You Tube ... Short Film Of Racing Triumphs

[pomwah]

1988 vintage featuring a Gareth Thomas in a vitesse, is he GT?

 

TR Drivers Club & Triumph Sports Six Challenge 19…:

[Nick Jones]

Nice find!  Yes, Gareth Thomas is GT.

 

Few familiar names in there including Eddie Wilkins who used to live near here and I knew quite well.

 

Nick

[GT]

Wow, those were the days they were!

They were really the good times.

 

I remember it well.

 

From the briefest of clips, it couldn't be seen I actually won that race.

I was actually forced to start at the back of the grid, because I only managed 3 laps in practice thanks to losing the entire exhaust system, which got hurled off into orbit over the elbow.

 

That was caused by an "overnight brain fade" resulting from getting rid of the rear roll bar completely (which as it happened, was previously holding the entire exhaust up).

 

During the very maniacal lunch break, I had to deal with a puncture (in Hinckley town 'scuse me!)  and jerry-rigging the entire system back on in the space of about 90 mins.

 

Starting from the back of a grid, meant having to overtake the entire shooting match, which wasn't helped by "rolling chicane" T-L Dean, who never respected any form of flag signals in his entire moronic motor sport "career".

 

For several laps Me and Eddy diced with this lunatic who wouldn't move over, with what seemed like a tacit admission, one of us was gonna have him off through Gerards.

It was finally Eddy gave him a good shove at the right moment, and TLD was gone like a spinning top.

That was better late than never.

 

What you don't realise there, were further manic moments, based on the fact, the engine was still in a pile of bits on the shelf until 7pm the previous evening.

 

It was only by working the entire night building it, then installing it about 4-5am that it was miraculously ready to run, be zoomed over to Mallory from Nuneaton, just in time for scrutineering with a brand new engine thrashed round to 8000rpm+ .

 

After those events, it was decided I wouldn't take it on circuits again, but use it for continental hillclimbs and test days, as the cooling was really quite marginal.

I had often wondered what on earth happened to that video, which if I recall was made by Bill Sunderland.

 

Post scriptum:-

Eddy reappeared and drove for me in a Jaguar race on 20th Aug 2006, then vanished to OZ.

He put the Jag 1 sec off pole in his very first outing.

 

Ed turned himself into a pretty good driver over the intervening years, winning a championship in formula ford 2000, in I believe what was Damon Hill's (evil handling) old car.

[GT6Steve]

So what circuit was that?  I know "Gerards" should tip me off but memory is fading.  I haven't been to the UK in over ten years now??

[thebrookster]

Mallory Park, Steve!

[triumphlux]

Good to see some video of GT's famous Vitesse. It seems that there exists not one picture showing this in more detail.

[GT]

All sorts of souvenirs depended on Brian Heath of Nuneaton car crafts, who did a simply stunning re-engineering of the entire car in ONE MONTH flat.

That was really the challenge.

People could be friends in those days, as well as come up with hard work.

 

We lived on tea, and chocolate hobnobs, a totally unforgettable period of severe overwork and Brian fetching his "smokes"..some sort of miniature cigars.

People have short memories.

Galley common, was a sort of large hill facing "mount Judkin" a huge open casted quarry in Nuneaton.

 

The Vitesse body was stretched and stretched with internal "space frame" style sub-chassis components using pit props from the local coal mines, thanks to a friend who worked underground.

We estimated the chassis had roughly 250% the torsional stiffness of the original once it was finished, as it was a Vitesse with effectively a pre-stressed outer skin, looking in.

 

It was the only Triumph car I have ever seen where you could put a jack actually under one of the outer outriggers and open and close the doors with no change whatsoever to the door gaps.

I think Brian made a whole album of the roughly 500hrs they put into it in that month between them.

 

He also very cleverly stretched the front and rear arches of the car so it was indistinguishable from the original.

Until recently, the unique bonnet was standing forgotten rusting away in a specialist's restorer yard in France.

It was probably worth a fortune!

 

One of the guys, who was one of those kind of "down to earth" working class midlands guys who was involved in the rebuild commented on how one day his 3 wheeler reliant robin broke down, so he had to take my car to drive home.

 

He had never understood WTF I was doing the whole project for?

After the trip home, and back the next day, he came back......(raving).

Something on the lines of..."now I know what it's all for", "the thing behaves like an outsize Lotus 7"....

 

In fact at a race at castle combe, I and a lotus 7 swopped place every lap, much to the amusement of the crowd.

 

Another fool borrowed the car in France to some place 500kms away and got confused with a road rally on the way back...

The Peugeot 205GTIs all gave chase but gave up, as they couldn't keep up, then the car turned up in the next town and they couldn't get over how they had got left for dead, and it wasn't actually part of their event!

 

All sorts of funny stories happened with that car, and I'm sure I still own the registration for it.

 

There's some photos of the car at Turckheim hillclimb in 1987-8, where it did shockingly fast times even on road tyres (as they forbade me to fit my slicks).

 

Sadly Brian, from what I'm told died of cancer some years back, and the coal mines vanished from Coventry region soon after.

 

The wheels got sold to a bloke in Epinal France for his GT6 cabrio, who worked at Ti GARRETT turbos.

He crashed his GT6 cabrio into a bus shelter and demolished it, then legged it.....

 

Sadly I heard he suddenly got killed also some 8-10 years later, and he was going to give me the unique (8Jx 13) revolution wheels back.

There's a ghost of the car lurking somewhere in east of England the rumour goes, where it got mated with an all plastic GRP Jaguar E type outfit where Brian was working.....

 

Who knows, as the secret went down with Brian H, just like many other projects did with John Reid and Holbay, who as it happened also got killed, this time in an aero accident.

 

Life is......... then you're dead ?

All those dead people certainly makes you think, especially as it's come back into fashion with a vengeance out here in UA/RU.

 

http://forums.autosport.com/topic/135676-holbay-john-read-and-his-engines/

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coventry_Colliery

 

http://www.thecoventrywehavelost.co.uk/industrial-heritage/coal-mining/

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daw_Mill

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-coventry-warwickshire-21696875

[GT]

FYI, this car was in Brian's workshop just before mine:-

 

The attention to detail was fanatical.

 

 

Here:- http://www.tr6pi.com/

 

Brian prided himself in turning out the BEST Jaguar E types pretty much in the developed world, which is probably why he never made a of money doing them!

[Spit131]

Lovely to see that kind of footage , leaves F1 in its wake , real people racing real cars , not corporate NASA .

[Spit131]

I lied about going to bed did nt I .

[GT]

I have to say, the late 80-early90s, was the golden period for this type of racing in the UK.

 

We used to lend each other cars in those days.

I remember lending my Vitesse to Kevin to do Lydden on one occasion, and I spent a good deal of time testing his weird GT6.

we all took onboard each other's different criticisms and it made the cars better.

Don't forget for a long time the ONLY viable tyre in those days was a Pirelli P7 corsa, which by today's standards is a dinosaur, while my own tyres (P7F with a weird size only made for France) fitted on 8" rims, had to be imported from France specially.

 

I don't think you can imagine any of that happening today.

The tyres are now so sticky the risk of rear drive shaft fracture in a Spitfire or TR6 is a lot higher.

 

The TSSC played a role in all this at the time their membership really peaked, although TBH people like Paul Lucas played a big part in popularising this type of sport by winning the road going sports car series of 750MC outright one year and making 2nd in 2 succeeding years.

 

It was a friendly time even been sworn enemies, and that race at Mallory was about the only time I actually spoke with TL Dean in 30 years.

I even built an engine for Eddie Wilkins, which is how his car ended up in my book.

 

By contrast, I have to say I absolutely hate the kind of racing typified by lobbies like Field's Jigsaw company with the equally crap "look-at-my-ADU-xxxx-I-have-a works-car" attitude or Bastuck in Germany, who blatently manipulated the German series via his sidekick C Marx.

 

It's the same in the Jaguar JEC series where ONE manipulative supplier "classic spares" forced their way in, and sell the combo of crap and screwed-up so called "now how".

They are there to sell their sh..t to you on the back of who knows what kind of marketing behind your back, despite the established fact stuff like the crappy defective TR4 oil pumps destroy engines non stop, and AVO/Spax/Gaz dampers+EBC pads are crapomatic dangerous junk, not fit for road cars.

 

To have a good series, you have to get rid of these lobbies and vested interests, encourage real "competition", with people agreeing to disagree and not trying to BAN them from taking part or coming to a circuit even to watch...

(I kid you not, it happened to me with the Jag!)

 

These years well before the arrival of the internet were kept alive by your newsagent copy of "motoring news", and mags like tripleC where "Dave Vizard the A series wizard" kept a regular column on the go.

 

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=35&t=58082&mid=0&nmt=Cars+%26+Car+Conversions+Magazine+has+been+closed!

 

People actually thumbed these at the paper shop before going to work, so it's a generational change that happened more than a decade ago.

 

As the tide of ignorance has swept away the general understanding of anything to do with engineering, crappy lobbying has taken over to fund the reduced grids, the drivers get older, and google has replaced the mags.

 

Most of the generation that spent weeks in garden shed building the next latest and greatest motor sport engine are either buried or not talking to anyone any more.

Everyone I know in the cylinder head world is either dead, retired, or trying to retire.

 

The "experts" we hear today are the armchair type that live on everyone else's hearsay and "have it heard it all before", despite never having measured anything, least of all got into the nitty gritty of actually modifying anything worthwhile, and the engineering companies in the UK are more likely to rip you off, or screw up your job, than actually turn out anything on time.

 

They get up my nose more than anyone else!

 

The last throws of Spitfire cum TSSC racing was about 2002-7, which is now up to 10 years ago with Vowell,Thomason, & Wolfe amongst others.

I could be inticed back into this sort of racing, and there are some tentative efforts in this direction taking place. ('nuff said).

[triumphlux]

Talking about racing, how is your Jag coming along?

Is is running again and ready for the next french hillclimb season?

We really want to see that car in action!

[GT]

Thanks for the interest.

It's not recommended to change everything at once, so lots of individual bits are getting tested seperately on a road car.

I just flow tested a hybrid road head 3 days ago, in this case trying to gain 3-5mpg in the process.

 

That yielded a most spectacular increase in exhaust port flow, which can't be bad considering the valve itself hasn't been changed in any way from the factory ones.

 

The effect of this is the same as radically increasing the valve lift & duration of the exhaust camshaft, so, not surprising you usually end up gaining a useful 1500rpm at the top end.

 

This flow gain is so large, the exhaust now flows as much as the original inlet valve did, despite the valves being only the size of the inlet & exhaust on a Triumph 1500FWD (x 2 of course).

 

 

Things look equally encouraging in the inlet department.

There's now no longer any of the latest mega expensive full race lightweight E type kit that even comes remotely close;- don't forget this is a a banal ROAD version of the race version which has already been tested.

 

The head now flows every bit as well as the old BMW 3.5L M1/M5 M88, as well as the M50 which was used in the old mid 90s M3 models.

Those old M1 (M88) are known for being a formidable engine in the right hands and the M50 are outright winners in the european hillclimb Norma Group CN cars.

 

The big brakes with the new carbon-metal pads are testing later this month.

The front springs already made a quantum leap in handling this summer so, some more are on the way soon this time with top rate in the 1250lb zone.

 

All that is supposed to act as some guide to what to do next on the race car.

The basic problem to be looked at now is losing weight, improving the handling substantially & fooling with diff ratios.

 

I just stocked up on just about every diff ratio made, because they are becoming harder to find and expensive.

 

I suppose this should be on another thread, but it's been in slow development 5-6yrs now, and picking up speed at last.

[GT]

This is the head, as it sat on the grinder before leaving.

 

It's a heck of a big long head, but the engine bears an uncanny resemblance to the BMW M1 produced in the same year, and is almost the same capacity.

That's a road head btw.

 

The BMW and the Jaguar even have the same gearbox on the back, a Getrag 265, but the BMW has an IRON block with slightly larger bore & valves but no space for overboring or stroking, + shorter stroke & short rods.

 

Here's some idea of how they look...you could be mistaking one engine plant for another, they're even slanted the same way!

 

 

 

Another shot, which as you can see, shows the old fashioned construction of putting the head together in 2 parts:-

 

 

Jaguar block all light alloy, fantastic rigidity, half the weight:-

 

 

 

 

Compared the jaguar head method of making it one great big casting....

 

Jaguar:-

 

BMW:-

 

And the cam carrier..."a la Cosworth"...

 

 

Then of course you can fail to notice the huge protrusions under the bonnet for the front macpherson struts, and trailing arms at the rear.

There, by comparison a BMW % or 6 series doesn't stand a chance in the corners against Jaguar double wishbone suspension unless of course you go back to doing properly which of course the M1 was...

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YulVFnFyWyw#t=41

 

So why I am doing all that.

Because as a result of some totally stupid decisions at Jaguar in the 1980s, they ended up effectively with a severely over-engineered "front engined BMW M1" on their hands and didn't realise it.

 

 

Here is what they do with the concept today.

 

Norma, usually FTD at any continental hillclimb.

3L 400bhp, 600kg.

 

 

That noise like any good 4V 6 cylinder is the pure form drug for adrenalin junkies.

 

[GT]

So, to come back to the task in hand, it's not easy to develop an entire car single handed, so at some stage I'm going to need a hand. (a big one!)

 

Everyone who has ever had a hand in the car has been mega-enthusiastic, especially the various engine development people that have seen it all.

Their opinion has always been "spot on", "I want to see that run", "it will have torque to pull a house down"....

 

Here is the kind of torque curve we are actually taking about....

It will certainly make more than the GAA, or V64V V6 engines and a lot more than M88 BMW thanks to the much taller block and much longer stroke.

 

 

 

 

The engine has been sitting on the shelf for 2 years, thanks to a lack of time, but the pistons caused all kinds of problems because of the need for longer rods and deeper valve cutouts that go with such a high CR, then the titanium valve caps guys screwed up & disappeared.

 

One problem, we still don't know how the crank will react to being run round regularly to 8500rpm, then we discovered the flywheel was junk because it was stupidly thin, thanks to bad basic design work....so start again!

 

Rob who was grinding the cams, suddenly died, then it became very difficult to find the guy with the right inlet profile (WRC Group B V64V).

Now all resolved, but still awaiting regrinding + new valve train components...

We still don't know how the head reacts to nearly 14mm of valve lift at high RPM.

 

The wheels have to come specially from the USA, because there is absolutely nobody able to supply a 10-11" wide 16" rear rim in Europe at the right money for this sort of wheel hub.

 

The body is in bits, awaiting a large investment in time inc changing the front subframe (arrived), changing a number of the damaged solid bushes, and fitting another set of springs and competition Koni dampers.....

 

It needs a new roll cage completely, and all the doors stripping out and lightening.

The floors & boot have to be cut out and bonded to fresh alloy honeycomb blockboard, while meanwhile the diff housing has to go on a milling machine to remove half the excess cast iron....

 

We haven't yet had a chance to test the brakes, and I'm working through all the special stuff, by fitting it on the road car and seeing if it works properly.

 

The diff has to be changed for a much higher ratio, because the current standard ratio is incapable of finding any traction in 1st or 2nd gear at present.

I'm going for 3.31 or 3.07 (LSD of course), but it still has to be dropped out and replaced....

 

Then of course once it's semi complete it has to be driven half way around Europe after the trailor has been completely renovated, to sit in France until next spring/summer, while we fool around with mapping a new ECU with large throttle bodies....

 

It's a daunting task, and always has been from the beginning.

[JohnD]

It was, indeed a golden age, the end of which I'm glad to have seen - Kevin Ginger et al. -full grids too!

 

I can't show a video, but less than 10 year after that film, here is John "Triuoomph"  Sadler, between my "Old Blue" and his green Vitesse, in the original livery, that through Mark Plausin I now own.

 

 

 

John

 

PS  GT "It was the only Triumph car I have ever seen where you could put a jack actually under one of the outer outriggers and open and close the doors with no change whatsoever to the door gaps."    I'll be glad to demonstrate the rigidity of that car, if ever again you're where I am.

 

 

[Spit131]

Think a new race series is imminent , testosterone fuelled but intensely gentlemanly .

[triumphlux]

Thanks for this complete and interesting update. Looks like you see the end of the tunnel and that you have all the right bits together.

Its another 6 month to the start of next years hillclimb challenge .... seems long enough but we all know how fast 6 month go by!

 

Keep us updated every once in awhile.

[GT]

You go to France for the sun, the ski, the food and the motorsport.

 

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Championnat_d%27Europe_de_la_montagne

 

http://www.coursedecote.info/

 

Turckheim was last weekend, next year will be 27years later.

The entry fees are still quite reasonable compared with circuit races at 270 €

 

The plan is to make the August-September events of Chamrousse, Mont Dore, St Ursanne and Turckheim 2015.

That's one a week, so no offs or breakages can be permitted.

 

Here's a Swiss M1 last year which obviously is in the same class.

Mine will sound quite similar.

 

 

The same driver in another 6 cyl.

Notice how that is a 1977 car's first outing since full restoration.

 

This was my previous very mild road engine as you may recall.

 

Then you have Meisel's nutty beast who is coming back with a totally bonkers SLK in 2015.

 

The same classes are packed full of flat 6s like 993/997.

 

 

 

[pomwah]

I can't believe how much space there is between the cylinders on the jag motor! Looks like they were planning on a high revving rebore for the future. Two part head, just like the original BDA, which came first?

 

GT, did you go for polycarbonate windows to reduce weight?

[triumphlux]

THAT M1 sounds AMAZING

And the Judd V8 has to be seen in real life to believe how efficient that car is!

 

Do you plan to fit a rear spoiler or will the car be heavy enough to stay on the road without one ?

[GT]

I can't believe how much space there is between the cylinders on the jag motor! Looks like they were planning on a high revving rebore for the future. Two part head, just like the original BDA, which came first?

 

The Jag head is one piece,it's the BMW head is 2 piece with a cam carrier.

They have difficulties we don't (eg, head cracking) which we don't have and vice versa.

 

This does cause some difficulties for us, because with the much larger valve lifts/one piece head and wider IVA , the lobes touch on the head casting before they actually push down the bucket tappets.

This entails relieving the head casting all around where the cam lobes rotate as well as making up some more custom steel bucket tappets, which luckily are the same size as Lotus Twin cam.

 

The reason for the extremely generous bore spacing is thanks to the Jaguar V12 which was a wet liner open deck design.

That bore spacing is wide because you have 2 big end journals on some pretty short rods - 1 for each bank to go into that space.

 

The Jag 24V 6 cylinder used exactly the same bore spacing as the V12, as I suspect they originally rather fancied the idea of making a 48V V12.

The end result of course is an engine you can bore out 9-10mm,- an astonishingly large amount for a production engine, and it was that experimental relinered block that went missing at Holbay in 1992.

 

In effect you can see, the BMW M88 engine was designed around a 3.5L 6 cylinder with equal narrow spacings, stroke of 84mm and a bore 93.4 mm.  So it's on the limit at 3.8L to the later factory style spec bore of 94-95mm with a 86mm stroke.

 

Interestingly Jaguar ceased production of these engines at the same time as BMW in 1996.

The thing about large bore 6 cylinder 4V engines of course is the larger bore, the larger valves you can fit in them (within reason) following a law of diminishing returns.

We can fit a 82mm steel crank as stock because Jaguar made them for the 3.2L that way.

 

I would personally be hesitant about making a 96mm bore engine with 82mm stroke for the simple reason we simply don't yet know what would be a safe valve red line for that new spec "3.6L".

 

(YB Cosworth engines having similar bore dimensions go a roughly similar route, by enlarging the ports and bores from a turbo 16V to make a N/A engine then use a new all alloy block).

 

In practice on the Jaguar engine there's loads of space, and you get proveably get more flow from going beyond 93mm bore, especially when tested how much more you get by relieving the chamber.

 

Of course the rod length is huge compared with the more compact BMW block, so torque is impressive.

 

So far this is working towards a 2-2.5mm larger inlet valve while keeping them shorter & lighter than BMW did, thanks to the one piece casting.

Having seen what some clever people are doing locally to us in Finland on the M88, it appears it's quite viable to do like they are with inlet valves of 39mm+

[GT]

A little final note on conrod length:-

This takes some considerable time to look up as I forgot to keep my notes of the lengths.

 

Someone posted a photo of rods from this engine, which luckily are steel.

 

The big end journal of the Jaguar is the same size as TR4.

Of course everyone and their dog has been trying to sell  carillo rods inc 1/2 " longer ones for the TR4.

The Carillo ones cost £405.42 EACH.

 

The Jaguar short ones as you can see are 6.5" to begin with and cost about 35 quid (!), so of course the 7 main bearing engine running 90psi through VP2 mains is totally bombproof and fairly cheap to work on.

 

 

Jaguar E (XK) type ones are incredibly long at 7.75" giving a rod:stroke ratio of 1.857, but this suits a 2V engine and gives massive torque.

Some people are ACTUALLY making them longer to 8.15 inch claiming a massive 1.95 crank to rod ratio, but of course the stroke is enormous, and the head design not so clever.

 

People are routinely swopping them out for Carillo or others nowadays for 1000s of USD a pop.

 

The BMW M88 rod is 144mm (5.7") long so the rod/stroke ratio is 1.677:1 - a little more on the 3.5L.

Those engines are considered safe to their peak power at 7200rpm, but torsional vibration is quite a problem, and here we have an explanation why they are relatively short on torque low down.

 

In my engine I fitted longer 6.95" rods from the short stroke 2.9 2V & 3.2L Jaguar 24V engine, changing the pin/crown height in the process. Those rods are thrown away from a SOHC 2.9L which nobody wants.

 

The 6.5" Stock 3.6 & 4.0L ones give a R-S ratio of 1.63:1 on the 4.0L but the crank weighs a collossal 37kg on the 4.0L and the dual mass flywheel yet another 25...talk about stupidity!

 

On the 3.7L I'm already getting 1.92:1:1 but the crank is closer to 30kg....that's identical rod-stroke ratio to the 6.0L V12

(On the 3.2L this is 2.15:1, which is how they managed to get nearly the same torque as the 4.0L at 10:1CR)

 

More importantly I took 200g off the weights of each piston and rod, and 18kg off the flywheel/clutch.

All this is designed to bring the torsional vibration under control over 6500rpm, make it pick up quick, and deliver monster torque in fact 20% more than a 6.0L V12.