Project Tomcat, An Intro

Good Morning, and welcome to another day of cars I have wanted to own for ages, but have been too scared to, until now.

It should come as no surprise to any of my regulars that I am somewhat a fan of Rovers. Generally unloved and kinda forgotten about (or remembered only as “the car grandad had), Rover has always been a bit all over the place as a company, but they could push out some great cars when they needed to.

When you think about Rovers, you probably think leather, wood, big engines, soft ride and luxury… not Honda.

Honda? What have they got to do with anything?

Well, back in the late 70s BL teamed up with Honda to expand their range and help reduce platform development costs.

A few years later, and a few “successful” platforms, the R8 was developed. The R8 was a platform that was jointly developed with Honda, who on their side, turned it into the Concerto.

Rover took the platform and made the 200, and 400 series cars. Initially in liftback and sedan form, but the platform also spawned the coupe, convertible and touring too.

Of course, Rover couldn’t leave well enough alone, and instead of the double-wishbone front suspension the JDM cars have, the European Concerto and Rover use McPherson strut in the front. Apparently this was at Rovers request, as it has longer suspension travel for a smoother ride, is cheaper to produce and easier to package. Honda obviously didn’t agree with this, as for years all their JDM cars had double-wishbone up front, including the JDM version of the Concerto. The rear of course was pure Honda, with a multi-link independent rear.

Among a bunch of other engines available in the 200 were the 1.6L SOHC and DOHC ZC/D-series Honda engines, the infamous K series (no BHG jokes pls), and the T series Turbo engine.

The T series is the focus of my attention here. A coupe with a 200HP 2L twin-cam turbocharged engine, a manual gearbox and a super aggressive and agricultural torsen LSD (marketed as “traction control”) sounds like a winning recipe to me. This was a genuine, tested and proven, record-breaking 150MPH (240KPH) car.

The coupe was developed after a few years of the R8 platform being around. The name Tomcat comes from the codename used during that development, and is such a cool name. It was originally going to be marketed as a sporty MG, with even the concepts wearing MG badges, but somehow found its way into the ranks of the Rover lineup instead.

So that brings us to today, where after waiting a couple of weeks that felt like an eternity, the truck with my new car on it arrived.

A 1994 Rover 220 Turbo in Tahiti Blue.

It arrived with a dead battery (Which was a surprise to me, I was told it had no battery), but swapping to the battery from the Marina and much to my surprise, it fired on the first turn of the key and settled into a smooth idle. No smoke, no hesitation, no roughness.

A quick drive around the block, and it ran and drove smooth. The engine revved well, and made all the right noises, but seemed to have no urgency. I suspect there is a lack of boost.

I was told when I purchased the car that it ran but ran badly and would hesitate, bog down and run like a bag of diddles. I’m yet to see that. It is low on fuel though, with a dicky battery, which won’t help. I’d also doubt it’s been run on 98 as it should.

Being me, I did preemptively purchase a few service items, so will be going through the ignition system to refresh that, just in case it was a weak spark that had been causing issues. I will also get my old boost gauge temporarily hooked in and see what the turbo system is doing.

I have everything needed to build a diagnostic cable for the car too. Since it doesn’t use OBD1 or two, it has its own diagnostic terminal under the bonnet that taps into the MEMS ECU system, and although cables can be purchased, it’s easy enough to make one.

The car isn’t perfect, it’s far from it really. The paint is pretty good everywhere except the bonnet, which has peeling clearcoat, but overall the car has seen a lot of sun and various rubber and plastics have perished, peeled, cracked or shrunk. It will come up nice with a clean though, and looks nice from afar.

The interior is the same. It’s filthy and some of the seat stitching has blown out due to the leather shrinking, but it’s all saveable. I’m looking forward to getting some conditioner into the leather.

The AC has had the pipes removed, and unfortunately the compressor outlet has just been left open to the elements for who knows how long, so that is probably ruined.

Apparently the engine has had the head gasket done, but with all the oil leaks and various scum everywhere, it’s hard to tell what’s been done and what was porkies. We will see in time what happens with the engine I guess. Hopefully it doesn’t overheat, and I can get it boosting as it should.

It does make a hell of a noise though, with a straight-through exhaust to the stock rear muffler, plus the pod filter hanging off the nose of the turbo. It’s all growls and whooshes. I’m looking forward to giving it a decent thrash.

The other major issue is the boot, which is stuck shut. You can turn the key and pull the release all you want, but it doesn’t move. On most cars this wouldn’t be an issue, just fold the seats down and climb into the boot. Unfortuanately in Rovers wisdom, they put the only release for the seat backs inside the boot >_< I’ll need to do some digging on that one. I don’t need to use the boot, but I wouldn’t sleep knowing it was broken.

There is a lot to do on this car, and I feel it will be a source of pain for a while, but once it’s going as it should it will be quite rewarding to drive. These are getting to be very rare cars in turbo form, even in the UK, so saving one is a good thing. Plus, it looks bloody good.