General Green HGT

[AndyRKett]

Decisions decisions.

Give up trying to sell my 145, get a tow bar for it or my HGT and tow this...

...to track days?

Keep trying to sell my 145 and get a more suitable tow or track day car?

You’d need to do a fair bit of work on that before it would be allowed on a track day. Even track days have their limits of what you can drive.

 

[Liquid Knight II]

And is that seat out of a Punto mk2 ELX by any chance, lol?

Mk1 Punto 60. Same as the engine and bits.

Yep. For the track days I attend the car needs to be all but MOT worthy. Should be interesting.

 

[Liquid Knight II]

Just got a list of the parts I have been offered for £50

Engine, gearbox, drive shafts, accessories, loom, interior trim, bumpers and window deflectors.

:devil:

I'm either going to take two trips or need a bigger car/van.

 

[Liquid Knight II]

This is load number one. Two is still in the car due to lack of shed space.

Most of it is stuff I don't need. So if anyone wants anything let me know.

 

[Liquid Knight II]

Spare engine and gearbox on the way.
Spare wheels and new engine/gearbox mounts to collect this weekend.

Bit of a budget this month due to Easter bank holiday shifts.

Do I start looking at making the Punto quicker?

Rainsport 3 tyres on the road wheels maybe I could get something sticky for the spare set.

With the engine mounts sorted hopefully I can address the exhaust.

Brake consumables and suspension is all the car needs really.

No joy trying to sell my Alfa so no tow car and kart thing. The next track day is eight weeks away. I need to start thinking of my Punto as a potential option again.

 

[Liquid Knight II]

As the HGT engine is a brick so far as tuning options are concerned I have been thinking...

:idea:

How about a VAG Bam 20V 1.8 transplant?

...a mate has a fully forged one from an Audi TT 225 with a stage 3 map, manifolds and other bits so the engine made 280bhp when it was in the car.

Swapping a 1.8 for a 1.8 should keep the DVLA alarm bells quiet and as you could see from the track day clip I was being held up by the Audi A3 turbo through the bends but it walked away from me on the straights.

Keep the exhaust quiet enough and nobody would know. :devil:

 

[puntofan01]

A vag engine?! That's the ultimate insult to the poor Punto!!!

 

[Liquid Knight II]

A vag engine?! That's the ultimate insult to the poor Punto!!!

German engineering in an Italian chassis. It'll be like a mini-Bugatti.

 

[puntofan01]

But it's already very nice as a mini-Ferrari, lol!

 

[Liquid Knight II]

I may not get to do anything. As well as work my Punto and I have been ferrying family to Norwich and back to visit a family member who has had an operation to remove a lump of cancer from their lung.

It's possible they could have had a mini-stroke during the night and loss of sensation in on leg.

If that's the case both my HGT and 145 will have to go and be replaced with a sensible four or five door.

 

[Liquid Knight II]

I'm picking the spare wheels and engine mounts up tomorrow now so I am available Saturday to take family to hospital again.

Not really looking forward to either as tomorrow is Brian Clough way and Saturday is the usual drudge up and down the A47

On a lighter note my HGT passed 80,000 miles on the way home and to celebrate I took the B1145

So much for my passenger falling asleep on the way home. :devil:

 

[puntofan01]

I'm sorry to hear that. I'm keeping my fingers crossed your relative makes a good recovery.

 

[Liquid Knight II]

Had a lovely and irritating drive in the Alfa today. Visited a mate in Matlock Bath on the way through to Manchester to collect the spare set of HGT alloys.

Errrrrrmmmmm... Well that was the plan and I took the A6 from Matlock to Manchester but got a message saying the wheels were in Bolton. That was an extra fifty miles I hadn't prepared for and at local speeds at least an extra three hours.

I had to be home in time to do something this evening so I turned around and headed back.

Took the A6 and A616 to Sheffield thinking I would sneak up on the Steel City. I followed the signs to the M1 south avoiding the city centre. Anyone who has ever been to Sheffield would agree the centre is best avoided. Crossed a few roundabouts until the "M1 South" signs simply stopped. I back tracked, headed toward the dreaded city centre and there were no signs for the M1 at all, North or South.

:bang:

Sheffield councils highways planning committee should all be dragged outside, beaten to death, incinerated and their ashes used to fill bloody potholes.

I went back to the route I was on and as I had gone straight across the roundabouts that had the M1 South signs I went straight across the next one. Logical right?
Wrong. I ended up in Chesterfield.

Turned out it was probably quicker than the M1 as I went over it the variable speed limit signs were illuminated "30" and it looked gridlocked.

Stayed on the back roads to the A1(M) and took the A17 from there. Made it home with twenty minutes spare.

 

[Steve gt]

passed though my town of chesterfield [emoji1303], think the signs do direct you that way to south avoiding the Sheffield parkway which is a nightmare especially on a Friday

 

[Liquid Knight II]

The last time I was headed south and simply wanted to go past Sheffield but the M1 was being dug up around the Meadohall turnoff and traffic diverted left into the villages.

A group of us followed the diversion signs until they just stopped. :bang:

There were half a dozen or so vehicles in a pub carpark at two in the morning with no satellite or mobile phone signal. #BecauseYorkshire

One had followed the diversion signs back to find that was a dead end. It was all getting a bit "Hills Have Eyes" when as if by pure luck I found an old (circa 1998) AA map book in the boot.

We were between Bolsover and Whaley. I pointed those headed south in the right direction and as I was the only one headed east I followed the A632 to the A616 and followed that all the way to the A1 and met the A17 there.

It's a Sheffield thing but nowhere near as bad as Northampton where the signs and road markings have nothing to do with one another whatsoever.


Nowhere near as bad as Lincoln. To get to Blyton Park for a track day I go an extra fifty five miles via Gainsborough as it's an hour quicker than trying to drive though the city. Half an hour quicker than the Digby turn off as you hit traffic at the north of the city anyway. :devil:

 

[Rcl]

"As the HGT engine is a brick so far as tuning options are concerned" only goes for modern remap-tuning. It responds like a dream to old-school tuning like porting, exhausts and cams, since it adapts to these changes.
(Back in the old days we would have killed for a system like this, instead of having to retry carb jet setups. It is however a bit harder to make it run a bit leaner or richer with this system).

 

[Liquid Knight II]

I thought it was the other way round and after tuning reverted back to 130hp spec'.

Food for thought but I have a lot on my plate already.

 

[Rcl]

If you Google for "Punto hgt stroker" you will find a guy-croft page with a story about a tuning project which might learn you a lot about some tuning possibilities of this engine.
More food for thought...

 

[Liquid Knight II]

If you Google for "Punto hgt stroker" you will find a guy-croft page with a story about a tuning project which might learn you a lot about some tuning possibilities of this engine.
More food for thought...

That was the souse of my original pessimism. All that time, effort and faff yet no real results.

Anyway check out the classifieds if you fancy a bargain. Due to a dramatic change of circumstances I can no longer afford to run two (or more) cars and won't have time for projects (apart from my Panda Fantasia).

 

[Liquid Knight II]

https://www.fiatforum.com/classifieds/showproduct.php?product=35329