hello all I’ve been lurking on this forum for some time now and thought it was about time I introduced myself and told my story so here goes:-

My dad introduced me to Dutton’s in 1986 when he ordered a phaeton s4 kit. I was 11 years old at the time and took every opportunity to help/hinder him in the garage stripping an old mk2 escort ghia. I seem to remember the kit took ages to arrive nearly all the summer holidays in fact but when it did I was hooked!!
Build time was about 1 year and it passed its mot first time. He taught me to drive in the Dutton at the local air field where he worked (probably the best pre- teen memories I have!)
At the time it was running a standard 2ltr pinto with twin choke Webber but it wasn’t long before he decided to do a bit of hillclimbing with the Aberdeen and district motor club and the modifying began. The car was brought up to blue book regulations with things like harnesses, master cut out switch, battery box and timing strut. The engine was stripped and rebuilt with a re-bore, stage 3 big valve head, twin 45 Webbers, 4 branch manifold, micro dynamics ign system, piper cam and a few other bits and bobs. A 4 speed rocket box and lsd went in to the mixture along with some 8 ½ x 13” ally cats. The rolling road showed 160bhp. It was ran in this state of tune for about 3 seasons of racing and was very competitive in its class scoring a few club day class wins and doing most rounds of the Scottish championship when time aloud. The last race it did was Knockhill in 1991 we then moved house and with my dad’s new commitments to work and decorating the new house the Dutton was left in the garage and forgotten about.
Some 17 years later I think it has sat for long enough and have taken on the project of putting it back on the road. I pulled it out of the garage gave it a wash and trailered it home and to be honest its not in bad condition with only 5700 miles on the clock. It needs a total strip and rebuild which I have started by removing the body. The chassis is in really good condition with only minor surface rust.
Apart from the obvious things the main mod that’s needed is to 5 link the rear end as axle tramp was a nightmare and it was scary in corners! So any advice on this would be much appreciated.
When I get the chance I will post some pictures up and let you know how I’m getting on

Cheers

Nigel

Hello Nigel,

I look forward to seeing some progress pictures when you get some taken.

On the 5 link front on an S4 I have done it and there are pictures on my site and probably quite a bit about it on here - but we lost a quite a bit of info on this board a while back with a server issue so maybe some bits missing.

Certainly sounds a well specified car with a potent engine that sounds to have been pretty well sorted.

Good luck with the rebuild

Andrew