I have been pretty busy lately, with school and finals, but it's been almost one month since I purchased my lovely 88 XR4Ti. It's about time to dedicate a build thread to it, because knowing myself, even if the car runs great as it is, there is going to be some kind of build anyways.
But first things first, how did I even end up with a Merkur? (For those who want to skip the intro + story of my life, you can go straight to the next post)Me and Cars, a Story
Neither my dad nor any of my friends have ever been into cars, so that passion I have is definitely something that evolved within the last few years, or since i've had my license, really (i'm 22). Also, living in a big city with awful roads and traffic, I have been used to biking or just commuting. Therefore, I have no problem with my car being a pure summer toy, as long it is somewhat fast, unique, and with a character that brings a smile to my face. For the love of the targa top, the first car I bought was a MK3 Supra, which ended up being a piece of junk, and died before I even went through a single tank of fuel... About a year later, and with a lot more savings, I bought another one, the cleanest I could find, a low mileage 88. I had a blast driving it for about a year, until I did something stupid and blew the headgasket. I have always been good with my hands but I had never repaired a car before, and knew nobody to teach me the mechanics. Yet, I decided to go for it and fix the motor, in my parents driveway, with basic tools and a repair manual. This, is when I got hooked to cars! You can actually repair them and make them perfect to your liking! Needless to say, I went extensive on that build. Took me a month and a half, full time. All back to original specs, but clean and perfect. That was the car I was supposed to keep for 20+ years.
Since then, I can't stop working cars, I just love it. I rebuilt as much on that supra as I could afford. All until last September, one afternoon, on my way back from school. One distracted driver : my car (and certainly his) got totaled. My insurance quoted 18k worth of repairs to the car. I could have repaired it, but by the time I had kind of gotten tired of supras. I saw all these other cars that I could be trying out instead. While I settled everything with the insurance, I had the whole winter to look for a new toy. I probably saw the XR4Ti on bring-a-trailer (http://bringatrailer.com/2012/10/11/sie ... kur-xr4ti/) around October but though nothing of it, at first, except that it had one huge spoiler! I later got a check from my insurance (insured one way, not responsible, my premium didn't even get affected) for about what I could have sold the supra for, which ends up being a good deal for me. One night, looking at cars, I got curious about the one with the huge spoiler. Read about it, turns out it's a neat little car that has been forgotten by many. Was about 1/4 of the price of the porshes I was looking at. There is going to be some custom making obsolete parts : I love that. I bought the Merkur.
Now as a kind of side note, there is also another car to the story. I always knew I would end up studying Mechanical Engineering, which I now have only one year left of
. During my second year of the program, a friend and my growing enthusiasm for cars got me into a great competition called Formula SAE (A student race car design competition), for those who know it. Actually, that friend was setting up a team to build an electric car to compete in the new electric series. We finished our first car last summer and raced it in Germany. Yes, there is a whole team behind it, but I like to think, that I have put enough work into it to call it mine... Anyways, here would be my other car project, which is still going on, since we need to build another car for summer 2014. All the parts on that electric racer being of custom design and fabrication, you can see why I don't see obsolete parts as a problem. Hehe. Having easy access to mills and a buch of other tools is pretty great!
That really isn't an engine mod is it ? 
I asked him about headlights....... $500. Bonne chance!
. Part of it is that I put most of my time prepping the FSAE car and team for our competition 2 weeks ago. Now that FSAE season is over, it's all towards the Merkur and things should move faster. Also, I have been battling with the front cosworth F/G replica bumper, that the previous owner had gotten shortened and cheaply installed. I am trying to save it all, even though it will still have the below the grill fit. I finished mounting the fog and turn lamps inside it and am pleased with the results. Its all SS custom brackets and hardware : no more goop or glue. I also re-fitted the RS500 lip properly with rivets.
. Went for a tarmac ride on twisty country roads. The car held strongly, nice handling. Could do with a little more power, though. Surprisingly good gas mileage, a great little car. At some point, I ended on a gravel road, I didn't want to push it too much, but it seemed to handle really well on it.
. Now, I have to make the best of it, and it's giving me kind of a hard time. 
. And I made sure to wire in the faceplate illunimation also!
