hey,
im thinking of buying the GTS dion, looked at the website and am mainly in the £1995 starter kit - could anyone by any chance, give me some idea as to how much the completed cost (i already have a donor sierra) for the bare essentials, as would like to upgrade the car as i can afford as i am still a student with a very limited budget.
Ive sent GTS an email, but they havent replied yet - anyone know roughly how long waiting times are for the kit?
Also, is there much demand for CAD or FEA (flow visualisation) skills around these parts?
cheers
Tom

Hi Tom,

I have now sent you a reply regarding the costs and other questions you asked.

Basic message is the skies the limit on costs, it all depends on how many parts off the donor you are prepared to fit without reconditioning etc.

You can have a driveable/steerable GTS for £1950. Then you need seats, possible guages unless you use the donor cars, lights and cabling, fuel tank and pipework, brake pipe work etc..

Lead time on a kit is about 3 weeks at the moment, will probably come down to around two in the coming months.

Kind regards,
Darren

Hi all,
I too am interested in the GTS dion, I am at a stage of thinking about it at the moment, I havent even got a donor yet... Darren, you mentioned that you could have a driveable car for the price of the starter kit, plus the "niceties"... As I am yet to get a doner, in your mind what would be the best option in terms of year and engine size? I would like to put a 2L pinto in, is this a "good" engine?

ATB

Gareth

Re Pinto-yes they are good engines, plenty available in scrappys. I'd go for the 2 litre, plus if you get an injection lump its unleaded too. Either use the injection setup or bolt on some twin 40/45's are better, nice fast road cam kit and your away. Tuning parts for the Pinto are widely available but some parts can be a little pricey-ie alloy sumps are going for up to £100 now. If it goes bang-pick yourself up another scrap sierra, use the engine and sell on any useful parts to kit builders-you should get most of the money back!! Only downside is they are heavy lumps.

Hope that helps.

i used a pinto engine with my self built chassis, mainly cos its a heavy chassis so theres no point in saving weight on the engine. If i buy a nice light prof chassis in the future i will get a good bike engine for it.

JoelP

You could always move over to the "Dark Side" and install a "Rice Burner"!!!!
The Toyota 4AGE motor is reasonably light in both 16V & 20V configurations.
They give very good power to weight ratio & can rev...... nearly as well as a bike,
but with more torque!!
You pays yer money etc. etc.

Cheers. Ken.

check with Darren. I think he has a 2 liter Zetec in the shop.

Tom,
Keep it simple till you are SVA'd and use whatever the Sierra comes fitted with, as long as it is ok of course!

Tom,
Pinto engined Sierra's don't seem to be so common as those with the 18CVH....but at least the CVH has the exhaust pipe the same side as the Zetec so any future plan to change would be much easier....no cutting more holes or buying more side panels!

Mark