Hi folks!
Wondering if I could get some opinions. My Panda is once again in service as my only car (although the 900 should be back soon but it's taking SO LONG - but that's another story). I've put >20k miles on it in the time I've had it (a couple of months short of 2 years) and it has been absolutely fantastic.
But, I'm preaching to the choir about how good Pandas are here, so I'll spare you that.
We have a problem though - I'm getting the urge to do some tweaking. There's a very strong temptation to ruin my Panda by putting a more powerful engine in it - but I can't figure out whether I should or not!
I'm not too worried about the technical stuff having done a whole load of electrical and mechanical arsing about (technical term) on the Saab; my main worry is that I'll spoil the massively entertaining nature of the not-excessively-powerful FIRE 1000 engine. The relatively modest power output is one of the things that makes the car so fun to drive a lot of the time - but equally, an 85hp classic Panda can only be hilarious.
Mine does seem like a good candidate for this sort of messing around; it has a couple of dings here and there, and is missing the factory interior (anyone has seen it probably didn't miss the bright red DIY door cards that it has at the moment lol!) - but underneath it's in great shape. It's also not a snazzy special edition, being a black CLX. I definitely couldn't bring myself to do this sort of thing to a mint ST or something.
That said, there's definitely something very nice about it in it's current form. The utter simplicity of the carb / dizzy combo is cool, and the existing engine runs really really well. Seems a bit cruel to dethrone a 55k mile old engine that has nothing wrong with it.
Can you help me to decide?
Wondering if I could get some opinions. My Panda is once again in service as my only car (although the 900 should be back soon but it's taking SO LONG - but that's another story). I've put >20k miles on it in the time I've had it (a couple of months short of 2 years) and it has been absolutely fantastic.
But, I'm preaching to the choir about how good Pandas are here, so I'll spare you that.
We have a problem though - I'm getting the urge to do some tweaking. There's a very strong temptation to ruin my Panda by putting a more powerful engine in it - but I can't figure out whether I should or not!
I'm not too worried about the technical stuff having done a whole load of electrical and mechanical arsing about (technical term) on the Saab; my main worry is that I'll spoil the massively entertaining nature of the not-excessively-powerful FIRE 1000 engine. The relatively modest power output is one of the things that makes the car so fun to drive a lot of the time - but equally, an 85hp classic Panda can only be hilarious.
Mine does seem like a good candidate for this sort of messing around; it has a couple of dings here and there, and is missing the factory interior (anyone has seen it probably didn't miss the bright red DIY door cards that it has at the moment lol!) - but underneath it's in great shape. It's also not a snazzy special edition, being a black CLX. I definitely couldn't bring myself to do this sort of thing to a mint ST or something.
That said, there's definitely something very nice about it in it's current form. The utter simplicity of the carb / dizzy combo is cool, and the existing engine runs really really well. Seems a bit cruel to dethrone a 55k mile old engine that has nothing wrong with it.
Can you help me to decide?