74 Opel Manta

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tdrrally
its a shame they don't make cars like that any more

well, I'm not 100% with you on that.. don't know who you are and I don't do interwebz arguing cause I usually lose, but I'd say, just shootin' the bull, that the build qual in a 74 Manta: not awesome,
but very good, very stout , sturdy and stodgy......
and you can do what (we alls here) want to do with them.. And they are obtainable, very obtainable. I'm not crazy about and have no interest in GT's but I have found the multitude of parts from a GT that work on the Manta it's almost like a secret. front leafy springy ? No, you can keep that, rofl. Asconas, Some Kadett's, and Manta (A's), personally , a bunch. I just like 'em.

I like it cause it's a simple car and pretty straight-forward/ simple transport = rwd, underpowered (isn't everything?) , and manual 4 speed (5-speed BMW trans seems to be a hot set-up that IIRC doesn't take much to do) , Bob knows all. and the car seems pretty balanced to start with, in my admittedly limited exp... the full cage might fuck all that up, I dunno..

but I love mine and to me it's 70's nerdy cool.


I could say something like:

"It's a better starting point/un-modded car than a MK1/2 Escort for a small fraction of just the cost of shipping over a nice brit/euro Escort shell... "

= but I would never say that out loud because 'the Escort, and before it the Mini is the best small rally car ever made, it is the pinnacle of blah blah blahh' ... <driven by the Gods mind you>..

.. and I sir am no Jack Kennedy.. or Björn Waldegård

just want to be sideways bringing up the rear, lol.

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EvanB
In reply to Bob:

How close is the Quad 4 to the Cosworth engines? According the wikipedia they have a "Cosworth designed" head. 180 hp stock and bellhousings available for RWD transmissions as well as DCOE manifolds.

XE engine has a Cosworth designed head too, but the block is the GM SOHC (as in J body) with a different top end. Different from the Cosworth designed 2.4 "400" engine too. The ports on a Quad 4 are tiny by comparison.

I have a couple of twin cam XE heads in my barn I can take pics of.

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Opel is a 4-letter word...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/10498579@N07/sets/

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EvanB

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Yellowhammer

Nah, this kind of discussion is what I started this thread for. Otherwise it wouldn't move very fast since I don't work quickly.

ok kewl...

Don't you dare double-dog challenge me to a "who can take the longest dang time to get something done on your rally car... " contest, lol. You might lose that one.


I will make a Spec-Class Sloth look like a Funny Car.

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Yellowhammer
I could say something like:

"It's a better starting point/un-modded car than a MK1/2 Escort for a small fraction of just the cost of shipping over a nice brit/euro Escort shell... "

I've got a cool rally book from about 1981 and in it Walter Rohrl said that while the Fiats and Escorts he drove were great rally cars, they required a ton of non-stock mods to work that way. He said the Ascona A was so good in stock form it just needed good dampers and a strong engine to be a good rally car.

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Opel is a 4-letter word...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/10498579@N07/sets/

I gotta scan some pictures....

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Ascona73

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Yellowhammer
I could say something like:

"It's a better starting point/un-modded car than a MK1/2 Escort for a small fraction of just the cost of shipping over a nice brit/euro Escort shell... "

I've got a cool rally book from about 1981 and in it Walter Rohrl said that while the Fiats and Escorts he drove were great rally cars, they required a ton of non-stock mods to work that way. He said the Ascona A was so good in stock form it just needed good dampers and a strong engine to be a good rally car.

Ding! ...says the little voice in my head that doesn't nor will ever, ever... spend big money on a rallycross or rally project, short of me winning the redneck powerball crack...

Evan, go price some MK1/MK2 Escorts, Fiat Arbaths, just a BS replica of a Stratos, and the like and you will fall in love with just the potential of your project.. I did.

Not the sexiest thing at any event, but a car with some honest rallystage cred

175hp ecotec from a solstice will basically bolt in to the manta. Or you could go with a factory snail for another 50 to 75 with factory reliability.

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"Talk about drugs. Driving a car like that, going that fast, it’s like all the drugs at once." - Tommy Byrne

"Now, Pinky, if by any chance you are captured during this mission, remember you are Gunther Heindriksen from Appenzell. You moved to Grindelwald to drive the cog train to Murren. Can you repeat that?" - The Brain

This was the last Manta I worked on, an LS powered roundy round car run by Les Blackburn in the UK circa 1986.

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Yes, it's a Ranger.
Xr4Ti, it is rwd and was made in Germany.

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wvonkessler
175hp ecotec from a solstice will basically bolt in to the manta. Or you could go with a factory snail for another 50 to 75 with factory reliability.

I know of two such swaps. One turbo 2.0, one N/A 2.2. Both were a bitch, particularly the oil pan. Very tall engine, gotta notch the firewall too.

I prepped one oil pan for a friend's 2.2 swap, the other one got built from scratch (turbo version) by a shop and cost $1000 to build. I spent 8 hours fabricating/modifying and TIG welding the stock pan. It barely clears the rack and pinion.

http://flic.kr/p/ixTbW8

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Opel is a 4-letter word...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/10498579@N07/sets/



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/27/2015 08:34PM by Ascona73.

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Yellowhammer


Evan, go price some MK1/MK2 Escorts, Fiat Arbaths, just a BS replica of a Stratos, and the like and you will fall in love with just the potential of your project.. I did.

Not the sexiest thing at any event, but a car with some honest rallystage cred

Oh I certainly have. I loved my Mini but I just couldn't justify the money it would take to build it into what I wanted with my budget. I like playing with cars that have a cheaper buy in.

My rallycross Miata is a fairly low budget project and very competitive. I just wanted a cool older car to play with that could be competitive. The Miata also wouldn't make the greatest stage rally car.

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Ascona73

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Yellowhammer
I could say something like:

"It's a better starting point/un-modded car than a MK1/2 Escort for a small fraction of just the cost of shipping over a nice brit/euro Escort shell... "

I've got a cool rally book from about 1981 and in it Walter Rohrl said that while the Fiats and Escorts he drove were great rally cars, they required a ton of non-stock mods to work that way. He said the Ascona A was so good in stock form it just needed good dampers and a strong engine to be a good rally car.

If you read enough of what ,,da Woda'' says, you'll come to realise he speaks lots of
unglaublisch scheisse....

As much as I heart the cars, and I did sorta convince 4-5 guys to run them and supplied an awful lotta stuff.....this is Quatsch.....Gesamt Quatsch

Ascona and Manta A are basically good..The particular thing is they were GOOD and CHEAP, and when you could get a whole car for $150 and a core motor to build for $50, you could spend some money on them and have a BETTER CAR than the Japanese shit like 510s, 210s, RX2, RX3, RX7, Commoda-ah all with their hideous recirculating ball steering, tiny axles/diffs/halfshafts, no solution for shit steering, stupid long rocker, canted valve fucked up geomtry for anything but stock valve trains, no affordable alternate gears, no affordable alternate diff ratios..junk

However.

The A chassi had its faults. locally most of the cars began to split right up the middle in the tunnel up to the firewall.
The lower A arm is dumb cause its not a A---just look at the simple extra part zapped on to the same basic part on the B chassi to triangulate it---and nothing says you couldn't do sumpin like that on a A chassi..

In the Dubya Arsey, they really didn't do much---probably because the were Germans, and if somebody designed that non crossflow head and said "alles in ordnung männer!'' then who is anybody to say ''Aber Herr Ingenieur er läuft wie Scheiße, ''
The prper cars had quick racks---and I supplied them locally, they had real brakes, real clutches, real gears, Big Axles, strengthening, all the normal stuff...

At the WRC level EVERYTHING REQUIRED lotsa on non-stock stuff regardless of what ,,da Woda" hat gesagt

And they were STOMPED by Escorts in Group 4 and faded to clubbie level
Ascona B especially went on to be a great car, but it took that crazy 2400 DOHC 400 thing to beat a 2,000cc Ford. Their aluminum crossflow head was typical of the time German shit just like BMW 8v 70s and early 80s shit with virtually no quench pads, open chamber...shit and detonation prone----wie immer!

And then they faded....

And the Escort continued on even now capable of getting into top 25 in times on a Dubya Aresey event.

So let's not get toooooooooooooooooooooooooooo over the top in the Ascona-Manta-lurv-fest...

it doesn't make the fun you'll have in this one any more funner-er-er.

---

John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

W, like this? :

ecotech 2.4 ?

190 hp mo betta, but damn, that get pretty pricy adding a $1600 harness , but complete and with ecu etc, low-mile, used from a scrapper.... hmmm. that could be a darkhorse candidate.

never too early to start building a 3rd motor? yay. lol.

I'm not anti-snail, but to me that usually reduces driveability and reliability, of which I suffer with on most my cheap-o rx builds. and for me this car was never about going super-duper fast, but actuaaly building a fun solid car that i can go sideways a lot and have a grin on my face.....

however, 170-200hp with a NA somewhat periodlookin piece with washingmachine reliable power that approaches 3x the power of a stock 1,9 CIH ... im waay interested.
assuming I get a proper lsd and can make the chassis handle it right..



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/27/2015 10:28PM by Yellowhammer.

don't poop on the luvfest JVL, nobody is saying it's an Xratty or a Volvo heehee.



Bob, post a link to the thread where you did the front susp on the rallyturd sedan- I'd really like to read and discuss that again... that was Kewl and I want to do some front beam strength-enin..

I even got a free (from a car)/loose extra Manta front beam dropped out of Harold's Opel graveyard. My friend Edwin in Birmingham (not england, lol) has the eventual I hope motor on the engine stand waiting for the cyl head or any cyl head, and the xtra front beam, waiting for a plan to box it or whatever and a welder to play with. I want to throw this extra front beam up on the table and copy some of your gussets.

and that oil pan is pimp.

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Yellowhammer


don't poop on the luvfest JVL, nobody is saying it's an Xratty or a Volvo heehee.



Bob, post a link to the thread where you did the front susp on the rallyturd sedan- I'd really like to read and discuss that again... that was Kewl and I want to do some front beam strength-enin..

I even got a free (from a car)/loose extra Manta front beam dropped out of Harold's Opel graveyard. My friend Edwin in Birmingham (not england, lol) has the eventual I hope motor on the engine stand waiting for the cyl head or any cyl head, and the xtra front beam, waiting for a plan to box it or whatever and a welder to play with. I want to throw this extra front beam up on the table and copy some of your gussets.

Not poopin on it, I lurved these cars long before all y'all, and I'm not speaking of THE CARS....
(I mean ferchristsakes I was running a Saab V4 specialty shop and had built motors for and outfitted all these Old-piles and Rat-soon 510s, I mean we have to have some standards Harumph!)

Come on guys can't y'all tell the difference between a comment about Röhl the notorious shit-talker and the car?

I even suggested a really smrat thing that could be explored----what the bottom arm difference A chassi to B chassi so that the A chassi works better...

---

John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.