Hello Anders, thank You a lot for Your compliments. The car was standing there for more than 4 years, because of damaged engine. But I was a big fortune for me, because in may 2006 I have sold my Murena 2,2 (which I bought as a wreck and after 4 years it was looking like new car - one collectioner bought it for his Museum of Sport Cars) and I was thinking what to buy for 5000,-Eur. I was thinking for more than one week, but in the end I decided to buy Murena again! But it didn't make sense to buy "normall" 2,2 again, so I was searching 2,2S. I haven't money to buy some S Murena for 8 - 12000 Eur, so I needed to find a car with engine problem which is easy to repair and will have low price. And at least I wanted never crashed one, only! Really hard job to find one when only 480 units was made
But just in June, I found one for 1500,-Eur on the autoscout.de! And when I came to look at the car, I found that it has the Spax suspension!
So I imported the car into the Czech Rep. and started with renovation. Cylinder head I bought from Jurgen Roterberg (who is the best man for spare parts and my good friend !!! ) in Germany, cylinder block with pistons are from my frined who crashed hard his Tagora, but the engine had cca 5000km after complete renovation. Camshaft was renovated by Fony from Belgium, new followers, valves, valve springs, bearings, piston rods, etc. I bought from Mr.Dobes who has huge stock of spare parts for Chrysler 160/180/2Litres/Tagora and he is renovating these cars for more than 20 years. Renovation of crankshaft and cyl.head was done by one specialist near Prague. So I think that the engine is now really new and that we made a perfekt job. Costs were: 150,-E for engine block with pistons, 200,-E for cyl.head, cca 200,-E for camshaft renovation, 400,-E for crankshaft and cyl.head renovation, cca 150,-E for next works, and cca 50,- for small parts arround. 40,-E for renovation of alternator and starter.
At the same time, I demounted wheels (sand blasted them), front spoiler and rear bumper and drove them to the painter. Tomorrow the wheels will be ready and this weekend we will put the engine into the car. Than I will transport it to the electrician, who will control the wholle electrics, control lamps, water cooler fan, batery charging, etc. and will install the alarm system (which is really important in Czech Republic
).
Luckily there were mounted brand new brake calipers, brake discs, master brake cylinder in 1999, so brakes don't need the renovation, clutch slave cylinder I have new from Jurgen, and ball joints are looking good at this moment.
Adjustment of carburetors will be done by some firm which is adjusting motorcycle carburetors.
So I hope that this spring the car will be finished and I really am looking forward to some Matra meeting in Germany. Are You going to go for some meetings?
I have one friend who have Chevy Camaro with 330PS engine and he thinks that he can beat my Matra on Most circuit
he he... Two years we were there - me with my 2,2 Murena and he with his old engine 220PS and it was really funny
nobody was able to catch me with Murena on those circuit. I was much faster than Camaro, and also one man with Skoda Octavia RS tried to follow me, but after few corners he was far beyond me. But it took me some time than I learned how to be fast in curves. The biggest mistake is to release the throttle pedal in curve in high speed. You must to hold the same possition or little press and balance it with steering wheel. Than You make a little drifting but You don't leave Your way. When You become afraid and release the throttle, the rear part of the car will go around You and You will slide like on ice.
But I am looking forward new experiences with Spax suspension. The car is really hard and doesn't make any tilting.
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