Visited my mate at work in Halfords yesterday and checked up on his progress with his Rover 216 Coupe.
The last time I saw him six months ago, the car was at a garage having a 2.2 lite VTEC engine from a Honda Prelude put in it! Anyway, they eventually gave up, so he took it to another garage who fitted it. They cut away some of the chassis, fabricated custom engine mounts and set it up with a £3.5k ECU. The car was RRd with 190bhp at the wheels!!
He took me out for a ride and all I can say is HOLY SHAG! Its unbelieveable! It would massacre a 16v/172/Williams and probably a Rover 200 Turbo Coupe.
While we were out in it, we killed - and I mean anihilated - a new shape WRX and a number of other unsuspecting cars. The Rover is grey, with original wheels and no body mods! Subtle!
The power delivery is like a Clio 16v in the way it takes off at high revs, but with this it revs to 10,500 rpm! Hes got uprated brakes (with four pots up front and discs on the back instead of drums) and coilovers, but I can still feel that it handles and brakes a bit dodgy as standard Rover Coupe does. I reckon the back end would come out well before it would on a 16v/Williams and it seems to rely a bit too much on grip rather than handling balance to get it around corners.
Hes spent £9k on it in total, and I reckon it goes to show that making a custom car can be a highly expensive and slightly illogical choice! I think he could have got a much better balanced car for his money and started off with a better basic car...but hes happy!
that power didnt come cheap. Not my choice however, but good luck to him thats what modding is all about.
