Right chaps, I have finally got off me arse and managed to take some snaps of me new car on Monday, so I thought I should start an MMC.

Its a Rover 420SLDi, it has the beautiful (if a little noisy as its not a commonrail) Rover L-Series SDi engine, which means it is my first diesel. Has all electrics etc and has only done 81k (which lets face it, is nout for a diesel), with an almost full dealer service history, and feels amazing to drive.

I have wanted a Rover 400 for ages, dunno why, just have liked them for a while. My insurance is costing me nothing extra on it, so it was either get a 416 or a 420 SDi, with the 1.6 K-Series prone to HGF, I though id steer clear and get an SDi.

Erm I suppose I should be correct, is it a Rover or a Honda? Thats for you to decide. The car is a Honda Civic. The engine is a Rover. The same engine Honda used in the late 90's derv Civic. The badge and the grill is a Rover. So its kinda a Honda in sheeps clothing as I like to call it.

Anyway, here is photos of the baa baa, ill get better ones in the next few weeks:







I am not making to mods too extreme as I dont think it will suit the car. I have bought the car for the ride quality and the comfort etc, a lot of mods will be under the bonnet but I will be doing some mods over the next year:

- De-orange the indicators
- Rear spoiler, only a small one
- TuneAM Pro TU1 Pro Tuning Box
- De-catting it
- EGR Valve bypass
- MG ZR/ZS alloys (the closespokes ones)
- "Possibly" MG ZS springs to lower it a bit
- Increase the boost to 19psi
- ITG Performance Air Filter

Im hoping to be pushing at least 130bhp/260nm after the performance mods, anything over this is a bonus but quite easily achieveable.

Spent the last week touching up some imperfections on the passenger wing and the bumpers.

Have seen this car and i like it, Its got the 5 door civic look to it

Nice car mate, look after it

Bravo_Sean

Hehe I intend to, im not Scott yano

yes it is a nice car mat but i wasn to pleased wid the two dodgey chracters u got it off lmao but all in all it was a good buy

lol yeah they were a bit weird

abit weird thats an understatment if i ever seen one more like they made me look normal

lol nah they wernt that bad. He left the keys for the garage n all da other cars in me car tho n had to come n get em haha

make it look like the mg zs and put the 180hp engine in while your there! looks ok, i loved the look of the face lift ones............till rover went bust.

Id love to do MkII ZS headlight conversion, think they look mint, but its hard to do on the 400, the 45 is easier to do.

very nice.

looks clean and tidy.

when are you planning to do your mods?

Over the next year, hopefully before the summer for the majority of them.

Im 50/50 on the ZS springs due to cost rand dunno whether to decat, knock out the inards or just leave it as it is yet.

If I were you, I wouldnt bother lowering it or decatting it.

I just dont think it would suit it.

The other mods sound good though

Well the biggest performace gain will be from the TU1 (at least 20bhp+) so the decat isnt needed to hit my desired power figure, but its such a cheap and easy mod and can give a few extra bhp.

The ZS springs dont lower it too much (just enough to look better then the 400/45 ride height) but retain the majority of the ride quality, which is important to me. I think the car would look better from the off with ZS alloys on though, doubt it would benefit much from both alloys and springs.

I dont know much about cars but i had to look twice at that photo.. Cause it does look like a honda hehe.. Nice car matty very neat.

Yep does look like the Honda, moreso from the back and the interior as the front is quite distinguishable cos the lights and grill.

Cheers fella

yes i agree wid the whole honda concept of the look but still looks smart for a rover

good choice in car there fella can see why you ave always wanted one the comfort and the quality is great and the short time i drove it wen ya first got it it felt smooth on the bumps and easy on the steerin a real nice car to drive

Heh yeah the ride is really good on it, one of the reasons I went after the 400. I always remember one of the ads that were out in 1996 or summit, only cos they were to do with Nasa and I was into all the space exploration stuff at the time lol.

Found the ad the other day:

[youtube]JVLaL8biryE[/youtube]
The big question is, what the hell is 2.06 lmao

wouldn ave the foggiest wot 2.06 is but lmao at the gezzas hair wots goin on

What was it, £21,000 Brand new ?

lmao for a rover

Summit in that region for the SLDi iirc. Maybe not that much tbh, ill check with Parkers lol.

Before BMW got ahold of Rover, they used to portray themselves as a more upmarket manufacturer then the likes of Vaux and Ford, the build quality was certainly much better, but they also priced the cars accordingly lol. So despite the better build quality and far more powerful engines, the sales figures were never as good as they could have been.

i will agree on the iv always wanted the 820 vitesse lol but then i ended up wid a mondeo lol were did i go wrong lmao

Nah it wasnt that high, according to Parkers, (based on 1997 P reg) the SLDi was only around £17,000, the GSDi was only like £18,000 ffs, dunno who got the £21k from on the MG Rover forums lol. Still it was fairly expensive for the time I suppose.

Wow, why is the SLDi so much easier to get ahold of when compared to the GSDi, for the extra £1k they could have had cruise control, heated seats etc... £1k for warm arse on a frozen morning sounds much better lol.

Ive never been a fan of the 800 series, but thats only because I dont really like my cars "too" big, the 400 is about as big as ill go.

Did like the 600, was very modern for its time (mind you that was basically a redesigned Honda Accord), and if I were an older person, id love a Rover 75 MkII, they look mint imho!

lmao mate trust me heated seats are not the future me dad has them in his car and yes there good but after a while they just become a novelty i personally dont like them probs cos u get that snug and warm u tend to fall asleep at the wheel

looool you always fall asleep anyway, you usually are asleep lmao!

lol

looks tidy matty, mods you got planned sound good too ! nice buy !

Cheers mate, am made up with it so far. Tis a pleasure to drive. One or two niggles, but nothing too major. Come off the Biodiesel now as it was a bit hard to start in the frozen mornings and it started absolutely fine today (the first time the tank has been almost free of Biodiesel).

I was thinking it could have been the glow plugs, but by rights the SDi, shouldnt actually need glow plugs to start really. Most people on the MG Rover forums, even with more modern versions of the intercooled L-series engine found in the 45/ZS (which technically should be harder to cold start without glow plugs), start their cars straight away without waiting for the glow plug light to pi$$ off lol.

I intend to keep it a good few years, hence why I made sure it had a decently low mileage and good service history. I hope it does me proud lol. Lets see how good/crap Rover really was before the BMW ... got ahold of them and raped them...

Me and Rhys fitted a boost gauge today, wasnt too hard, but took a while to get the part's we needed lol.

Work's a treat, but havent properly fitted into the interior as yet, either gonna get a pod, or Rhys is gonna make a holder for the place I got it atm. Will get some photo's of it tomoz and when I eventually decide how to place it into the interior.

We were going to place it into the dashboard but I didnt fancy making a large hole in it lol.