JB,
Fortunately for the sake of the delicate balance of world politics, I have enough spare paint left over to do 3-4 more complete Europas in this colour.
Clifton,
I am running AR-1s.
More Details,
When I came across it in 2019, the car had been stuck in an old semi trailer for almost 40 years. The plate attached had a 1980 registration sticker. According to the original owner, he had removed the interior to refresh it (complete with gold shag carpet) then got sidetracked with family and business and never put the interior back together, eventually pushing the whole thing into the aforementioned trailer behind his mechanic shop. As noted above, it is a early S2. Chassis number 54/0678 so I guess that makes this the 33rd S2. It retains its numbers matching 1470cc Renault wedge engine to which I've fitted the RD Enterprises header and a DCOE manifold that came in the box of parts.
The manifold is a bit of a mystery it dose not resemble either a Hermes or Else. Unlike those two which seem to swan neck upwards, this one comes off the block at a fairly low angle, to the point that the DCOE sits under the unmodified coolant pipe location. An advantage in that the fuel charge has a much straighter run to the combustion chambers, and one doesn't need to creatively reroute the coolant pipe, but a disadvantage in clearance to the hot headers. I've mitigated the later by wrapping the header and fabricating a heat shield under the carburetor. Without the shield, upon shutdown the carburetor would heat soak and the fuel would rise up and pour out of the throats. A bit of a scary situation, but fortunately not one which resulted in disaster, just a puckered bum. Carburetor doesn't get hot anymore.
