didn't think I was putting the Cossie down.. I wasn't.

It sounds lovely... any piccies?

I'm not surprised about the 's. The cossie will (IMHO) be more fun to drive than the Scoob. And Mike is correct, it does take lots more skill to hold one on the limit.

Whilst the 4WD, more modern, more powerful Scooby is obviously gonna be more competent on the road, you will have buckets more satisfaction from having to really drive the car.

Cheers

Simon

PS.. Kind words, but.... practice for about 1/2 an hour and you'll be better than me!!

Weaver

Well after much deliberating I decided against a Scooby for cost reasons and bought a.....

A 1990 2WD FORD SIERRA SAPPHIRE COSWORTH

After all the horrible stuff I've said about them as well

Why did I chose this car:

1. Cheaper than even bottom of the barrel Scoobs

2. Cheaper insurance

3. More tuning potential

4. More discreet than a Scoob (the car is totally standard)

5. Childhood dream to own a "Cossie"

5. Mike Rainbird says I can be a man now

There are many other reasons but these are the main ones as to why I bought a Dagenham Dustbin

I love the car too bits but the real test will be when my friend gets his WRX in a couple of weeks time. Hopefully I'll be able to whup his **** Mr Rainbird reckons I will anyway

I've seen the light and it shines through a blue oval

Luke

SDB

Hi Luke

Nice choice. I always wanted to own a Cossie. Maybe will one day.

Word of warning though...

Don't be too dissapointed if your mate dissapears into the distance leaving a glistening trail of malten rubber stretching out before you though!! (sorry couldn't resist the poetry of it!!)

Cossies are fabulous cars, particularly the RWD ones, but the reality is, you would have to be a complete lemon to not trounce one in a WRX. (Rainbird proof flamesuit zipped!)

The WRX is soooo much easier to drive. You can throw them into almost any corner at ridiculous speeds and (as long as you know what you are doing) the car will take care of it. You have to be a bit more on the ball with a RWD Cossie.

Mind you, you'll be able to powerslide your car much more than the WRX!!

Have fun though, with one of the world best ever car's (IMHO).

Cheers

Simon

Trout

iTrader: (1)

I would have to agree with Simon, if the car is 'totally standard' as you say it is!

There are one or two Cossie's out there to give us a run for the money, but they are way from standard!

David

johnfelstead

if you need any advise on the cossie drop me a line.

I have just sold my 350BHP 90 2wd sapphire and know lots about them.

It will pi$$ on any scoob with some minor mods.

cheers

john

PS welcome to the money pit club

Weaver

Simon,

It's OK I didn't think you were putting the Cossie down

Unfortunately no pics as yet, I need some one one to put them on their website for me. Anybody willing if I get some pics done?

I'm enjoying every minute of driving it, I've just been out for a lunch time drive so there's an even bigger on my face this afternoon.

It certainly seems enjoyable enough at the moment, I'll just have to wait to get his Scoob to do a comparison, I'll let you know what I think.

Still haven't plucked up the courage to attempt some sideways action yet

John what mods do you recommend, didn't you sell your Cos to go rallying? How are you getting on?

Got to get it serviced so the money is already starting to flow, however at roughly half the price of cheap Scoob I can afford to spend a bit

Luke

johnfelstead

The first thing i would do is take all the slop out of the suspension.

Fit an axle tighteneing kit to the rear beam mounts, these mounts get buggered on the 2WD cossie, the kit works realy well at stopping the beam moving around, costs about £50.

check the rear trailing arms bushes where the arms bolt to the beam, on the 2wd cossie they get a lot of play in them and give inconsistent handleing, test it for movement with a large screwdriver, if they are buggered you will see them move. costs about £90 a bush as they are rosejointed, none of your rubber crap. Will probably be the inner N/S and outer O/S if any gone.

fit some uprated front compression bushes, the current ones will be knackered. these make the steering far more responsive, especially under braking. costs about £50

If you are getting juddering brakes, which most do at that age, it isnt the disk, its the hub that is bolloxed. Fit a pair of new front hubs, wheel bearings and disks. Hubs are about £70 each and are handed. Bearings are about £40 each. Use some national 8 grove replacement disks, dirt cheap and can stand track day work on the 2wd cossie. fit these front and rear.

fit some Ferodo DS2000 brake pads all round, they are the best i have found for the 2wd cossie.

fit a set of Koni sport shocks all round, leave the standard springs on unless you are going over 300BHP.

Find a reputable cossie specialist, dont take it to a local garage, they dont know what to look for.
i used castle performance, they are very good.

If you want to up the power then you can go to 270BHP on the standard injectors with just a chip change and actuator adjustment, cost about £275

If you want 330 BHP then a proper ugrade of injectors, 3 bar map sensor, actuator, chip etc will cost you £900. This mod makes a huge improvement on the car and will leave any scoob for dead.

Dont forget the losses in a 2wd car are far less than a 4x4, 330BHP on the escort cossie is slow, on the 2wd saphire it is very quick.

you could go mad and do what i did with the hybrid turbo and 3" exhaust, that gives 350BHP but costs £2000 with the RS500 intercooler, spins the wheels at 110 though.

have a look at

Weaver

Cheers for the info John

I'm gonna get Harvey Gibbs at SCS Motorsport to have a look at it for me. The incredibly knowledgeable Mike Rainbird pointed me in his direction and he seems like a good bloke. It's a bit of a trek to Peterborough but I'd rather travel and get a decent job done. At the moment I'm just gonna get a cambelt put on it and get it tuned on the rolling road also it baulks going into 4th gear so I'll have to get that looked at.

I'll probably wait a bit before I make any power increase, at the risk of sounding a wuss it's enough to have 200 bhp going to the back wheels at the moment, no doubt I'll get bored of it soon though .

I'll keep your email address at hand for future use (I'm bound to need some advice after I've broken it )

Many thanks

Luke

[This message has been edited by Weaver (edited 31-01-2000).]

yunus

Rannock, why dont you scooby dudes admit that Supraz can give u good whipping at times as well!;-)

Actually I went for a blast in a mates 22b, and I musty say I was impressed, but I found the car to have more characteristic of under steer ( which I hate ) nevertheless it was a good experience.. felt a bit weak after 110.

Y

BladeRnnr

Mike R.......

You've got more chance P****ng into the wind from a hurricane and staying dry than you have of getting me to change to a cossie......

sorry ....... ;-)

MIKE#

SO 2087 TO GO .....1 NO HOPE

Leon

Attention all Cossie owners.

It's a school night and

IT'S PAST YOUR BEDTIME !

SO 2086 TO GO .....2 NO HOPE

mike_nunan

Two words: "kerb weight"

Nothing wrong with powerful RWD cars (although I'm under no illusions about my driving abilities and I'm often grateful for the forgivingness of AWD if you get it wrong). However, the one thing you'll never get around with Cossies is the weight.

An Impreza is a really light car for its size, which goes a long way to explain its handling virtues given that it has quite an "ordinary" suspension layout. Obviously, it's still a bus compared to an Elise (e.g.) but I'm not really aware of any four-seater saloon that weighs much less.

On a turbo car, it's easy to boost the power by 20%, but to reduce the weight by the same percentage is far from trivial. So, while it's dead easy to get a Cossie to beat a Scoob on power-to-weight ratio, when you get to the corners, all the power in the world ain't gonna help you get round.

(PS. Having said all that, I also have a big soft spot for the Sapphire - much classier car than the various nasty Escort incarnations. Always wanted one back in the day, but no as much as I wanted a Lotus Carlton ]8-)

Mike Rainbird

Dear Mike,
Kerb weight of Sapphire Cosworth 2wd is 1206 Kg and 1235 Kg for Scooby - need I say more...!

But thanks for backing up my arguement (despite not knowing that the Cossie is in fact lighter!).
LOL
Mike

[This message has been edited by Mike Rainbird (edited 01-02-2000).]

Gethin

Wonder what the stats is for the reliability of Cossies against the Scooby ??

Hmm...

Gethin.
MY97 WRX

Weaver

Gethin,

Don't forget this is a totally standard and well maintained car and will stay that way whilst I own it. I don't see why it shouldn't be as reliable as a Scooby of similar mileage as long as it's looked after correctly. I think a lot of the bad press Cossies get is due to being tuned in the wrong way and then blowing up. Just look waht happened to Anders 22B when the tuning wasn't performed correctly.

Also Cossie's were designed with big power in mind so hopefully running standard should provide a nice big safety margin with no component running close to it's limits.

Finally I couldn't stretch to a Scoob so I've got a car with almost Scooby performance for roughly half the cost plus I've got enough left over to get any teething probs sorted. Thats got to be good VFM.

Anyway I'm still

Mike Rainbird

Gethin,
You are under the misaprehension that Cossies are unreliable. Comparing like for like they are just as reliable as the Scoobies, it's just that us Cossie owners don't know where to stop when it comes to tuning .

A Scooby owner will be satisfied with 320bhp (knowing that to go further is asking for trouble), whereas for a Cossie owner, that's just the starting point.... . Obviously with there being over 40,000 cossies on the road over the years (approx 5,000 three-doors, 500 RS500s, 14,000 2wd Sapphires, 12,000 4x4 Sapphires and 7,000 Escorts), you will know someone who has gone too far (or know someone who knows someone etc), so your perception is coloured. However, there are literally thousands of unmolested examples out there with 100,000 miles+ on the clock and still going strong to this day, that proves the car was well enough made to stand the test of time. I hope that the Scoobies (in Japan's throw-away culture) are still around in 12 years time in as good a condition as you see some of the Cossies....

Also your perception is probably marred by the eighties "tune 'em 'till they melt" culture when new companies were springing up left, right and centre to take advantage of the HUGE market and were pushing the boundries of the tuning envelope when they didn't really understand what they were doing....

Perhaps you are forgetting that I keep my ear to the ground in the tuning world in general, and I have heard of several other Scoobies that have gone "bang" (other than Anders). Your cars are now perceived as the new "Cossie" replacement and the same trial and error that went into developing the conversions for our cars is now being done on the Scoobies (with the same sort of companies spring out of the woodwork to jump on the new band wagon)...
Regards
Mike

Gethin

Still rekon Scoobies are more reliable than Cossies....that's why I bought one.

Any actual stats out there, rather than our "misaprehensions"??



Gethin.

Weaver

Gethin,

Seeing as I couldn't afford one can you give me some money so I can get one. Then I could run it as well as my Cossie and give you a definitive answer

Gethin

Good luck with your Cossie mate, no seriously! All these performance cars are much too expensive to run !!!



Gethin

Weaver

Gethin,

You're not wrong there mate, but it's worth every penny in terms of per pound I'm getting at the moment.



Luke

Orville

I wish I could have bought my fathers old 3dr Cossie (but some ba***rd stole/torched it ). It was completely standard and never visited the dealers for anything other than a service in over 5 years. It was also kept in imaculate condition - my father never used the same sponge twice when washing it.

[This message has been edited by Orville (edited 01-02-2000).]

Weaver

*******s I'm being so careful with mine I don't even like when it's out of sight I have keep going and checking on it. God knows what it must be like to lose a £20K+ Scoob insured or not.

I still don't think the the penalties are tough enough for that kind of thing in this country. Just think what would happen if you got caught doing that sort of thing in Saudi Arabia.

I just don't understand some peoples mentality

Luke