March 6th? Meet at the Darlaston inn ST15 0PX have a run through the tunnel up the A50 then a drive aronud the peaks then stop off at a nice pub for a bite too eat and a beer

I'm a possible. I won't be working that weekend, but with Spa, the Midlands meet coming up and everything else, I'm rather skint at the moment

I'll buy you a beer T

Lol, ok, I'll be there

I'll just have to wait and see for now and let you know nearer the time.

No worries T.

yep i'm a definitely for this, great drive and pub last year Paul. same again please!!!

come on T, he's buying you a beer i'll buy you lunch!!!

Lol, just need someone to pay for fuel now

Only joking lol. I'll be there if I can, as I missed this run last year, so would be good to do it this year.

it really is a great run on good roads, and last year included the tunnels in stoke (all the better to hear my exhaust)

Proccy you can go last through the tunnel so I can here mine :-)

i did last time, it was lucifers mingaro you could hear

What time about ?

i think we met about 10.30, maybe 11am then Paul took us through some great roads to a lovely little pub with good grub.....

im up for this one

1. Porkypaul
2. Proccy
3. Theresa - maybe
4. Carlito

Any more?

1. Porkypaul
2. Proccy
3. Theresa - maybe
4. Carlito
5. Liquid - Possible

I'd love to make this but like theresa with spa looming its a maybe I'm afraid.


1. Porkypaul
2. Proccy
3. Theresa - maybe
4. Carlito
5. Liquid - Possible
6. mayzon - maybe

This is a possibility for me and will confirm the week before if that's ok?

1. Porkypaul
2. Proccy
3. Theresa - maybe
4. Carlito
5. Liquid - Possible
6. mayzon - maybe
7. Rob40 - to confirm

Erm,
am i allowed.???
Bad things happen on my meets.

That's fine Rob.

Johnny you don't need too ask, see you there.

Good sh17.
Best get my gearbox fitted quick then.And no overtaking

gentle throttle.Behave.(boring)

I may be along to this one Will it be a decent drive?

It'll be a good hour drive, but I might have too get the mrs too drive mine as I might have broke my thumb, x ray in the morning will confirm

sorry to hear that Paul, be a slow one then

Lol just got back from the hospital it's not broke, I've only dislocated it so should be ok.

so what time then?

About 10.30-11.00 at the Darlaston inn at Meaford,Stone. ST15 0PX

1. Porkypaul
2. Proccy
3. Theresa - maybe
4. Carlito
5. Liquid - Possible
6. mayzon - maybe
7. Rob40 - to confirm
8. JBT

1. Porkypaul
2. Proccy
3. Theresa - maybe
4. Carlito
5. Liquid - Possible
6. mayzon - maybe
7. Rob40 - to confirm
8. JBT


I'll have to give this a miss, sorry

Im up for this meet... dont know if ill be in broomy or porto though as jbt doing some bits on broomy on friday, and ive a spring to replace Proccy the broomys as loud as yours now i bet

nice one, we sould be making some sweet sounds sunday then!!

Should be good just hope the weather will be kind.

On the way past does anyone fancy calling in the alfa dealer take a look at the 8C?

Working Sunday now so Im out

So far, so good for this meet but will confirm for definitely on friday. Need to spend a couple of hrs on the rollers to tweak the bottom end of the map as the bigger injectors need fine tuning at low revs but hopefully will try and get this sorted before then.

According to google maps direction thingy, 160mls, 2hrs 42mins and est fuel cost of £28.52

hopefully i'll be ok for this, being sick as a dog at the moment

Is that because of all the celebrating you've been doing?

May be up for this one

no mate that was sunday/monday/tuesday - this is probably something off the pesky kids

No good Steve.

Std mate ?????


Im still going.Will take my time though as the gearbox feels a little fragile

1. Porkypaul
2. Proccy
3. Speedy
4. Carlito
5. JBT
6. mayzon - maybe
7. Rob40 - to confirm

I'm in guys, and my petrol-head 12yr old daughter is coming too

1. Porkypaul
2. Proccy
3. Speedy
4. Carlito
5. JBT
6. mayzon - maybe
7. Rob40+Sofia

1. Porkypaul
2. Proccy
3. Speedy
4. Carlito
5. JBT
6. mayzon - maybe
7. Rob40+Sofia
8. Sam

See you there Ladies..

Have fun everyone and enjoy your day

typical just been out give the levels a check and noticed the aux belt is all chewed up! This car is really testing my blood pressure!

Just as well you noticed it now I suppose Paul.

Yeah true, it's fraying on the cambelt side so just praying it hasn't gone in the cambelt!

Cambelt *should* be ok, if the aux belt is only fraying. Nothing should have really strayed in there, hopefully.

What are you going to do now? Get a lift from someone or abandon the meet?

Maybe someone could tow you through the tunnels? Proccy won't mind

Just picked this up while we've just stopped for a brekkie.
Paul I'm only an hr away so will swing by yours.

Hope you get things sorted, Paul. That car seems determined to try your patience

I was hoping to sneak across today, in the Westie, but was keeping deliberately quiet on here as the car has been in bits for the past few weeks.
I've been doing various winter jobs on it. And it's still got no seats or roll bar in.

Hope you have a great day ... I was looking forward my first tunnel run in the Westie

Fingers crossed the motor is intact matey

Seen you drive down lightwood road about 11.30 was on my driveway polishing and waxing mine :-)

saw you too matey, should have turned round and joined us

eventful meet;

kudos to porkypaul for organising it again, we were lucky with the weather all day although it was very cold if you got out (which we did many times).

some big powered coops from the forum were there - Nigel, JBT and Rob especially. good to see them!

JBT and Paul fixed the fraying belt and off we went - tunnels, alfa 8c competizione and stoke were soon behind us and some excellent stuff going on along the A50 to uttoxeter. those coops sound lovely boys

oh, we saw sandytim too who has modified his coop and plans further stuff

drove some stunning roads out towards leek and lower peak area, but the best bit for me was the drive up to the cat and fiddle from leek, absolutely excellent road ruined only by traffic and average speed cameras

nice lunch, found 2 chavs writing stuff in the dust on my car and they WILL be suffering for that - and so onwards to buxton along some more excellent roads and met up with Johnny who had experienced some serious bad luck at the previous mids meet.

unfortunately SpeedyGonzales suffered the CHOD failure so prevalent lately as we were heading towards ashbourne, but luckily JBT was on hand to try and rectify what he could - i'm not sure if there's any serious damage yet, but i really hope not, he's one of the good guys

special thanks and mention must go again to JBT who seems to spend most of these meets fixing people's cars!! nice one mate

lovely to see you all again, and thanks for a great day

Great to meet up with you guys again, old faces and new, and a big thanks to Paul for organising a great day out, the roads were a blast to drive.
Well worth the trip from up North, but then again, i don't need much persuasion

Speedy, i hope you managed to get home ok.
You were very fortunate that Nigel spotted the leak so soon and managed to flag you down so quickly, it could have been much worse.

Hats off to JBT for his help with Paul and Speedy's cars, must be due for some kind of meet award soon!

Nigel, a pleasure to finally meet up with you. Thanks for the kind comments regarding the car, and as for it feeling 'almost German', i'll definitely take that as a compliment

I'll be up for this one again, Sofia said so

Huge thanks to JBT for coming too my rescue again! And big thanks too Rob for his help and coming down for this.

Fantasic too see everyone again, big surprise too see Nigel and Tim at the pub.

Loved the tunnel and the cat and fiddle rd was great!

Hope you got back ok Speedy?

Great day for it guys..very jealous..
Maybe next time when the coupe's back on the road.

Had a great day,some nice driving roads and stunning scenery.

Was nice again the distance travelled by Speedy from barnsley and especially Rob from carlisle.

Speedy took my car back home and i have got his at mine.Car drives well and im confident theres no issues at all so well done to Nigel who spotted the steam from the car.

Thanks to Paul for organising it and for smashing my Fog light .

See most of you at Donington next week

Got car back to jbt's for check over and silicone hose kit fitting paul... Big THANKS to nigel for spotting steam coming out of back of car and stopping me striaght away .

Jbt for repairing hose and johnny for following me with jbt to leicester

And paul for sorting me some coolant to get car back to jbt's

Looks like i owe a few beers here

and you still reckon yours sounds as good as mine speedy????

can't wait to see/hear Nigels' sons' clips

Hope he's got a video of my chod letting go eh proccy

Proccy your's sounds the mutt's nuts mate

oh mate, my heart sunk when porky told me what had happened - i really hope you managed to catch it in time it's a lovely car


@ Rob - cheers mate, i've still never heard it properly myself, only from inside it which isn't quite the same....yours sounds as good as it looks too, and that torque!!!! you caught me up like i was parked!!

I've driven your car before proccy, so will do again one day if you like, so you can hear it from the outside. Didn't realise you'd never heard it properly yourself. I'll do some laps around Burton for you, while you stand outside a pub or Maccys

Yes, agree that Robs is an amazing car and you really have to keep looking in your wing and rear view mirrors when out on a run with him

Just transferring the video content to a memory card so Matthew can play around with some editing - definitely got a few seconds of Speedy's CHOD going, although by that time of the afternoon, the sun was very low, and it was causing some problems with the bullet camera

BTW - having waved the convoy past on a couple of occasions, the unofficial loudest car award goes to Proccy - truly amazing sound - must be great when you're in the mood and bloody awful when you're not. Having said that, at least four of the cars were very close in terms of engine note and volume

Finger crossed speedy.Exact same thing happened to me from the last mids meet. Except i carried on for a further 10-15 miles and cooked her.
Positive it will work out as you caught it quick.

I reckon there's almost zero chance of any engine damage - as soon as I saw the steam coming from underneath the car, I started flashing my lights at him, and he pulled up in less than a minute

Bit of a fluke really, as Speedy was at the rear of the convoy, but about a mile earlier, I'd decided to take up the rear in order to get some more video footage

Other than that slight mishap, it was a really good day - the only other downside was buying two burgers and two drinks at the Cat & Fiddle and being hit for £19

Have they done away with the Sunday carvery up there then Nigel?

No, that's still avaiable and would've been quicker tbh but the portions were good, I couldn't finish mine!

Nice to know it's still available and that the portions were good

Hope your car has turned out to be ok Speedy

Matthew is just finishing off a couple of quick videos of Sunday's jaunt around the peaks - sadly, the low sun means we didn't get much and even worse, we found that holding the microphone out of the window through the tunnels meant that we got nothing but wind noise - amazing, given the volume of the cars going through, but hey - live & learn.

For now though, a few stills for you....

Quick call at the local Fiat / Alfa dealer



To see a rather nice 8C Competizione



Formation parking



Regroup, ready for the next stage..



Speedy's car bleeding all over the road



...and JBT doing his usual trick of working when he's supposed to be playing

...and a video

This is Matt's first attempt at a video extracted from a camcorder, but I have to say its really good. The only bit he's less than happy with is the inability to fade the music out, so it ends a bit abruptly

There's another, shorter video that we're trying to upload that's also pretty good - watch this space

Photobucket video

Matthew, absolutely brilliant and great choice of music

Glad you like it

Fantastic Matt and Nigel, loved the music.

A bit more steam than i remembered there Nigel and Matt...

Must have been the engine oil in my eyes from somewhere

Compression test done on engine and its fine

By that was close call overtaking on the bend

Fantastic news speedy

Excellent news about your car speedy

Excellent video and pictures, even though it looks like there was some dodgy driving

Shame not to have had a Sprinty in that line up of cars

Great vid, awesome engine notes

Glad to see your car is OK Speedy. Must remember to watch rear view mirror more than what is in front when I get to go for a drive with you all

Rob, maybe we could do a mini convoy to a meet sometime. Don't seem to be many of us up this way. I am only on the other side of the lakes to you.

T there was a sprinty,

Johnny turned up after the pub for a short while but followed me beck to johns after my chod went..

Nigel and Matt may have him on their footage....

I've just had a skim through of the footage and there isn't anything useable of Johnny's car, just a fleeting glimpse every now and again - but it was nice to see one.

Unfortunately, the pass that we did through the tunnel (up to 70mph exactly, and nothing more ) was ruined because I stuck the microphone out of the window, so all of the noise I captured was just that of wind, and no engine noise - a little gutted, but c'est la vie..

I think you'll find that it was a 50mph limit through the tunnel, so you must be mistaken - I only did 50, as anything more would have been breaking the law

Clutch must have been slipping though, as I was in third gear, but the revs were somewhere near 7,000

i think i was doing somewhere near 150 too

Sorry couldnt make it, shame about the 2:10 madness

Good vid though!

chicken

Jesus christ i didnt know Carlito was that close to stuffing that car the other way.
Thats the sort of overtaking i would expect to see from crazy johnny in the sprintey.

This is one of the disadvantages of bringing up the rear of a convoy - I get to see all the "enthusiastic" driving

Would have loved to come, looks like you all had a blast! Got heaps on at the moment and also would have had to park a mile up the road at the Fiat garage as to not dampen the cred with my dull pink Coop!

Fingers crossed, she'll be in a more spangly condition by the time the sun is high in the sky again

Lucky CHOD catch there... whew!

Ah right

Cheers speedy

Update to this,
Speedy's comps were 164 psi lowest to 168 highest.
which is fantastic and very consistent so hats off to the builder.
Fitted a silicone hose kit,new stat and sensor and luckily all is okay.

So well done again to Nigel as another few minutes im sure wouldve been the end.

Ditto.

Speedy, you can uncross your fingers now mate, before you get cramp!

nice one speedy, happy that lovely coop lives on

Well Steve I'm hurt that you would spread these vicious rumours of modification

What I have been doing is what I like to call " Modernisation of Original Design"
Lets call it MODing for short.

I fitted the Sparco strut brace as it was used and I'm very keen on recycling.

I fitted Nigel's lower brace as he is running a highly tuned coupe and I reckond he'd need every penny he could raise.

I fitted the Italian Osrav dampers because the origanals are borg and that sounds German to me !!

I fitted the Whiteline ARB because I felt sorry for the Australians after we whopped them in the ashes.

And lastly in a world where we're fast running out of natural resources I thought I'd save a little steel and fit shorter springs.


But on the outside it's factory fresh

It was great to see you all at the meeting point.
Sorry I couldn't enjoy your sunny outing.