1975 Triumph Dolomite Sprint

[TooMany2cvs]

davepoth said:

However, since the turbo manifold would have to exit through the front valence it's probably a non-starter...

In a Saab, the manifold comes forward, with the turbo sitting just ahead of the block, sideways, just under the distributor - but that's the flywheel end, so the turbo'd be in the glovebox. There's quite a few conversions using the distributorless Trionic ignition from 9000s etc.

The manifold on a turbo Saab isn't the greatest piece of design the world's ever seen, so I don't think that'd be a showstopper or even the biggest engineering challenge of the whole conversion...

Front of car is to the right in both of these pics...
8v


16v


...and who can resist an excuse for THAT image...

[hidetheelephants]

Fabby. I'm not sure having to knock up a pair of custom fanimolds is particularly onerous in the scheme of frankenmodding cars.

[AW111]

TooMany2cvs said:

...and who can resist an excuse for THAT image...

The thought of all that glowing metal under the bonnet of a 70s triumph is..
..worrying

[davepoth]

AW111 said:

TooMany2cvs said:

...and who can resist an excuse for THAT image...

The thought of all that glowing metal under the bonnet of a 70s triumph is..
..worrying

Not quite so hot, but still rather impressive. This is from Joachim Bunkus' Sprint:



and I think he had actually just overtaken that 911.

[miniman]

Hey, Dave, you still owe me a brass expansion tank plug don't you?

[davepoth]

miniman said:

Hey, Dave, you still owe me a brass expansion tank plug don't you?

Did I still not post one to you? I honestly thought I'd done that...seven years ago.

[anonymous-user]

I got lucky on eBay and picked up a new O/S rear door skin to replace the one dented by my blundering gardener.

Here's an 1850 for sale if anoine fancies one.


http://www.carandclassic.co.uk/car/C715108

[anonymous-user]

Or eliminate the hassle of having to tell every fker at every garage stop "NO, it's not a Sprint".

http://www.carandclassic.co.uk/car/C717018

[HarryW]

Breadvan72 said:

Or eliminate the hassle of having to tell every fker at every garage stop "NO, it's not a Sprint".

http://www.carandclassic.co.uk/car/C717018

Muchy likey that....

Which got me on to browsing triumphs on that site. This TR6 caught my eye... http://www.carandclassic.co.uk/car/C700390#

[TooMany2cvs]

HarryW said:

Muchy likey that....

Which got me on to browsing triumphs on that site. This TR6 caught my eye... http://www.carandclassic.co.uk/car/C700390#

Hmm. TR6-powered Dolly?

[anonymous-user]

More ads -

[P5BNij]

Those two green Dollies look fab, it's a good job I don't want one or have anywhere to put one if even if I did. I think. Possibly.

Stop it!

[182scott]

I'm seriously tempted to buy a Sprint as a first classic car! This thread does not help...
I want to use it as a daily driver throughout the summer months.

Breadvan, I gather you are using the Dolly as a daily. How are you finding it?

[anonymous-user]

It is fine as a daily, although I do use other cars as well. Get a well maintained one, Waxoyl it, put coolant in not water, and keep the timing and carb balance correct, and you should be fine. Buy the best available and not a project.

[AW111]

Breadvan72 said:

More ads -

I love the sneer at overly complex twin cam exotica, coupled with a massive 127hp from 2 litres!

[anonymous-user]

They could get 150, but not consistently, and the figure for production cars varied around 125-135 BHP. Compare the Lotus 900 series engine, a twin cam slant four, which in two point two litre form would produce 160 to 180 BHP.

Edited by anonymous-user on Tuesday 8th March 10:58

[racerbob]

They were indeed a cracking road car back in the day. One of the reasons that power was restricted to 125 -130 bhp was because of a 'flaw' in the cylinder head design, because of space limitations, the head bolts on the exhaust side went through the head into the block at an angle about 15° from vertical, whereas on the inlet side the bolts went through at 90°. I've seen the head start to lift and water start to p**s out everywhere when held on full load.

In another life I worked at a tuning firm who did a few Dolly sprint engines to Group 'A' spec for touring car events, the potential was there, but we had to find stronger head bolts together with different cams, springs, forged pistons, a ladder frame to stop the main bearings breaking, but with 48 DCOE Webers and 11.6:1 compression, a tubular exhaust manifold you could see good power. In fact this morning whilst looking for something else I came across an old test sheet for one of these engines.

185 bhp @ 5000rpm
210 bhp @ 5500
230 bhp @ 6000
241 bhp @ 6500
250 bhp @ 7000

As I said, the potential was there.

[silentbrown]

Breadvan72 said:

They could get 150, but not consistently, and the figure for production cars varied around 125-135 BHP. Compare the Lotus 900 series engine, a twin cam slant four, which in two pint two litre form would produce 160 to 180 BHP.

Initial 900s in Jensen-Healeys were about 140BHP? And, Alfa 2000GTV twincam was 130, so the Sprint is hardly far off the mark.

Five years later, with a turbocharger, Saab were only getting 145BHP from the 2-litre...

IIRC the Sprints racing in CSCC Post-historics were getting about 200+...

[gforceg]

If this is as nice as it looks it would be a treat in a non-Sprinty sort of a way.

http://www.carandclassic.co.uk/car/C721238

[anonymous-user]

It looks good, but the price seems toppish.