Tuthill 911K

[993rsr]

Slippydiff said:

Bobley said:

Swindon eh... hmm... that's... interesting. I'll keep my eyes peeled for more

Swindon Race Engines developed and built the 2.4 litre twin cam engines used in Opel Manta 400 rally cars campaigned by Jimmy McRae and Russell Brooke’s (amongst others) in the 80’s.
They know their onions.

They are in unchartered territory for a 911 engine revving to 11k however.

Now I hope it's a resounding success, but I'd question there knowledge of onions in this particular patch.

Even Singer and Williams only felt the 'need' to go to 9300 rpm for the DLS.

[Slippydiff]

993rsr said:

They are in unchartered territory for a 911 engine revving to 11k however.

Now I hope it's a resounding success, but I'd question there knowledge of onions in this particular patch.

Even Singer and Williams only felt the 'need' to go to 9300 rpm for the DLS.

DLS is 4.0, this is 3.1 and short stroke.
It’s spent a lot of time on the dyno apparently.

I’m pretty sure Tuthill wouldn’t be releasing it into the wild if they thought it would grenade/wasn’t reliable/durable.

It’s running billet crankcases, so one assumes they’ve done their homework and designed the whole engine package around that headline rpm figure.

Not sure what the DLS tips the scales at (I imagine sub 1000kg) but the K is 860kg, so it should be a quick, lightweight package which
will provide a different driving experience to the Singer DLS. The Tuthill car seems more backroad scratcher than the Faberge egg the DLS appears to be.

It sounded absolutely superb, but I don’t think the gold hue played to it strengths.

On the basis of the stunning dark purple metallic retro-modded 993 they’ve build for a client, Andrew’s K should look truly amazing.
The sort of car you could park outside a country pub on a Sunday lunchtime and most would think it’s “just a nice old Porsche that’s been well looked after”, something I don’t think you’d be able to do with the Faberge egg DLS.

[993rsr]

Slippydiff said:

993rsr said:

They are in unchartered territory for a 911 engine revving to 11k however.

Now I hope it's a resounding success, but I'd question there knowledge of onions in this particular patch.

Even Singer and Williams only felt the 'need' to go to 9300 rpm for the DLS.

DLS is 4.0, this is 3.1 and short stroke.
It’s spent a lot of time on the dyno apparently.

I’m pretty sure Tuthill wouldn’t be releasing it into the wild if they thought it would grenade/wasn’t reliable/durable.

It’s running billet crankcases, so one assumes they’ve done their homework and designed the whole engine package around that headline rpm figure.

Not sure what the DLS tips the scales at (I imagine sub 1000kg) but the K is 860kg, so it should be a quick, lightweight package which
will provide a different driving experience to the Singer DLS. The Tuthill car seems more backroad scratcher than the Faberge egg the DLS appears to be.

It sounded absolutely superb, but I don’t think the gold hue played to it strengths.

On the basis of the stunning dark purple metallic retro-modded 993 they’ve build for a client, Andrew’s K should look truly amazing.
The sort of car you could park outside a country pub on a Sunday lunchtime and most would think it’s “just a nice old Porsche that’s been well looked after”, something I don’t think you’d be able to do with the Faberge egg DLS.

My comparison was not directed at any preference to the DLS over the Tuthill car, I'm not a fan of the Singer range personally. My point was, a small company in Swindon, not known for their work with Porsche motor's being the first to develop a proven, and reliable NA 911 engine that revs to 11k is a challenge for them. I'm sure it's spending a lot of time on the dyno. I wish them, their clients and above all the delightful Andrew D the absolute best with their cars of course.

[Slippydiff]

993rsr said:

My comparison was not directed at any preference to the DLS over the Tuthill car, I'm not a fan of the Singer range personally. My point was, a small company in Swindon, not known for their work with Porsche motor's being the first to develop a proven, and reliable NA 911 engine that revs to 11k is a challenge for them. I'm sure it's spending a lot of time on the dyno. I wish them, their clients and above all the delightful Andrew D the absolute best with their cars of course.

I wasn’t suggesting you were making any preference to Mr Dickinson’s products JC. I was merely using the DLS engineering as a reference point, because you’d chosen to.

Anyway, Swindon Race Engines (or whatever they call themselves now) may not be au fait with Stuttgart’s finest, but it could be so much worse, Tuthill could have chosen to power it with a 4.1 watercooled Mezger cobbled together by a man in shed to produce 500hp at 9000rpm, armed with seemingly little, or no knowledge of said Mezger’s workings.
Now that would have given some cause for concern ...

But I agree, I too hope Andrew gets to spend many happy hours behind the wheel of his stunning looking steed.

[Yellow491]

Slippydiff said:

993rsr said:

My comparison was not directed at any preference to the DLS over the Tuthill car, I'm not a fan of the Singer range personally. My point was, a small company in Swindon, not known for their work with Porsche motor's being the first to develop a proven, and reliable NA 911 engine that revs to 11k is a challenge for them. I'm sure it's spending a lot of time on the dyno. I wish them, their clients and above all the delightful Andrew D the absolute best with their cars of course.

I wasn’t suggesting you were making any preference to Mr Dickinson’s products JC. I was merely using the DLS engineering as a reference point, because you’d chosen to.

Anyway, Swindon Race Engines (or whatever they call themselves now) may not be au fait with Stuttgart’s finest, but it could be so much worse, Tuthill could have chosen to power it with a 4.1 watercooled Mezger cobbled together by a man in shed to produce 500hp at 9000rpm, armed with seemingly little, or no knowledge of said Mezger’s workings.
Now that would have given some cause for concern ...

But I agree, I too hope Andrew gets to spend many happy hours behind the wheel of his stunning looking steed.

They were not the first to make such a engine,two old legends ex Porsche made a pair in there garden shed,4 cam basically half a 917 engine,proper reliable screamers, but sadly not for sale,would have fitted perfectly into my hillclimber weapon
Friend just got his dls,its a bute,not my taste either,he said engine is half a mill bucks and would not want to wrong slot it!All the toys he has owned said the only car that could compare with it was the 2.8 rsr

[Filibuster]

Slippydiff said:

… Tuthill could have chosen to power it with a 4.1 watercooled Mezger cobbled together by a man in shed to produce 500hp at 9000rpm, armed with seemingly little, or no knowledge of said Mezger’s workings.
Now that would have given some cause for concern ...

Is this aimed at some outlet in particular? Ruf?

I’m have no particular knowledge about boutique engine outlets, but I’m convinced that a company like Tuthill knows who to go to for such a job.

I love this project!!! This will be awesome and I can’t wait for many more post!

[Taffy66]

The two cars being launched this year which most excites me are this Tuthill 991K and the other is the GMA T.33. The trouble is they're both so far beyond my meagre means, I shall have to just settle for a spin in one. Perhaps Andrew D will kindly oblige ?

[Slippydiff]

Yellow491 said:

They were not the first to make such a engine,two old legends ex Porsche made a pair in there garden shed,4 cam basically half a 917 engine,proper reliable screamers, but sadly not for sale,would have fitted perfectly into my hillclimber weapon
Friend just got his dls,its a bute,not my taste either,he said engine is half a mill bucks and would not want to wrong slot it!All the toys he has owned said the only car that could compare with it was the 2.8 rsr

Evening Paul, I hope you’re well.
I’m sure you’re aware, a Canadian company engineered 4 valve heads for the 993 (and I assume the 964) motors back in the early 90’s. They weren’t cheap ... but their development engine/s produced 400 flywheel horsepower from 3.6 litres.
They teamed up with a well regarded aircooled engine builder in Germany and the car was mapped by Cartronic IIRC
I think the cost of the conversion and the build costs meant the project was stillborn unfortunately.

[Slippydiff]

Filibuster said:

Is this aimed at some outlet in particular? Ruf?

I’m have no particular knowledge about boutique engine outlets, but I’m convinced that a company like Tuthill knows who to go to for such a job.

I love this project!!! This will be awesome and I can’t wait for many more post!

Not Ruf
You’re unlikely to engage the services of individual I was referencing. His stock in trade is in aircooled engine builds, at which I believe he’s very proficient.

[Yellow491]

Taffy66 said:

The two cars being launched this year which most excites me are this Tuthill 991K and the other is the GMA T.33. The trouble is they're both so far beyond my meagre means, I shall have to just settle for a spin in one. Perhaps Andrew D will kindly oblige ?

Shame the tutts car does not have carbon roof and sills,luv the carbon fuchs wheels.
Having looked at a row of the GMA cars at goodwood ,the best part is the engine and sound,otherwise i think a bit unimaginative and to similar to a f1,and grossly overpriced.

[Yellow491]

Slippydiff said:

Yellow491 said:

They were not the first to make such a engine,two old legends ex Porsche made a pair in there garden shed,4 cam basically half a 917 engine,proper reliable screamers, but sadly not for sale,would have fitted perfectly into my hillclimber weapon
Friend just got his dls,its a bute,not my taste either,he said engine is half a mill bucks and would not want to wrong slot it!All the toys he has owned said the only car that could compare with it was the 2.8 rsr

Evening Paul, I hope you’re well.
I’m sure you’re aware, a Canadian company engineered 4 valve heads for the 993 (and I assume the 964) motors back in the early 90’s. They weren’t cheap ... but their development engine/s produced 400 flywheel horsepower from 3.6 litres.
They teamed up with a well regarded aircooled engine builder in Germany and the car was mapped by Cartronic IIRC
I think the cost of the conversion and the build costs meant the project was stillborn unfortunately.


Yes remember them well slippy,as cartronic supplied me a great chip for the 993rs and modified my exhaust,i was very tempted with the 4 valve head conversion as this is what always held these engines back.

[isaldiri]

993rsr said:

My point was, a small company in Swindon, not known for their work with Porsche motor's being the first to develop a proven, and reliable NA 911 engine that revs to 11k is a challenge for them.

The 11k revs is obviously eye catching but the smaller capacity means it's possibly somewhat less of an issue. No stroke mm dimensions seem available that I can see but if ballpark the mean piston speeds are not higher than a 'normal' high performance 8.5-9k engine then it's somewhat less of an issue (over and above the small issue of any small company delving into the unproven territory) I think....

[Slippydiff]

Yellow491 said:

Taffy66 said:

The two cars being launched this year which most excites me are this Tuthill 991K and the other is the GMA T.33. The trouble is they're both so far beyond my meagre means, I shall have to just settle for a spin in one. Perhaps Andrew D will kindly oblige ?

Shame the tutts car does not have carbon roof and sills,luv the carbon fuchs wheels.
Having looked at a row of the GMA cars at goodwood ,the best part is the engine and sound,otherwise i think a bit unimaginative and to similar to a f1,and grossly overpriced.

Tuthill car does have a carbon roof Paul :

[Slippydiff]

isaldiri said:

The 11k revs is obviously eye catching but the smaller capacity means it's possibly somewhat less of an issue. No stroke mm dimensions seem available that I can see but if ballpark the mean piston speeds are not higher than a 'normal' high performance 8.5-9k engine then it's somewhat less of an issue (over and above the small issue of any small company delving into the unproven territory) I think....

Exactly why I mentioned the Tuthill engine utilises a short stroke.
Singer were no doubt aiming for a headline power figure of 500hp when they planned the DLS.
They could have built a smaller capacity, shorter stroke, higher revving unit to produce that figure, but they seem to have arrived at a capacity rather similar to the 997 4.0 GT3 RS unit (though I'm not sure what bore/stroke the DSL motor uses ?), and the same peak power figure too.

The Swindon developed engine for Tuthill didn’t have such lofty aspirations when it came to peak power numbers, but instead seems to have centered on high revs, good torque and produces 310hp from what I was told.
That allied to a car weighing 860kg should be a fun and entertaining package and won’t need to be driven at ridiculous speeds to enable enjoyment from the engine’s high revving ability.

As I previously mentioned, Swindon Race Engines (now Swindon Powertrain) engineered, built and supplied the engines for the UK Dealer Opel Team Opel Manta 400’s campaigned by McRae, Brooke’s and others in the British Open Rally Championship in the ‘80’s (when it was probably the premier National/Open rally championship in the world) and their engines were very highly regarded, though that was well over 30 years ago. Which also tells you they're no fly by night operation.

I wasn't aware of this, but latterly they developed and built/supplied a large proportion of the generic engines (based on a production engine) for the British Touring Car Championship grid, and they did so for ten years between 2012 and 2022, so I think they’re probably competent when it comes to developing/building high revving race engines.

I think the aspersions being cast upon them because they’re a small company, somewhat unfair (I once chatted to Keith Duckworth for the best part of an hour whilst his daughter and my other half were horse eventing)
He told me how he and Mike Costin has started messing with engines in shed in North London. Mighty oaks from small acorns grow ...

Swindon Powertrain may not be the same size as Ricardo, Prodrive or Cosworth, nor familiar with the flat six air cooled engine’s architecture, but I’m not aware of Williams Grand Prix Engineering (or whatever their engineering consultancy business is now called) having had a proven track record in engineering Porsche’s air cooled flat 6 engines ? though I imagine that's why the services of some chap called Mezger were engaged by Rob Dickinson.

Richard Tuthill does of course have close links with Dickinson and Singer, having been heavily involved in the development of the Singer ACS and the testing of the DLS models.
I’d be somewhat surprised if some useful information on the intricacies of the flat six air-cooled engine weren't exchanged between Rob Dickinson and Richard Tuthill, especially as Tuthill now appears to be Singer’s UK agent.

[993rsr]

Slippydiff said:

I think the aspersions being cast upon them because they’re a small company, somewhat unfair (I once chatted to Keith Duckworth for the best part of an hour whilst his daughter and my other half were horse eventing)
He told me how he and Mike Costin has started messing with engines in shed in North London. Mighty oaks from small acorns grow ...

I think comparing Swindon Powertrains to Cosworth is a bit of a stretch under the 'Mighty oaks' line.

My point was, a small, unknown company in the Porsche sphere, developing a 911 engine that revs to 11k RPM reliably with excellent drivability that will naturally be expected at the price, is a challenge.

I don't think you can dispute that.

Edited by 993rsr on Thursday 20th April 15:30

[Cheib]

Whether their abilities/expertise this is a new dimension for Porsche road car engines…it will be incredible to drive I am sure. I don’t know enough about engine construction/engineering to know how reliable an engine like this will be but in terms of power/torque it doesn’t seem like it is a complete game changer. Maybe it’s a very light engine too for its output ?

[BertBert]

All seems a bit mad to me. My experience of high revving race engines (BDG and Radical) is they last a couple of thousand miles before needing refreshing.

Now I know that road car usage is very different, but 11k feels nuts. I know very little though!

Mind you I can't see how it can make good torque (mentioned above) if it revs to 11 and somewhere in the range produces (only) 300 bhp.

[isaldiri]

Slippydiff said:

The Swindon developed engine for Tuthill didn’t have such lofty aspirations when it came to peak power numbers, but instead seems to have centered on high revs, good torque and produces 310hp from what I was told.
.

it'd have to be producing more than 310hp I'd have thought? 3.1l engine that revs to 11k - the raw specs would suggest something that should be a lot more than 300-ish hp surely otherwise it means the torque is relatively very low.

Have to say I'd be in agreement with 993rsr here - it doesn't seem unfair or casting aspersions to note that a smaller company with little track record in 911s does have something a challenge to prove that they are capable of making that engine (given the headline specs) work successfully. A Ricardo or Cosworth would have far less questions because of who they are. Not that a smaller company couldn't do it but it wouldn't be unreasonable to wonder how deliverable that would be I think....

[Yellow491]

Slippydiff said:

Yellow491 said:

Taffy66 said:

The two cars being launched this year which most excites me are this Tuthill 991K and the other is the GMA T.33. The trouble is they're both so far beyond my meagre means, I shall have to just settle for a spin in one. Perhaps Andrew D will kindly oblige ?

Shame the tutts car does not have carbon roof and sills,luv the carbon fuchs wheels.
Having looked at a row of the GMA cars at goodwood ,the best part is the engine and sound,otherwise i think a bit unimaginative and to similar to a f1,and grossly overpriced.

Tuthill car does have a carbon roof Paul :

Kind of
Short stroke engines had there troubles and vibrations to.

[Slippydiff]

993rsr said:

I think comparing Swindon Powertrains to Cosworth is a bit of a stretch under the 'Mighty oaks' line.

My point was, a small, unknown company in the Porsche sphere, developing a 911 engine that revs to 11k RPM reliably with excellent drivability that will naturally be expected at the price, is a challenge.

I don't think you can dispute that.

I wasn’t comparing them JC, I merely stated that even the most highly regarded automotive consultancy businesses such as Cosworth, Ricardo etc, came from incredibly humble and small roots.
And I don’t think you can dispute that.