Paul thomas dutton s3 1.8 turbo

[Paul Thomas]

Hi ! to all my fellow enthusiasts, I would like to thank you all on your comments about my dutton. The original plan was to buy 1 dutton and 1 nissan 200sx and put the 2 to gether. Best laid plans rarely work and only the engine and gearbox was used as at this time I wanted a quick project. The dutton was striped to a bare chassis, the chassis then had  2 x box member replaced, The engine was put in place so engine mounts could fabricated, The gear box cross member was made removeable and some guset welded in. Then I decided to ditch the rear leaf springs and opted to 5 link the rear axal, Now the chassis was striped back to bare metal and treated to 1 coat red oxide 1 coat of 2 pack primer and 2 coats 2k red top coat. The rear axal was canged from escort to capri atlas. The front has had full rebuild with new ball joints, adjustable TCA s and fully polly bushed, A new 2.4 quick rack was also fitted. The brakes  are all new from the master cylinder to the pads. It has dic brakes all round. It has Gaz ciol over shockers fitted all round.

Now it was time to tackle the boby work, not somthing I was looking forward to but had to be done, When I brought the car it had a essex V6 fitted ( very badly ) and the bulkhead and the transmission tunnel had been hacked out, I fabricated and fitted the new transmision tunnel and bulkhead moveing it back 5 inches, this made more room down by the pedals.

Now I cut the box 's out behind the seat what used to house the old leaf springs and made good with fibre glas matting.

This allowed the seats to be moved back. The fuel tank I used was from a Fiesta 1.3 mpm and so I had to modify the boot floor to accept this.The rear light was converted to round lights from a fiat coupe. A dash panal had to be fabricated frim scratch and originaly I was going to use the instrument cluster from the nissan but onced in place I did not like it so moved onto the current format.The bonnet was also in a poor state so I decided to chop off the front wheel arches. It took a great deal of time to decide what I was going to do but got there in the end. Once the body work was preped and painted it was time to assemle the car for the final time,

This was the good bit the chassis has all the suspension ,steering, brakes and engine and gearbox fitted and now was rolling. The body tub was fitted and it started to look like a dutton again. Next came the wireing , I started with the nissan loom which I had striped back to the basic engine loom but during the wiring I made a cookup and managed to burn out the ECU, I riped out all the wireing and decided to buy the emerald engine management and all new thinwall wires, this timeall went well. I had to make changes like the fitting of crank trigger, coil and map sensor but when the engine started for the first time it was the boost I needed.

All the lights were fitted then the cockpit was carpeted and seats fitted. At this time the car was 99.9% complete .

Time for the first test drive and all went well, I came back and connected the laptop and alterd the fueling and then thats was it.  Car M.O.T  , Tax  and 800 miles in the first year

It now got group 4 escort alloy radiator and a 16" eletric fan, a dump valve, a boost control valve and an uprated fuel pump. I am looking forward to 2011 as I have the need for speed.

[Dave Adams]

He did a two page article on my car at Stafford two years ago and then gave it another full page the next month. It is nice to have your car in the kitcar mags.

Also why dont you do an article for the club mag (if your a member) or if not (and as well) post it to MrG's forum.

[Adrian Southgate]

Seconded.

Another bar raised by many notches

I certainly won't be trying to chase you to Stoneleigh down the M69. I'm certain Mike is right about the article too.

[Dave Price]

That is a truely inspirational car.  Thanks for the blog, it gives a good insight to the build.  Fantastic