Jacques

Father Christmas passed by early this year and guess what he brought? Little Red Riding Hood is getting exited, as she haven't seen it yet but feels there's something on it's way. You know, a sportscars fifth sense... Kind regards, Jacques

Same as S4s apart from alcantara. But at the time, some Sp300 were ordered with normal leather and also normal sports seats, not the Sp300 specific bucket seats. Also other trim options. Kind regards, Jacques

Thanks Giniw, but since I am in Denmark, and Royal Steering Wheels are in the UK; there's a seriously heavy economical penalty if one would be taking them on their offer. Both for shipping forth and back, and for insurance of this steering wheel, as well as a heavy 20% fee on top for customs, and finally a further 25% tax on top of of all. I think it would end up being the same. I've been using the local trimmer a couple of times such as Sp300 seats and the rear shelves for Little Red Riding Hood, and they do make a good job, I just think I've been in a thinking bubble in the last two years, so I came to be fairly surprised of the price You know they are getting too much money when they begin to call you by your first name as soon as you enter the door, ha ha! Kind regards, Jacques

Driving Little Red Riding Hood, I need to get a grip on things, as she is definitely a handful. Well, it's taken me 6 years to finally find a Sp300 steering wheel, and it was a pretty steep price. Then, it was recovered in thick leather in some strange colour on top of the old one. A too thick grip, I'd say. So, some measely 7 and a half month ago, I delivered it to a trimmer I trust, to be redone in alcantara as it should. No fancy middle stripe or other such things. Finally got a phone call, and picked it up yesterday and I like it. Oh dear, I think they are recouperating some of their potential lost income by now, as I can nearly get a second hand vw flop for the price this steering wheel reached, mglp... Never mid, it's paid, and one quickly forget such small matters. Anyway, I test fitted it to the car, and it works well. Propper installation maybe later this year or some time next season, as I've got a nice heated dry parking lot inside, but no place to work on the car any more. Grrr.... But Little Red Riding Hood told me, she likes it very much, and I can better grip her and twist her. Well, somehow. No more funny driving way too fast on a backroad, and hands sliding on the slick leather steering wheel, although I do use driving gloves most of the time. This new steering wheel will enhance that grip for sure. Kind regards, Jacques

I already have one, and will build it into my new gearbox project along with all sorts of other "better parts". I chose a Quaife as they are easy to get. More roadburning today, although this time it was a bit colder at 11 deg. cel, so relaxed on the throttle or it would have been a recipe for disaster Oh, and went to the cinema the other day and watched the new Bond movie. I wanted to take the Esprit and part it right putside the cinema, but unfortunately there is a huge roadwork going on right now, so couldn't do that. It would have been nice, though... Cheers, Jacques

It often is like this with these sellers, both in the UK, USA and elsewhere: they fabricate some nice bits, but does not always promote them. You got to ask. Last Saturday, it was nice and sunny, roads dry and temp was about 16 deg. cel. so took a drive along my fav. back road route. Despite the huge tires and soft compound, it just spun it's wheels often, coming out of turns, as if Little Red Riding Hood said "look what I can do, isn't it fun?". Yes, sure it is, but an lsd would make it more fun. I need to start my special gearbox project. That's a fast car. Also compared to many newer cars with many more horses under the bonnet. Kind regards, Jacques

As I also discovered on mine as well. So, I decided to do it myself, and all angles and setup are now spot on. Took a whole day, but well worth the effort, as we are talking supercar with super performance. A required safety in handling. Kind regards, Jacques

Hence why I don't really like the Evora with it's strange roofline and more bulging more compact looks, not taking into account the power and steering capabilities,, which are fine. Thanks for posting. Kind regards, Jacques

I like the pictures, but looking at this one in particular, I am surprised how much taller the Evora is looking, more so as it's behind the Esprit. Thanks for sharing. Kind regards, Jacques

Hi all, I am normally an Esprit guy, but this time around, I am asking on behalf of a friend who recently bought a Series 1 Elise (Rover K engine), as He is having a series of problematic issues, and trying to repair, overcome these. 1/ So, first of all, he's got the impression, that the generator, or alternator, is not working correctly. Normally, on my cars, I would start off by having the engine off, ignition off, and then measure the Voltage between + and - on the battery. Next, I would repeat that, but with the engine running, to get a picture of the performance of the generator. There are of course, wires and earth wires in between, but still there should be a measurable difference between the two readings. He is right now using a normal closed type H2SO4 acid battery. So, what is the the expected normal voltage to see on these cars? and how many Volts are to be expected when running? 2/ Secondly, are there any known issues of the generator/alternator on these cars melting down for example the voltage regulator, such as can happen on the Esprit cars? The black goo on the diodebridge melts and drips into the alternator, preventing the spinning copper parts to be read and send voltage to the regulator's diode bridge. 3/ Does anyone know if there's a compressor kit that can be installed on to this Rover K engine? No turbo thanks. Only compressors, such as for example a twin scroll or others. He would like the car to have more omps at low revs, not needing the engine to be spun up to 5000 rpm to deliver. The car is currently running some emerald box, seperate injector houses etc. Apprx. 185 hp. He did not tune the car, but bought it in this state from a previous owner who had driven the car, but never done anything to the car. 4/ The exhaust manifold is flapping pretty loud when cold, slowly becoming a bit more subdues when warm. Have to be corrected. Any know issues on this? And any good advice before risking breaking the studs? (method of releasing them). All advice are much appreciated. Kind regards, jacques

They are original seats and runners. As far as I understood, the copies are pretty good, possibly apart from the runners, which is maybe not totally correct. But hat can be remedied. They are okay tight for the hips, so if one is a little bigger around the hips, they may not suit. Apart from that, they are actually quite comfortable, well, not in the ordinary sense, but it's no problem for me to drive far. I wouldn't mind driving across Europe in them, which I intend to do, once my parking brakes are in place and the bans because of the virussituation are lifted enough to be possible to actually do the trip. They really keep you seated and support well. Highly recommended. I always advocate for them, because I find them to be far better than many other sportscars seating. Kind regards, Jacques.

Now, it's double of that where I live. Kind regards, Jacques

Thanks, I am working on it. Meanwhile, I am also working on something a bit more interesting for the car. But there's a HUGE line of people waiting to have this company do something to their car og speedboat or whatever. More later. Kind regards, Jacques

So, having these parts in hand, the steering wheels themselves, are interchangable, but the horn button and it's subassembly, are not. So there, a little bit of creativity is needed. Now working on that. Kind regards, Jacques

HI all, I am looking into possibly installing a later type non airbag Nardi steering wheel and it's adaptor on to my 1990 Esprit Turbo SE. So, apart from the horn function, would it fit my car? (thinking of steering column etc.). I think it's the same on S4, S4s and Sport300? The one I am looking at, is similar looking to a sport300 except for the covering which is not alcantara, but normal leather. The center pad is similar. Kind regards, Jacques

Interesting read. I'm advocating for that - a bit faster spooling turbo that won't run out of breath on the top. Meanwhile, I did install a rebuilt Sp300 turbo and despite being bigger that the stock SE item from 1990 model, it spools faster and does not run out of breath (with an added pump and fpr plus the right Sp300 ecu. Then I read all sorts of things with the modern scroll ceramic ball bearing turbos. Now, I want to point out that I have no personal experience with them, so it's just readings, of which one should be a little cautious. Anyway, the modern turbos are so fast, allegedly, that the GM ecu item cannot work with that speed. Hence a new ecu setup. I know there are many contributing factors, but that was the sum of some of the readings I found. Was that some of the same findings you did Erik? Kind regards, Jacques

Tom, I can promise you, that they are very comfortable indeed, and does exactly avoid giving me backpain etc. Remember the Recaro C8 in the porsche 911 gt3rs? Equally comfortable. Kind regards, Jacques

Varta and Bosch silver would be my suggestions. 7 -10 years of light use. Never had a glitch. And my c-tek did not destroy them. Kind regards, Jacques

Sitting in the Evora, coming from your Esprit, will probably make you feel like you're in a lorry. And once you are done playing with the infotainment, the race mode button and tired of choosing little carbon parts for it, chequered floormats with 8 toned stitching, because it looks silly, even getting to the (sad) point where you will miss other people saying: "Hey, nice ferrari", you will want another car. Then you go look at the marketplaces, attend even more cars and coffee's, buy the odd mag, spending nights on searching on the web looking for a suitable replacement for the Evora, and after say ½ a year where you wife haven't had the chance to see you unless it's one of those aforementioned places, you get the ultimate idea! An Esprit.

Wise words!

Likewise. Those audi had up to 350hp against those other cars. And look what an impact 4wd had on all those other cars. They never stood a chance. And note how one of the other cars knocked over the Esprit. What a terrible idea. Anyway, someone else must have been on to the same idea, as I've got an Airfix model of another rallycross Esprit. Another bad idea Kind regards, Jacques

What ferrari?

Oooohhh! First drive this year. And on a sunny day too. Not shabby. Actually very nice feeling and it surely feels enormously fast after 6 months in the stable. Already got some positive comments. And after that I went for another drive in my Corrado G60 today, which btw. also feels pretty fast and fun, and surprise, that got some positive comments too. Hmm. which one to sell? I haven't found a suitable garage yet and it's getting really tight in the small one I have. Anyway, it was nice to let Little Red Riding Hood loose a bit. Now, I've caught some heavy cold and got to take care of that. Oh well, next week - more driving Now, if only those spareparts would show up, so I can finish up some of the projects on Little Red Riding Hood. That would surely fit the bill. Extraordinary patience seems to be a keyword if one depends on spares from the UK. Sometimes I think they not only cut the link to the ec (good on them for doing so), but maybe even cut the ties to their customerbase on mainland Europe, by mistake of course... We'll see. Rabdare, rabdare... Cheers, Jacques A nice place to be, when the going gets tough and the though gets going:

Arh, it's a bit annoying when I cannot edit the post after an hour or so, if I spot a spelling error. But never mind. Anyway, Little Red Riding Hood is still Little Red Riding Hood, and soon to be let loose on the back roads With license to overtake Kind regards, Jacques

Okay, so as I've mentioned elsewhere, but rementioning here, for completeness sake, I couldn't start the car some time ago, so took out the right side fuel tank's pump and it's an uprated Bosch unit that delivers more fuel than the stock SE item. Suits the Sport300 trim I'm running. Looking for a replacement, I discovered to my horror, that it's sold out in most places. So, deciding for a Wallbro ditto, I then got scammed by the usual suspects from chine, pretending to be a legitimate Canadian (or american, I don't remember off the top of my head), company, but in reality showed to be a chinese company. Hmmm. So had to shut down my credit card, do all sorts of things to evade the pretenders, and while at that, I noticed at the small filter end of the Bosch fuel pump end, there's a small while nylon filter. On the inside, not outside, of that, was a few small thin green plastic threads inside it. So took it off, cleaned it out, and reinstalled it all. Voila, started at first turn of the key. All good now. Next up this last weekend, was some measely 14 hours taking off the rear brakes, remove some of it's parts, take out the drivers seat, remove old parking brake cables, drill out dead screws from the leading bracket for said cables under the car, and then undo the remaining screw bits, clean it up, clean up sealing rubbers both ends (under and inside of the car), install two new parking brake cables, and prepare the routing of those for the new modified rear brakes, which are hopefully soon to be ready. After this, I noticed that the underside seal of the engine cover, had some tears, so decided to press on a new seal. Phew! Pretty hard to press on, when new. And then took car of a few small spots of finishing spots. And finally improved my two homemade lifting blocks with anti skid material glued to the underside, for preventing the car to move about, when jacking it up. Works really well. Oh, and then changing the parking brake cables, it's a good idea to raise the handle a few clicks as it eases the installation of the ew cables Guess how I found out... As usual, Little Red Riding Point is shaking her head in a demonstration of the wish to outgun some heavy Stuttgart machinery. Kind regards, Jacques