AJP8 in F3000 car!
Discussion
HarryW said:
loverly 
question is it a 4500/4200 or what's done differently to make it a 3000, smaller bore liners and pistons perhaps, but that would make it relatively long stroke/undersquare
It is using a 3000 chassis but would have been an 4.2 in the first instance. I'm not sure what it could race in? Hillclimbs?question is it a 4500/4200 or what's done differently to make it a 3000, smaller bore liners and pistons perhaps, but that would make it relatively long stroke/undersquare
I popped in to Raceproved the other day and asked them about the F3000. Russ from Raceproved said he would update their site with more info as it looked like people were interested. Looks like he has just put some more info in the site: http://www.raceproved.com/ajp-v8-powered-f3000-in-...
Hi to all enquiring i own the car in the thread and only noticed it on here so i can give you the low down.
The car belonged to pacific racing driven mainly by Michael Bartels team mate to David Coultard that year i have no record of him driving it. The car was then sold to Al Melling where it was converted including the unique oil pump very expensive exhaust and air intake. The origional was a 4.2 and tested by number of people and found to be very quick. The aim of the project was to start a new race class for f3000 cars that usally only last a season or two and power them with the ajp engines but just before the official launch peter wheeler pulled out of the plan because of the cost of conversion rumoured to be around £100000 which is alot on 1994 the car was the driven a few times there were a few issues relating to the crank so the car was put in the TVR show room and painted TVR purple.
The story so far comes from research and being invited to Al Mellings office to give me his side of this story which was worth it a very interesting and knowlageable guy who gave me 3 hours of his time regarding the car showing me the origional plans and business plan for the new class.
The car then sat in TVR for many years until our russian friend took over and decided to rebuild it so one of the very last AJP's was fitted and then the project was stopped while the car was dismantled and sold off in the last chaotic days of the factory it then sat in in a guys garage for another while until i bought it.
During the last days of TVR alot of the parts were taken or lost so when i bought it quite a few parts were missing so over the last year i have been assembling and manufacturing the whole car no mean task as there are no instructions and reynard are long gone. The ecu that came with it was a MbE but on advice it wasnt going to be used so once i was ready i shipped the car to russ at raceproved where the loom and new emerald ecu was fitted we opened the engine and it was brand new never started so truly the last new ajp after a bit of work it fired up with a little more work it ran smoothly but we soon discovered a problem the injectors werent man enough for the job so i had to bring the car back to Ireland and order new much bigger injectors 38lb means 38lbs of fuel per hour (about 400cc/minute)we put this down to bigger better exhaust and a straight down air intake. The project the stalled this year due to funds running out but i finally got it ready and decided to put it on a rolling road and map it which is no mean feet for such a machine but we did it.
We decided to be conservative so i used 99 octane pump fuel not the higher octane race fuel that i would normally race with also we kept the mixture a little rich and the timing retarded slightly. This was a safe option as it is a brand new engine but we still saw 465bhp with the rpm limited to 7500 the concensus from the engine guys and rolling road guys there to help me was 500 plus is no problem at all i am hoping for 510-520 at around 8000rpm. I tested the car in september to give it a shakedown before the winter after a coulple of runs all going fairly well i began to open it up the gearing is set up for 180mph at 8000 rpm so i took it easy i hit 165mph on the back straight no real issues its very quick only weighing 505kg without fuel.
Its a unique car and a great idea, next year will be test when i race it but from the one day test i gave it all looks well. I have lots more pics of the engine and info on the car if anyone is interested I must thank Russ and the guys at raceproved they made the most unique TVR flywheel in the world to work with a 5 inch 4 plate clutch and special ring gear and decifer the extremly special loom they are a very professional company to work with.
regards
john
The car belonged to pacific racing driven mainly by Michael Bartels team mate to David Coultard that year i have no record of him driving it. The car was then sold to Al Melling where it was converted including the unique oil pump very expensive exhaust and air intake. The origional was a 4.2 and tested by number of people and found to be very quick. The aim of the project was to start a new race class for f3000 cars that usally only last a season or two and power them with the ajp engines but just before the official launch peter wheeler pulled out of the plan because of the cost of conversion rumoured to be around £100000 which is alot on 1994 the car was the driven a few times there were a few issues relating to the crank so the car was put in the TVR show room and painted TVR purple.
The story so far comes from research and being invited to Al Mellings office to give me his side of this story which was worth it a very interesting and knowlageable guy who gave me 3 hours of his time regarding the car showing me the origional plans and business plan for the new class.
The car then sat in TVR for many years until our russian friend took over and decided to rebuild it so one of the very last AJP's was fitted and then the project was stopped while the car was dismantled and sold off in the last chaotic days of the factory it then sat in in a guys garage for another while until i bought it.
During the last days of TVR alot of the parts were taken or lost so when i bought it quite a few parts were missing so over the last year i have been assembling and manufacturing the whole car no mean task as there are no instructions and reynard are long gone. The ecu that came with it was a MbE but on advice it wasnt going to be used so once i was ready i shipped the car to russ at raceproved where the loom and new emerald ecu was fitted we opened the engine and it was brand new never started so truly the last new ajp after a bit of work it fired up with a little more work it ran smoothly but we soon discovered a problem the injectors werent man enough for the job so i had to bring the car back to Ireland and order new much bigger injectors 38lb means 38lbs of fuel per hour (about 400cc/minute)we put this down to bigger better exhaust and a straight down air intake. The project the stalled this year due to funds running out but i finally got it ready and decided to put it on a rolling road and map it which is no mean feet for such a machine but we did it.
We decided to be conservative so i used 99 octane pump fuel not the higher octane race fuel that i would normally race with also we kept the mixture a little rich and the timing retarded slightly. This was a safe option as it is a brand new engine but we still saw 465bhp with the rpm limited to 7500 the concensus from the engine guys and rolling road guys there to help me was 500 plus is no problem at all i am hoping for 510-520 at around 8000rpm. I tested the car in september to give it a shakedown before the winter after a coulple of runs all going fairly well i began to open it up the gearing is set up for 180mph at 8000 rpm so i took it easy i hit 165mph on the back straight no real issues its very quick only weighing 505kg without fuel.
Its a unique car and a great idea, next year will be test when i race it but from the one day test i gave it all looks well. I have lots more pics of the engine and info on the car if anyone is interested I must thank Russ and the guys at raceproved they made the most unique TVR flywheel in the world to work with a 5 inch 4 plate clutch and special ring gear and decifer the extremly special loom they are a very professional company to work with.
regards
john
Wonderful 
This just underlines what many of us have always said about the AJP V8. That it is an amazing, unique, and very underated engine. A real peice of TVR and British engineering history, and it deserves to be kept alive in our increasingly diminishimg number of Cerbera's, and not replaced with a mass produced Amercian V8
PS - Well spotted Alinton!
This just underlines what many of us have always said about the AJP V8. That it is an amazing, unique, and very underated engine. A real peice of TVR and British engineering history, and it deserves to be kept alive in our increasingly diminishimg number of Cerbera's, and not replaced with a mass produced Amercian V8PS - Well spotted Alinton!
Edited by JensenA on Tuesday 1st December 10:01
hi i would bring it to some TVR meets if theres enough interest and plan to race it in the UK next year at anglesey and possibly brands as for the engine i dont have a standard race engine to compare it to but was told its a little different to the standard what help is the exhaust and air intake.
as you cas see theres no restriction to air intake thats why the standard injectors didnt work as it started to run lean at 50% throttle.
regards
john
as you cas see theres no restriction to air intake thats why the standard injectors didnt work as it started to run lean at 50% throttle.
regards
john
When the AJPV8/Cerbera was being developed prior to production, Peter Wheeler had a Cerbera with the air intakes coming straight out through the bonnet, with an air box/filter on top. This was the best position for them, but for obvious reasons the design was altered prior to production.
jdman said:
We decided to be conservative so i used 99 octane pump fuel not the higher octane race fuel that i would normally race with also we kept the mixture a little rich and the timing retarded slightly.
regards
john
Top!regards
john
Does this mean about 500 brake / 8K is achieveable on a 4.2 2-valve engine on pumpfuel?
we were cautious with the map and one bank runs slightly richer than the other also i had a few doubts about the octane rating of the pump fuel but i wasnt going to buy a full drum of race fuel and only use a bit because it doesnt last well over the winter. I believe with a bit of running we could of pushed the engine higher on the road fuel but it wasnt worth it for a couple of test runs.
john
john
JensenA said:
When the AJPV8/Cerbera was being developed prior to production, Peter Wheeler had a Cerbera with the air intakes coming straight out through the bonnet, with an air box/filter on top. This was the best position for them, but for obvious reasons the design was altered prior to production.
I'd be interested to know what if any gains could be made by putting air intakes through the top, I'd also like to understand more about dry sumping..anyone help
D
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