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Right. Final decision. I've spoken with the wife to get some common-sense into the argument. I've looked on ebay to see the availability of parts. And most importantly, like some of you have ben suggesting, I'm focussing on getting this car finished (not least because the wife wants me to get onto project 2 which is building her a lovely purple and cream cobra V8 replica - maybe one for retirement!!).
Therefore I'm going K-series. Not sure which one yet, but I think it doesn't matter at this stage.
Except for my choice of clutch mechanism. Is it still worth going hydraulic, even if I end up with a 1.6?
Anyway, thanks to everyone for giving me much to think about. Now I've just got to keep the momentum going and do something (once I've finished ripping out our kitchen anyway!!).
good question, my thoughts are if you go 1.6 and Don't plan to upgrade at anypoint then as rich says cable is fine. if you thknk you might want to upgrade engine at any point (reason i'm doing a hydralic on a 1.6k) then despite the extra work its a lot simpler to do when building. Btw if you are still looking at donors my experience was that late donors require more mods. e.g. exhaust and someother bits were different enough for me to have to find other parts Which added a bit to the cost of my build.
It is worth going hydraulic, as the clutch cable run is long (so there'll be plenty of friction from the outset), there's lots of scope of water ingress to the cable (which will only make matters worse with time), and I've not heard one person have an issue with a hydraulic setup, but plenty of negative comments about the cable. This assumes you're going to opt for a more pokey k-series, with a PG1 gearbox.
It'd be good to see someone fit a 1.8 turbo k-series.
We have all been here with different stages of the build. 1.6 K seems ok with cable. Goi 1.8 and above with the pg1, then hydraulic. Best time is now if you have the dash and windscreen out.
You should be able to fit the PG1 (k-series one) onto any k-series, i've not done it myself though (got a T-series one) it's just the gear ratios may be slightly out, given that the car is literally half the weight of the intended car, I can't see it being tooo much of a problem for a year or so.
the only difference between a hydraulic one and a cable clutch will be the mechanism that operates the clutch, there is no physical difference inside the gearbox. (it is best (and cheapest) of course to get all the parts already fitted to the gearbox though!!)
