Board logo

What's my car worth?
MartynF - 12/9/18 at 08:59 AM

Hi all

Looking for opinions on roughly what my car could be worth, as the prices of these seem tricky to predict!

It's a recent, good quality build, but by an unknown builder, with no receipts, or build photos etc. I bought it off the person who bought it off the builder. No V5 from donor car.
Neither of those 2 used the car, and so it's literally done 2 (trouble free) track days, with 180 miles on the clock.

Not road legal.
1600 Pinto engine with rear exit exhaust and weber carbs. Rear axle is Cortina rather than the usual Escort.

My issue is the pace of the car - it's a bit too slow for my liking (60 mph average laptime at Snetteron with 85mph top speed - and no, it's not my driving lol!).

So I'm deciding whether to keep it and tune/swap the engine, and make it road legal, or sell and get a faster road legal Locost/GBS/Westfield!














cliftyhanger - 12/9/18 at 09:30 AM

No expert on this value stuff, but a few things seem to stick out:
1. Cars that are not road legal have limited appeal
2. People who want trackday cars usually want something quick

The cheapest way to more power would be stick a zetec in it, approx double the power for £1000? and take off what you sell the current engine for.

Plan B would be IVA it if viable, then sell or do an engine swap. But if you planned to IVA, definitely keep existing engine for that.

BTW those times seem quite slow, is the engine set up correctly? A session on the rollers can make a huge difference.


MartynF - 12/9/18 at 09:52 AM

Thanks for the thoughts Clifty, rolling road is a good shout. Handling is spot on, just a bit gutless!

2m 55 around Snetterton 300 (hence approx. 60mph avg).


mark chandler - 12/9/18 at 10:48 AM

A 1600cc pinto will never ever be fast.... A 2000cc pinto will be better, quick not fast so junk it for a later Zetec or duratec and triple the power.

I,m afraid whatever you spend on cams, carbs rolling roads etc it will never really get going.

What's it worth, whatever you paid for it I guess, couple of thousand maybe? A modern engine will improve its saleability maybe not the value so much as most cars will be Zetec powered by now.

[Edited on 12/9/18 by mark chandler]


mark chandler - 12/9/18 at 11:33 AM

A 1600cc pinto will never ever be fast.... A 2000cc pinto will be better, quick not fast so junk it for a later Zetec or duratec and triple the power.

I,m afraid whatever you spend on cams, carbs rolling roads etc it will never really get going, that said a 1.6 cortina would do 100mph, it has 2.0 carb on it so could be a GT engine 88bhp - so maybe check the cam belt has is not a notch out, Bob weights in the distributor are free etc, personally I would not put £200 into a rolling road tune, maybe £30 for a power shoot out to see if it's making what it should.

What's it worth, whatever you paid for it I guess, couple of thousand maybe? A modern engine will improve its saleability maybe not the value so much as most cars will be Zetec powered by now.

[Edited on 12/9/18 by mark chandler]



MartynF - 12/9/18 at 03:05 PM

quote:
Originally posted by mark chandler
A 1600cc pinto will never ever be fast.... A 2000cc pinto will be better, quick not fast so junk it for a later Zetec or duratec and triple the power.

I,m afraid whatever you spend on cams, carbs rolling roads etc it will never really get going, that said a 1.6 cortina would do 100mph, it has 2.0 carb on it so could be a GT engine 88bhp - so maybe check the cam belt has is not a notch out, Bob weights in the distributor are free etc, personally I would not put £200 into a rolling road tune, maybe £30 for a power shoot out to see if it's making what it should.

What's it worth, whatever you paid for it I guess, couple of thousand maybe? A modern engine will improve its saleability maybe not the value so much as most cars will be Zetec powered by now.

[Edited on 12/9/18 by mark chandler]



Hi Mark

Good guess, we paid £2k!

The carb was something we changed (so it's not a full GT engine), but you make a good point ref 1.6 Cortina's doing 100mph.

I like the idea of a £30 bhp check - are there any power shoot out that you know of in the East Midlands?


perksy - 12/9/18 at 04:25 PM

2 litre Zetec and a pair of twin weber 45 DCOE's ??

But firstly Work out the cost of conversion against what it will cost to change the car
It *might* be cheaper in the long run to change the car, but that'll depend on how much you can/want to do yourself?

As said above a non road registered car is always only going to interest a small section of prospective buyers


big_wasa - 12/9/18 at 04:29 PM

My 1.8 pinto would only just top 90. But it was a lot of fun. Trouble is you upgrade one thing and the next item in the chain needs doing.