New Vixen Project

[chris52]

I have managed to my hands on a new project its a 1969 Vixen S2, the car has not been on the road for well over 20 years and was going to be made into a racer by the previous owner so he disposed of a lot of parts that he was going to replace. The chassis has had new outriggers fitted and all it needs now is the body fixing corner plates welding on and blasting and powder coating.
Parts I am missing -Bonnet, Radiator, wheels, Rear Window, Door glass, Exhaust, Steering rack, Front brake calipers plus a few others I can't think of at the moment. The body will need the most amount of work as it has plenty of stress cracks plus a ver poor repair in the roof.
More pics to follow later



Some of the stress cracks




Chris

Edited by chris52 on Friday 14th March 17:35

[chris52]

Cheers Oliver. Yes it will be a much bigger job than the M ive set myself a target of 18 months to have it on the road.
Chris

[chris52]

Thanks guys ,
The car is only 2 owners and has some history including a bill from a Tvr main dealer in 1972 for an oil and filter change and 4 wheel badges total cost £5.30 lol.

I am thinking of making it a fast road car using a lot of the uprated engine parts but keeping the car as original as possible. So probably wont bother with the quaife gearbox or dry sump and put in a sensible fast road camshaft 5 speed type 9 box but haven't fully decided yet. Opinons and experience on set ups would be much appeciated.
chris

Edited by chris52 on Tuesday 17th November 20:02

[chris52]

daza said:

Chris... has this shell got stripes down the side?

There was an S2 about a while ago... similar colour and similar to my own car which had a Lotus Twin cam engine fitted but removed prior to being put on sale.

As for the resto... personally... drop a Duratec in.... dont waste your time re-egineering an oil burner.

Good luck

D

No stripes and this one has been sat in the back of a garage in bits for a lot of years. Regards the engine I know the later engines are better power better economy etc but I would prefer to stick with the crossflow.
Chris

[chris52]

Well not a great deal of progress mainly finding bits etc. Did get the new bonnet though and managed to get that fitc






Chris

[chris52]

Its been well over a year since I put this project on hold. Now the ML is finished its about time I got back onto it. The body is now well on its way to having a new paint job. The chassis is also just about ready to be powder coated but will wait for a while as I'm undecided as to whether I will fit a roll cage. Over the past year although I haven't been working on the car I have been collecting parts ready for the rebuild. So I'm now on with the engine which I hope will be a monster for an old crossflow. I know I could have stuck in a modern engine that has more power and costs a fraction but I wanted it to have a certain degree or originality.

The spec of the engine will be as follows, Cosworth steel narrow journal long rod crank, Farndon forged steel conrods, Accralite 83.5mm pistons, ARP rod bolts, Kent 244 camshafts, Vernier timing chain and gears, high pressure oil pump, The head is a stage 3 fully ported and polished with bronze guides etc etc. Ignition is via a Aldon electronic distributor with magnacor leads, fuel is via 2 twin 40 DCOE carbs and electronic fuel pump.
Ive had the short engine built up by the experts but the rest I plan on doing myself. I will post my progress if anyone is interested.
Pictures of the engine now I have it back from the experts.











Chris

[chris52]

The gearbox is a type 9 5 speed and the diff is standard but I have had it fully rebuilt.
Chris

[chris52]

Yes they are Isky double valve springs with titanium caps 7.15 stainless steel valves they are also all shimmed for equal poundage.
Chris

[chris52]

Thanks Guys. Not sure how long this one will take as I don't plan on spending as much of my spare time on it as I did with the ML plus I don't have any target dates to get it finished by so it's just as and when.
Will keep the progress updated though.
Chris

[chris52]

Moto said:

Hi Chris. Your engine spec sounds like a lot of thought has gone into it. I'd be interested to know a bit more behind why this spec and what you're looking to achieve from it. Also presumably a 711M block or is it an AX? What size valves are they?

Cheers

Moto

The previous owner of the car was going to build it into a track car so purchased a lot of the parts (crank rods pistons head)ready to build a race engine. If I was to start from fresh I don't think I would have gone to this extreme as the costs would have been just to much for a road car. Even having a lot of the expensive parts already I will still end up putting the best part of £3k into the engine and box alone. The block is a late 711M. I did spend a lot of time researching the best way to build this engine and will still be asking a lot more questions as it progresses. The valve sizes are roughly 40mm inlet and 35mm exhaust from memory. I had the block skimmed to give me a deck clearance of 0.005" and with a 0.040" head gasket should give me a compression ratio of about 11.8 to 1, I will set a rev limiter at 8k although this set up will rev quite happily to 9 and beyond. The limiting factors to this set up is going to be the cam as I want a car that will drive reasonably easy. The 244 is on the limit of this as the power band is between 3000 and 8000 rpm but should be ok in a lightweight car.
Chris

[chris52]

Hullygully said:

So...what did you have done to the diff? You say rebuilt...toughened in some way?

No just rebuilt for now at a local specialist. The diff should be able to cope though as it tends to be torque that kills diff. This engine will have a relatively low torque but high rpm and hopefully somewhere around 150bhp

[chris52]

What a wasted weekend. Fitted cam got it all timed up with the vernier gears using a dial gauge. Then dummy built the top end up to find out how close the pistons and valves were ( a cunk of plasticine under the 2 valves) then stripped it back down only to find that the plasticine was hardly quashed. Measured the lift and it was all wrong, eventually pulled the cam only to find out it was a 224 not a 244 as ordered even checked the invoice just in case I had ordered the wrong part but if states 244. So had to strip it all back down remove the cam and will call Burtons in the morning.
lesson learnt check before fitting.

Chris

[chris52]

Dollyman1850 said:

Unless you are circuit racing the car I think you would probably be better off with a 224!
N.

Cheers Neil your probably right but I fancy having a go with the 244 I think it will be ok in this car plus I would like it to be able to cope with the odd track day.
Chris

Edited by chris52 on Wednesday 25th November 21:44

[chris52]

The car will be used for the odd track day and blast outs on the country roads. Doubt it will do any more than a 2000 miles a year.
Originally the CR was going to be about 11.8 to 1 but this is just to high and may cause knock issues So I will be aiming for around 11 to 1. This is obviousley static CR the dynamic CR with the kent 244 works out at 8.5 to 1 which should be about perfect.
I was originally going to for the 234 as it would drive a bit smoother with that and was worried that the 244 may be a bit agressive and cause issues with pulling off, but after speaking to a few guys that used them in light weight cars they all said they didn't experience any issues. The carbs I will use I haven't decided on yet but I do have a set of 40'S so will see how they cope.
Chris

[chris52]

Dollyman1850 said:

Again. you will probably be trying for the biggest chokes possible in a 40 but these also lose flow velocity.

Its your car and your build but if you want to enjoy then I wouldn't be trying to get 8k out of the crank just because you can.
10.5 to 1 max, 234 cam, 7 - 7.5k revs and a longer living engine would be the way I would go..yes you will sacrifice HP.. in a road car though theres not a lot of point having all that power gain so high up in the rev range, unless you plan to scream it everywhere and drive flat out.

My only advice and feel free to ignore it is don't overbuild the engine just because you can.

Race spec crossflows are horrible in road cars.

With CR's be careful with your deck heights…especially if you don't know the history of the engine
N.

Edited by Dollyman1850 on Sunday 22 November 22:21

I appreciate your input but I'm not trying to build race spec engine and you seem to miss understand what I'm trying to achieve here. I said in an earlier post that the main reason I was going this route is because I got a lot of the parts included in the purchase. The last owner was going to build a full race spec engine I am to a certain extent trying to calm it down a bit in order to get more drivability mid range with the option of higher revs without having to worry about cast crank/pistons and rods breaking. I did a lot of research on the best cam for what I wanted and the 244 seemed to fit the bill perfectly. TBH I doubt the car will ever see 8k but its nice to know that it could cope with it if needed. Maybe you will be right and it will be a mare to drive. Time will tel.
Not sure what you mean about deck height on unknown engines? The piston top to deck gap is 0.005" this was my error I got to much skimmed off. I will now have to use a 0.060" head gasket to achieve the 11 to 1 ratio. Agree with you that with a 234 cam should be 10.5 to 1 max as the inlet closes earlier.
cheers for your input
Chris

[chris52]

Andrew Gray said:

Hi Chris the 244 is a good choice I run that in the Vixen
83.271mm bore
77.62mm stroke
1690 cc
plus 0.090" Hepolite pistons lightened and balanced
Crank balanced and ground 20/20
Rods lightened and balanced
Flywheel lightened and balanced
Valve clearances
inlets 22
exhaust 24
Timing 12/13% on tick over and 32% at 3000rpm
That's running twin 40s
Dyno at 132bhp at the last set up after running her in after I did the top end rebuild

As you say not massive Torque but fantastic as a nice fun running car my red line is not as high as your expecting but 6500 and have never taken her much past 5500
At 4500 rpm in fifth she is cruising at 95mph and a real joy to drive so sounds like your heading in the right direction k
Andrew

Edited by Andrew Gray on Sunday 22 November 22:21

Thanks Andrew that sounds like a very good set up
Chris

[chris52]

Some jobs I did before putting it on hold
Restoring the gel coat cracks. this was the most time consuming part of the job and one that I'm glad is all finished now
After Soda Blasting



With the car soda blasted it was difficult to see all the cracks but a great tip from fellow TVR enthusiast on here told me to shine a light behind it to show the defects and it works a treat.



The roof had been damaged at some point and needed major surgery



After a lot of sticky messy work




Chris

Edited by chris52 on Wednesday 25th November 21:44

[chris52]

Grantura MKI said:

Early cars did not use Gel coat. I usually spray the gel coat after sorting the cracks, etc. You can even tint the gel coat to match your paint.
Best,
D.

I used to do fibre glass laminating as a job but that was 30 years ago and yes I agree there was no Gel coat as such on the car just a layer of what must have been just resin and then covered in a coat of filler primer. Either that or it was a clear gel coat??
Chris

[chris52]

Dollyman1850 said:

i don't think it is so important to use gel coat with modern hard 2 packs.
My Dads car was on its original paint when I got it, Orange over a grey primer and that was pretty much it.
N.

I tend to agree with you here and didn't even consider applying any gel coat. To be honest I didn't think you could apply gel coat after the fact I thought it needed to be applied to a waxed hard surface and laminated or it wouldn't set properly. But then it was fibre glass baths I used to make and it was a long time ago but would have thought the process was very similar.

[chris52]

Engine now build Carbs cleaned and rebuilt although will need tuning when the engine is running.







Chris