Tuscan Tales

Author
Discussion

robsco

7,822 posts

175 months

Thursday 16th October 2014
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Oh that is just wonderful.

m4tti

Original Poster:

5,426 posts

154 months

Thursday 16th October 2014
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Thanks Rob. Looks even better in its new home finished. Will gets those pics up next.

TuxMan

9,010 posts

237 months

Thursday 16th October 2014
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Great work , following with interest !!

BaronVonVTEC

397 posts

183 months

Thursday 16th October 2014
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Top stuff!

NCE 61

2,385 posts

280 months

Sunday 19th October 2014
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Nice work, very interesting read thanks for sharing.

Sagi Badger

589 posts

192 months

Monday 20th October 2014
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Hi Matt,

Sweet looking build. I've heard enough about it by text.... first real pics I've seen. I missed this thread, just been so busy. Can I ask what you gapped your rings to, I have skim read this as I am supposed to be something else right now so excuse if you have noted a figure.

Fancy a bacon roll n cuppa soon on a dry morning soon..?

Cheers,

J

m4tti

Original Poster:

5,426 posts

154 months

Monday 20th October 2014
quotequote all
Missed this from the last instalment.. The engine was finished off nicely with a refurbed timing cover. It had been soda blasted but sat around long enough to get furry again. The alloy came up ok with some wonder wheels, acid etch and engine paint.

IMG_1202 - Copy by Barkley Dogue, on Flickr

Cleaned up..

IMG_1203 - Copy by Barkley Dogue, on Flickr

Acid Etch..

IMG_1204 - Copy by Barkley Dogue, on Flickr

Finished..

IMG_1234 by Barkley Dogue, on Flickr


Putting it all back…

We unloaded the engine from the landrover and put it back on the home made skid ready to be positioned in its old home.

NewEngine2 by Barkley Dogue, on Flickr

NewEngine3 by Barkley Dogue, on Flickr

NewEngine1 by Barkley Dogue, on Flickr

Putting all of this lot back was just about a frustrating as taking it out. Certain parts (again) had a very distinct order of operations.

The engine on the skid was pushed back under the raised chassis. It was fairly straight forward getting the engine physically in the engine bay, but it was a two man job to cant it back over the necessary degrees and bolt the engine mounts in place.
Slowly but surely things were starting to take shape.

IMG_1287 by Barkley Dogue, on Flickr

IMG_1286 by Barkley Dogue, on Flickr

IMG_1288 by Barkley Dogue, on Flickr

I had bought a set of refurbed roller bearing-ed throttle bodies the year previous. Instead of a floating shaft with a felt washed behind a nut locking the shaft in place, these used sealed roller bearings. They certainly looked the part, but things weren’t quite as good as they seemed.. we’ll come back to that

New body with roller bearing

IMG_1302 by Barkley Dogue, on Flickr

Old body with felt bush

IMG_1301 by Barkley Dogue, on Flickr

The throttle bodies were mounted on the head with a set of bespoke gaskets. The gaskets were provided by Andy_MR2Sc who advertises on PH. Another good guy I’ve met on this journey who is a top machinist and has some great ideas for improved parts. Typically the throttle bodies are sealed in place using hylomar…. These I felt were a good improvement on the standard process, certainly in terms of ease of fitment.

IMG_1294 by Barkley Dogue, on Flickr


Before the oil system could be connected back up, it needed to be flushed so the dry sump tank was removed and paraffin was left in it for several days. I then flushed it with a hose to ensure everything ran clear and gave it one last flush with paraffin. I decided to replace the oil lines as they were looking tired around the fitting.
Again this was all fairly simple stuff but laborious.

Minor issues cropped up all the way, such as the stud on the power steering bracket that locates the power steering tensioner had somehow been snapped off… annoyingly I hadn’t noticed before it was powder coated. Luckily I had a spare block at my mums with one of these still on it, otherwise it would have a been a bit of hunt for one.

Piece by piece it all went back..

IMG_1317 by Barkley Dogue, on Flickr

Eventually it was all back and the day of the first fire came along!

First fire, just lucky it wasn’t a real fire!

After priming the oil system and letting the car turn over on the starter, and seeing strong oil pressure I went for the first fire up.
To my amazement the thing fired on the first start of the key. I quickly got the revs up for the initial cam break in. I was prepared, I had my mum holding a fire extinguisher and my wife and little brother checking for leaks. I held the revs up at about 2k, at which the noise is fairly deafening .. You couldn’t hear much. Mum shouted over to me that there was liquid at the back of the car….
“Liquid” I thought, so shouted back, “what liquid”. She checked it out and shouted back petrol… woah! I quickly shut it down. I checked the banjo I’d replaced and it was dry as a bone. Where was this coming from?? There were no leaks when I put it in the garage and started the strip down.

A lot of petrol

IMG_1336 by Barkley Dogue, on Flickr

The car was wheeled back into the garage, I felt a bit deflated, so near but so far. What had happened? How could this be!

I got the car back on the ramp and that weekend set about trying to diagnose the issue. There was so much fuel it must have been the fuel feed.. Every time I primed the fuel pump fuel would pish down from above. After messing about taking the rusty banjo off the fuel filter and blowing in it there was no leak on that side (what a waste of time). I then took the return off the fuel rail and blew down that.. to my amazement I could hear air escaping under the car. As I cast my mind back it dawned on me, what had happened.

When the car was up on the ramp and I was doing some of the engine bay re-furb I went to roll the car off the ramp a few feet. I didn’t realise at the time the return line was trapped under one of the ramps skid plates..un-beknown to me when I went to roll the car forward, with the trapped return line, it was simply dragging the pipe out of place. I noticed it at the time but was more concerned about it being crushed by the weight of the ramp platform. On the crushing front it was fine... Son of beech.

In the end I replaced the return line, it had gone too stiff to relocate without kinking. Thinking that was the end of it I rolled the car back out for a test fire and unbelievable there were more leaks.. this time the fittings on the fuel filter which were disturbed. I discovered this on Thursday night but wanted to get the car going at the weekend, so I took a trip down to Pirtek Medway who sorted out a new filter to pump hose for me. I primed the system again and luckily that was the end of the leaks. Two weeks of weekends wasted…

After a morning of putting it all back together the moment came when I could fire her up. Again she started on the button, Great I thought. I ran the car back up to temperature and began to feel a sense of relief. Once up to temperature I started balancing the throttle bodies.

After many attempts I simply couldn’t get the hot idle below about 1200 rpm. Was it the new head drawing so much air.. of course not! I relayed the info to RG and they too had never heard this, but instantly asked whether I was using my original throttle bodies. Obviously I wasn’t.

I tried all sorts of things. I looked at the balance springs between the butterflies and thought they might be worn and not providing enough return force, so replaced these.. Nope wasn’t this.

I loosened the butterflies and tickled them about to try and make them more central in case they were put out by the refurb, but still no joy. The idle was high and I just didn’t want to drive the car until it was running perfect. In the end the new bodies had to come off and were put on the bench to do some comparison tests.

Once on the bench I compared the bodies to the old bodies. A simple test of sealing a new closed throttle body over my mouth and blowing, and repeating the same test with the old body revealed the new bodies simply leaked a lot of air. It would appear that the interior of the body mouth was blasted. It perhaps only removed a thou or two of material and possibly left a microscopic dimpled surface, but it left them leaking air horribly. They were essentially junk, and were supposed to enhance that completely new feel of the set up. Annoying!! Not a lot I could do after having had them sat there for over a year waiting.

The moral of this story is to tread carefully with specialist parts. Don’t take anything for granted… it made me think how I could have validated the part before leaving the cash behind..

After discovering that the new bodies were effectively useless I set about stripping off the throttle bodies and mounting the old throttle bodies and putting everything back together.

After wrestling the fuel rail back on, I pressurised the system. No leaks!

This time I fired her up, balanced the throttle bodies and was able to get a hot idle of 900 rpm. Halleluiah!

So that was it… oh no it wasn’t. Upon my first real test drive doing one of my favourite loops round the local country side I pulled into a petrol station and discovered that with the high under bonnet temps the car wouldn’t restart. So now theres a hot start problem. Turn the key and the voltage would plummet and the starter just didn’t want to even click. I waited 20 mins and got it going again.

The following weekend I set about cleaning all the earth points. Of course this is easier said than done on these things.. wheel off, battery out, under tray off etc etc After a couple of hours and a load of di-electric grease everything was sorted and I was back on the road again.

Whats it like…
Although im still getting used to the car and its still in its running in phase the engine is awesome. Cold oil pressure at start up is now in the 90 psi range… and hot idle oil pressure is now in the the 30 psi range, not the 9 – 12 psi range.. yes you heard right that’s right 9psi. Which is simply bonkers. Gone is the sewing machine sound, this has been replaced by a methodical rythm of the cams and turbine sound of the simplex chain system.. No more clattering chains. Can you tell im pleased so far… Its worlds apart from the original engine, but it has in fact enhanced its character.
I’ve done about 600 miles, and haven’t really taken it above 4750 rpm .. but even at that level it really starts coming on song.. there’s no gear where 4750 rpm is legal.

The finished engine bay

DSC_0193 by Barkley Dogue, on Flickr

DSC_0188 by Barkley Dogue, on Flickr

DSC_0192 by Barkley Dogue, on Flickr

DSC_0185 by Barkley Dogue, on Flickr


Ahh but that’s not all!
Well with all the knock backs I had with the mechanical stuff I had to do a bit of retail therapy and do some cosmetic stuff. Carbon Fibre Seat backs…. Well not just cosmetic. The original seat backs crack, and believe it or not they do actually serve a purpose. They prevent your back from becoming concave and being squirted out the back of the seat frame. Trust me this isn’t pleasant for any longer than an hour, you can develop a high quality bad back from this posture very rapidly.

These came from Carbon Delight. It took Phil (owner of Carbon Delight) a little while to do them as the first pair he did were moulded from leather backed seat backs and weren’t the right shape, but he had no problem in taking them back, taking one of my original backs and creating a new former.

Again Phil is another top man, he took me through the process of the making carbon fibre parts in his workshop. He came across as passionate about creating quality parts and above all even though the original backs were wrong he came through with replacements. The finish is awesome! What more can you want! Unsung heroes of Britains niche industries, lets make sure we keep them alive.

IMG_0506 by Barkley Dogue, on Flickr

IMG_1323 by Barkley Dogue, on Flickr

What Next..
Ive got a list of things (copied below) I’d like to do, but now the big bits done so is the challenge... I’ve lately been thinking of maybe getting hold of a Noble that could do with some TLC.. or the wife would like a break from these sort of cars biggrin


Stuff to do..
Syvecs stand alone management
Larger injectors
Large bore exhaust- Most fit the act large bore exhaust system for increased power, but I think more time could be spent on this looking for a better sound and flow!
Bespoke map
Configure traction control
Refurb steering wheel
Replace Carpets
Refurb wheels.. in black!
Respray in original colour, but perhaps with a stronger metallic!

Thanks to…
Just like to say thanks for all the help the following people have provided.
Mainly my wife for enduring the swearing and the tantrums, Colin at RG for listening to many questions many times some even repeated, my little brother for helping and enduring the tempers and swearing.

My best mate mark for helping me getting the engine out and back in, and helping me reduce the EU beer mountain. We drank a few whilst contemplating tactics..

AndyMr2sc who I met via piston heads, who helped me solve my throttle body issues and have since have had a couple of good afternoons out,

John (Sagi_badger) for answering a whole bunch of texts, whilst he was going though his own rebuild.

And lastly my mum for listening to weekly whingeing and holding the fire extinguisher! That’s what mums are for.

There's bound to be others I've forgotten as I sit here.... So Alan, rich and and any one else who spared some hours on the way. Thanks again.


Thanks for listening.

Good luck in your own projects!

Children let this TVR tale be a warning to you :P


Edited by m4tti on Monday 20th October 21:55


Edited by m4tti on Monday 20th October 22:43


Edited by m4tti on Saturday 25th October 10:31


Edited by m4tti on Sunday 26th October 21:58

m4tti

Original Poster:

5,426 posts

154 months

Monday 20th October 2014
quotequote all
Sagi Badger said:
Hi Matt,

Sweet looking build. I've heard enough about it by text.... first real pics I've seen. I missed this thread, just been so busy. Can I ask what you gapped your rings to, I have skim read this as I am supposed to be something else right now so excuse if you have noted a figure.

Fancy a bacon roll n cuppa soon on a dry morning soon..?

Cheers,

J
Hello John. Would be good to meet up.. just let me know when

What a coincidence.. I just posted the last installment up mentioning your text assistance smile

Annoyingly I did have all these numbers that I had been provided on scraps of paper in the garage, but cant seem to locate the things at the moment. I'll keep looking.



B'stard Child

28,324 posts

245 months

Monday 20th October 2014
quotequote all
I'm impressed by the efforts but can I ask a couple of questions

1. How proven is the simplex timing set up - especially bearing in mind the wear on the previous duplex set up and did I miss anything on improving the lubrication of the chains and guides

2. Could the throttle bodies be re-bored and have slightly larger butterflies fitted


Andy_mr2sc

1,223 posts

175 months

Tuesday 21st October 2014
quotequote all
Hi Matt
Great to catch up at the weekend and finally see your car out on the road!
I've only just found this write up. Very well executed with some very useful and detailed ideas and information. May I suggest a link to this maybe in the speed 6 forum as I only found it by accident and it could easily be missed.
Andy

m4tti

Original Poster:

5,426 posts

154 months

Wednesday 22nd October 2014
quotequote all
B'stard Child said:
I'm impressed by the efforts but can I ask a couple of questions

1. How proven is the simplex timing set up - especially bearing in mind the wear on the previous duplex set up and did I miss anything on improving the lubrication of the chains and guides

2. Could the throttle bodies be re-bored and have slightly larger butterflies fitted

With regard to the simplex upgrade I think I had the same questions when I was first reviewing it. The standard duplex set up is fairly old fashioned and is the sort of set up you'd see on a 60's jaguar.
The simplex chain is improved and from memory has at least the same strength as the duplex chains.

The chain tensioner in the original setup was almost like a brake shoe which the chain carried over. This was fairly worn and again replaced with an uprated part which (from memory) is a solid teflon type material.

With regard to the oil supply, one of the weak points was the half time bearing, which originally was splash fed. This is now pressure fed from a feed taken from one of the oil gallerys. The gallery had a threaded plug in which was removed. You can see the copper feed pipe leading to the half time shaft in some of the pics with the engine front cover removed. The bearing itself has been uprated to a needle roller bearing. A number of cars have had half time bearing failure. The pressure fed oil is also now thrown from the half time shaft on to the surrounding timing chains. Resulting in improved lubrication.

Some of the wear seen may have been due to the chains being over tightened. The chains commonly hit the cam cover (mine had witness marks on the under side). The chains are then tightened so they dont hit. This typically results in them being overtightened, especially as the alloy block behaves differently in terms of thermal expansion to the timing set up. One of the remedies is to fit a nitrile gasket to the cam cover rather than sealing it with RTV. This raises the cover.

More detailed info on the simplex kit
http://www.thetvrshop.com/TVR/Parts_details/TVR%20...
http://www.racinggreentvr.com/parts-news/Complete-...

With regard to the throttle bodies. Im not sure how easy boring them would be. We're talking a thou or two, but you dont want to start increasing the shaft aperture as a result of opening the throat. This could result in air leaking round the spindle.

I may look at having some new butterflies made, but again these will need to be really accurate and may be different accross the bodies. The butterflies are also chamfered on their edges.. so not a quick job.

Andy_Mr2sc whos posted above could probably add more detail on the potential machining options. Ive only got very basic machining skills biggrin




FWDRacer

3,564 posts

223 months

Wednesday 22nd October 2014
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The next odious little turd showing us his chipped shopping trolley will be getting a hyperlink to this thread biggrin

This is PH with swarfega applied hehe

m4tti

Original Poster:

5,426 posts

154 months

Wednesday 22nd October 2014
quotequote all
FWDRacer said:
The next odious little turd showing us his chipped shopping trolley will be getting a hyperlink to this thread biggrin

This is PH with swarfega applied hehe
Even worse is when you have a chipped shopping trolley on your jacksi, when your doing the running in miles, and you really want to show them what 8000rpm looks, sounds, and smells like laugh


Edited by m4tti on Wednesday 22 October 16:43

Too Late

5,092 posts

234 months

Wednesday 22nd October 2014
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What a great read.
Thanks

m4tti

Original Poster:

5,426 posts

154 months

Wednesday 22nd October 2014
quotequote all
No problem. Glad you enjoyed.

Stay tuned there's bound to be some more sagas when it comes to dyno time biggrin

JackP1

1,269 posts

161 months

Wednesday 22nd October 2014
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Amazing

Jer_1974

1,497 posts

192 months

Wednesday 22nd October 2014
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Great thread.

StreetDragster

1,513 posts

217 months

Thursday 23rd October 2014
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Brilliant, thanks for posting. Hopefully we'll see you in the Noble forum soon.

Matt

m4tti

Original Poster:

5,426 posts

154 months

Thursday 23rd October 2014
quotequote all
StreetDragster said:
Brilliant, thanks for posting. Hopefully we'll see you in the Noble forum soon.

Matt
Thanks very much. I do keep getting the urge to pull a duratec apart, uprate everything and make it single turbo lick

madbadger

11,555 posts

243 months

Thursday 23rd October 2014
quotequote all
Great read.

Thanks for sharing, Matt.

smile