Paul,
What Bob said... If you part the car out or sell it as is, you'll likely
regret it later. My Toyota and I sideswiped a concrete wall at about 60
MPH at the racetrack (a long time ago), and rather than repair the
damage (basically flattened the entire right side of the car about 3
inches inwards) I stripped the car and then used all the mechanicals to
build a tube frame car. That was a very educational process, but due to
many other things going on, I sold the tube frame car after getting it
about 90% done, and the new owners finished it but never really got the
thing sorted, which leaves me regretting both parts: Abandoning the race
car without thinking through the fixing process, and selling the tube
chassis before giving it a proper chance at the track.
My experience with the header wrap stuff has been that it's way more of
a hazard than a help, especially now that you can get good ceramic
coatings applied to the tubes. I (think I) remember Tim Ronak's stories
from when he and his brother in law used it on their race Camaro -
exactly like you say, you get some oil on it and it's a fire waiting to
happen, and it's very hard to clean out the oil. I once agreed to repair
a racer's TR-6 header that had broken behind the collector. The header
had been wrapped in the header wrap stuff and it had basically fused
onto the pipes, making them nearly impossible to weld back together
(probably after the wrap allowed the header to get way too hot to begin
with).
I still have some Alpine V parts as well as a brand new carpet kit (of
unknown provenance... probably VB) that would probably go just fine in
your Tiger if you decide to restore it and don't mind paying for
shipment from way up here.
Best regards,
Theo Smit
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