Duncan's A30

[A30Racer]

As per my Hello from Salisbury message, I feel that I should finally start a thread on my Austin A30. It has survived being left in storage for years, a divorce, at least 3 house moves, so it is at last getting the attention it deserves.

I am obviously biased, but I think this will be a super little car when finished. It is going to be a road-legal (ish) racing car with as many special bits as I can muster. The engine is a 1380cc A-series with a BMW K1100 head, coupled to a straight-cut Type 9 gearbox. A full welded-in cage is installed and I have a lot of the Goodwood Revival suspension stuff from Rae Davis. The idea being to build a car that is fast enough without losing the essential character. I will use it for speed hillclimbs and also events like trackdays & classic car meetings too. 

Due to being furloughed from work, I have spent some useful hours in the workshop. The shell is off to be blasted, so I have been cracking on pulling the engine apart (to check out the work I did on it about 6 yrs ago!) and get it ready to run. A few photos of the work today :

[JohnD]

Good Lord, Duncan!  A twin cam BMW head on an A30 block?   How much work was that to do?

And you will be aware of the A30 'Academy' race series.     Do you intend to enter that?

JOhn

Edited April 2, 2020 by JohnD

[RogerH]

So it can be done on an A30 - how about a TR.

Is there a head out there that will nearly fit 

A twin cam (not Sabrina) 4 pot engine would be fun.

 

Roger

[thebrookster]

Following with interest, and likewise would be very interested in what work was involved in fitting the head to the block?

Cheers,

Phil

[PaulAA]

42 minutes ago, RogerH said:

So it can be done on an A30 - how about a TR.

Is there a head out there that will nearly fit 

A twin cam (not Sabrina) 4 pot engine would be fun.

 

Roger

Hi Roger

My pipe dream as well, but part of the answer is to be found here and reinforced here.

Paul

[A30Racer]

Thanks chaps.

The clever bit wasn't done by me, which was to work out a way of accomplishing the conversion. Basically, if you use a 1275 block (803cc original block wasn't going to cut it imho!) & do what is called "off-set boring", whereby the centres of cylinders 1&2 migrate forward & 3&4 go back (standard A-series over-boring technique). On the original head, there are normally 9 head studs (5 on dizzy side, 4 on the port side). The middle 3 of the 5 remain in place, the others are bunged up, along with waterway holes & new ones drilled. I have opted to run an external oil feed to the head & the braided pipes are for oil return. Specialist Components do a lot of bits to effect this conversion. I did mine on the cheap, so it has involved quite a lot of extra buggerance, but not far off now.

Today's challenge has been trying to get a clutch that will fit the MG Midget flywheel , fit inside the bellhousing and fit the Ford box. I've got something coming, but whether it can withstand the onslaught from the mighty little engine remains to be seen. 
On the Triumph front, checking modern engine head gaskets on your blocks is how it all started here. Perhaps two separate Triple motorcycle heads would do it? Food for thought

[JohnD]

Ah, so!  Thank you, Derek (and Paul)

On clutches, you may have a solution.  If not, have you talked to Questmead, in Rochdale?    They have an outstanding reputation in rallying, and are THE specialists.

Call 01706 363931, and ask for Steve Brown.

Edited April 2, 2020 by JohnD

[A30Racer]

Sorry JohnD forgot about your Q. The Academy is a bit fixed for my liking & they have "star" drivers beating 7 bells out of their pride & joys too, which I didn't much like the liking. My impression is that they are tricky little cars if you go really quick as they are short, narrow & fairly tall. All good ingredients for a tail-slide moving into a roll. Plenty on Youtube doing multiple rolls. I think driving it to Goodwood and watchin will probably suffice!

[JohnD]

Thank you, Derek.   When I first saw about the Academy, I was excited by the propsect of another low cost race series, rather like the ld Triumph one.    Then I saw the price of cars and engines!    Hooray Henry stuff (no offence!)   What a pity.

On Goodwood, they can get stuffed.   My Vitesse is the last race Vitesse in the Uk, and they told me that  they would not accept my entry for the St.Mary's Trophy "For production-based saloons of a type raced between 1960 and 1966"     And anyway, I'm  happ to get dolled up in period overalls and a clothcap to fettle at CLM, but not a three peice suit and spats for Goodwood.  Ridiculous.

JOhn

Edited April 2, 2020 by JohnD

[A30Racer]

Yes a bit "rich boys toys" for my liking. Will be fun on the hills & should easily get an entry, being a bit unusual (& driven by an idiot, obviously helps!)

Just putting the ancilliary bits on the engine to what won't fit. Shame the lovely exhaust has gone bit brown over the years. Will blast & paint it prior to final fitting

[Nick Jones]

2 hours ago, A30Racer said:

Shame the lovely exhaust has gone bit brown over the years. Will blast & paint it prior to final fitting

There's a place in Poole that does aluminium spraying.  Might last a bit better.  I have their details somewhere.

[A30Racer]

I think a chum of mine owns the building. That is the place we used to go for the ceramic spraying of the Cray stuff I think

[Nick Jones]

Cray...!  I forgotten about that.  In my defence, it was more than 30 years ago.......

[A30Racer]

A little more progress on the ends of the engine. Picked up the new clutch assembly (an uprated MG Midget item) which is a special to mix the Midget flywheel & Ford gearbox. All fitted very nicely and the release bearing even is in the right place. Still need to make up the hydraulic pipes (it is a Burton concentric one I've had for years), but other than that, it's sorted.

[A30Racer]

The front end of the engine has put up more of a struggle. The bespoke timing belt arrangement had previously been thrown on just to see if the engine went round without piston/valve clashes (which it did OK). Not good enough to be going round at any big revs though...........

First thing to get attention was the crank pulley which on close inspection was breaking through at the keyway. A slimmer seal was chosen and a steel sleeve turned up on the lathe and pressed on. Thanks to Steve Harris for his help on this. Next thing to get attention will be the mounting of the tensioner (a Ford Zetec item) as it is all a bit busy at the front, with timing belt, fan belt and toothed wheel / sensor for ECU all competing for the limited space. It would be nice to keep the mechanical water pump and have an alternator too! More updates will follow.

[Nick Jones]

Damn, that key way was close before!

[A30Racer]

The metal had puckered on the outside, it was that close! Thought the pulley might end up splitting if we left it like that.

[JohnD]

Gosh, we have discussed before the need for a cross-flow head on Triumphs - and found that a redesign was too difficult.  The pushrods get in the way.

But Duncan offers us a solution!    BMW make the only (?) remaining production straight six engines, and with O/h cams!   Is there one that would fit(ish) on the Triumph block?   I'll try to find out the dimensions of the range.

 

[JohnD]

Found this pic of a M54 BMW engine's cylinder head, and with some data on the engine, measurement on the picture and calculations....

it can't fit.

I calculate that the BMW head is 640mm long, while a Triumph head is 564mm.  That's a mean of 12.5mm per bore,

I can't see how that amount of offset of bore and chamber can be overcome, even if the equally spaced bores, the different stud spacing, let alone the drive for the cam shafts could be acheived.    Nice idea, but no cigar. 

Anyone know if BMW made a shorter six-cylinder block than the M54?

 

[JohnD]

The Wiki says that the M20 engine, at 2L was BMW's smallest of the time.  It had a SOHC, but was still cross flow.

 

A similar measure and compute estimate found that this head is about the same length as a Triumph head!  It even has the same squish area, D-shaped chambers as a Triumph, albeit turned on their sides for the offset valves.   I'll try to find out the real length.

Duncan, sorry, bit of a thread hijack.  I'll start a new thread to post any more.

Edited April 6, 2020 by JohnD

[JohnD]

Asked the seller of that M20 head how long it is.

He most kindly replied to my cheeky Q, to say that BMW sixes have had the same dimensions for a long time, and that M20 parts fit the M54, so I fear this is a NoGo idea.

HoHum, back to the drawing board!  No need for another thread.

Edited April 6, 2020 by JohnD

[Nick Jones]

Let us not also forget that the T6 only just (and barely only just at that!) fits under the bonnet of the GT6, Vitesse and even T2000.  Any OHC head is bound to be taller and will this prop said bonnet open.  TR5/6 may have a little headroom to spare.

The A30 on the other hand, could use a bit of extra bulk to make the engine bay look a bit less empty.

[A30Racer]

The point of adding a more efficient head is to extract more power from your infernal combustion motor? It may make more sense to get more air/fuel inside your engines via other means. Forced induction and more efficiency via fuel injection should move things on a fair bit. I have stuck mainly to normally aspirated to keep my car in a certain racing class (they take cc and multiply by 1.4 for forced induction). A turbo 5 port A-series would easily give more power & torque. 

[JohnD]

What is your favoured race series. Duncan?    Are they cool about such an extreme head mod?

Mine, CSCC, would not be happy, I thnk, although they are very relaxed about the whole "Historicity" thing, even to the point of allowing me to use 2.5L in my Vitesse.

The mark-up for turbos is standard - it's in the Blue Book, I think.

 

[Nick Jones]

2 hours ago, A30Racer said:

The point of adding a more efficient head is to extract more power from your infernal combustion motor? It may make more sense to get more air/fuel inside your engines via other means. Forced induction and more efficiency via fuel injection should move things on a fair bit. I have stuck mainly to normally aspirated to keep my car in a certain racing class (they take cc and multiply by 1.4 for forced induction). A turbo 5 port A-series would easily give more power & torque. 

Indeed.  Have considered the forced induction route on a number of occasions and there have been a few (fairly select few) who have travelled this way and got good results, perhaps mixed in with a bit of shrapnel generation.  I did once have a fairly short discussion about it with none other than Dennis Priddle (who knows a bit about the subject).  His comment was that it was always a good idea to start with an engine type with decent reserves of strength and cooling capacity and he couldn't think of any Triumph offerings that qualified!  Possibly a bit harsh - the 2L 6 is reasonably robust - but the discussion moved on to the need for charge cooling once the boost goes over about 5 psi (no point in bothering unless you do?) and exactly where I thought I might squeeze in an intercooler or even a charge cooler.  Might be possible on a GT6, TR or big saloon, but on a Vitesse he definitely has a point!

In fact, for the old grey Skip at least, I have enough grunt already really, even without going to 2.5.  Any more would just serve to further emphasise the shortcomings of chassis, suspension and brakes - it's a reasonably balanced package at present. 

The hillclimb class rules always used to be " original pattern block" or something like that but it will depend on the class you are aiming for.