New W1 Owner from Essex

Hello!

I'm Stan, and I've just taken home my first Williams, W1 #0039 L231 NUM

My previous car was a '94 106 Rallye, so I have a bit of a thing for 90's French hot-hatches, particularly homologation specials ;)

The Williams is pretty much standard, bar an uprated exhaust and a K&N induction kit, giving it just shy of 160 horses.

There are a couple of rough edges; n/s fog light doesn't work, map light doesn't work and the cover for it is broken, the radio that is in it is a bit temperamental (I might get a standard cassette player for it, I have loads of cassettes from the 106's player), the oil pressure and level gauges don't seem to move and the pressure one's light doesn't work. I think there's a digital clock in the dash (?) and that doesn't look like it's working. The o/s window goes up pretty slow too so that is probably on the way out.

Luckily these aren't really massive issues. The engine seems to run perfectly so far, no problems with that at all as far as I can tell.

Anyway I'll be snooping around these here parts in the future :) hopefully you guys can help me out with any queries

Stan

Hi Stan, welcome to the wonderful World of Williams ownership! I'm sure you will love it!

Sorry to piss on your chips though, 160 is generous for a 20 year old car with an exhaust and induction kit. Love the sound, but I have always got heat soak from them and lost power. If you are making close to the original 150 I'd be happy! ;)

I do love a 106 Rallye as well, although neither are homologation specials, just limited run models. A homologation special is where a manufacturer has produced a certain number of cars to qualify for Motorsport participation normally. Think 205 T16 or Ford RS200.

M

There's a telemetry thing in the history from a dyno run in 2008, says it got up to 159.6 HP :P

The Rallye and Williams are homologation specials, just not homologated for anything particularly big. The Rallye was made for sub-1400cc Group N and has a placard under the hood to show it, the Williams was made for the French Rally Championship, also Group N I think, but hey I'm not exactly an expert on that ;)

Plenty of those dynos aren't particularly accurate mate. With a Williams anyway, its more about the balance and handling. It will never be a drag racer.

I understand what you mean on the homolgation front mate. All it means in reality is that they pumped out a bunch of road cars before taking it in to Motorsport. The same could be said of probably 60% of roadcars. Even the unlikeliest have made it in to Motorsport.

Meh I'm not too fussed about the dyno anyway, I'm probably going to end up swapping the bits for the original ones eventually anyway.

And isn't "pumping out a bunch of road cars for motorsport" what homologation means anyway? ;)

Yeah mate, that's what I said. I've always thought of a homologation 'special' as something really limited and 'special' such as the cars I mentioned before. Yours and mine are basically nice old French biscuit tins they decided to take rallying!! ;)

Screw this then, I'll go find myself a T16! hahaha

I'd love one mate. If I had a spare £100k!! :)

Welcome mate... at last someone local to me �� have to meet up when the weather is better. I'm 90% of my time in Colchester so will keep an eye out... mine won't be back out till the better weather, so if U see someone wave at U in a battered up black diesel pug 206 then that will be me �� . Any pics?

Ooh you are just down the road from me :) I also spend a lot of time in Colch so I'll keep an eye out haha.

Don't have any pics yet, but if you look closely it looks just like a Williams 1 ;)

Welcome on board....

Regards Ian

i will look forward to some upto date pictures.

Welcome to the forum Stan. I'm from the Colchester area too so will keep my eye out for another Williams in the area!

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Originally Posted by stevie_b

Welcome to the forum Stan. I'm from the Colchester area too so will keep my eye out for another Williams in the area!

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Does yours have white wheels by any chance? Saw one with white rims coming out of Mersea road last Monday morning

The digital display in the dash of for outside temp i believe, mine hasn't worked for years. In the old ebay ad where it was selling for £5k it says this car has had a full strip down, rust cut out etc and full respray. When you get a chance to have a proper look lots of people here would prob be interested in your assessment of the quality of work - hopefully you have a good one. (unlike the current W3 on ebay - lots of stories with that one)

There was a temp display on ebay recently for about £30 I think - does anyone know where the sensor is?

Enjoy it. They are delicate but a fantastic drive - keep on top of the maintenance.

Oh, and the last time I checked, my W1 was running 158bhp with just induction and exhaust and still building when it hit the limiter.

I've just noticed that the temp display does seem to work but there's no backlight to it so it's very hard to read

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Originally Posted by BootStrap

The digital display in the dash of for outside temp i believe, mine hasn't worked for years. In the old ebay ad where it was selling for £5k it says this car has had a full strip down, rust cut out etc and full respray. When you get a chance to have a proper look lots of people here would prob be interested in your assessment of the quality of work - hopefully you have a good one. (unlike the current W3 on ebay - lots of stories with that one)

There was a temp display on ebay recently for about £30 I think - does anyone know where the sensor is?

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temperature sender isnunder passenger side wing mirror

welcome along Stan

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Originally Posted by Standaman94

Does yours have white wheels by any chance?

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Nope, afraid not - standard gold Speedlines on mine. Also you won't have seen it out and about as in the last couple of years it has only been out on the road on a trailer!

As Paul says above the temp sensor is in the mirror but if you have a proper reading (not flashing) then there is a relay in the glovebox that is related to it lighting up, iirc

Ah ok... Who was it I saw this morning then at Whitehall/Hythe?

I'll take a look at all the relays and fuses etc this weekend when I get a chance, cheers