New Kid On The Block

New Kid On The Block

Author
Discussion

Colin Newbold

Original Poster:

12 posts

53 months

Monday 14th October 2019
quotequote all
Classic Chim said:
I have 17” allround on Rainsport 3 tyres and the ride / grip is excellent and markedly better than old tyres on original sized wheels.
Kinda looks better too, more current! What are your exact wheel/tyre sizes if you don't mind sharing?

indigochim

1,501 posts

129 months

Monday 14th October 2019
quotequote all
Colin Newbold said:
To indigochim: Mine was supplied new by Redhill Ltd (tvr-redhill.co.uk) on 10.10.98...is that local to Christopher Neal? I guess so.
I guess not CN is in Cheshire. They perhaps got registered at the factory.

Colin Newbold said:
Given that the factory chose the 15 F/ 16 R combination, do you think there was a huge amount of strategic planning in that combo (or did they just get offered a job lot of wheels, do you think!)? If so, doesn't a choice of 16s all round give it's own problems?
I too run 16" all round in order to get decent speed rated tyres. The std 15" are 7" with a offset of 25 where as the rears are 16" 7.5" wide with an offset of 33 so I've added a 5mm spacer to a pair of rears, mounted up front to bring the offset down to 28 which is close enough. I then mounted 205/50/16's which as you can see here is only 5mm difference on the diameter compared to the 205/55/15's mind had fitted as standard. I've found no adverse effects on the handling and it also allows for fitting larger discs and multi pot calipers.


Classic Chim

12,424 posts

148 months

Tuesday 15th October 2019
quotequote all
Colin Newbold said:
Kinda looks better too, more current! What are your exact wheel/tyre sizes if you don't mind sharing?
It’s all just opinions but I too think it gives the car a “ current look” and allows for big massive brake discs,,, ( not strictly needed ) smile

I use 17” 7.5 allround using 5 mm spacers all round which does push wheels further out at the rears by a few mm, but I like that as wheels “ fill the arches” more so to speak.

Tyre sizes
215x45x17 Front
235x45x17 Rear

Using a tyre calculator the outside diameter is slightly larger than standard but I know of a Chim on 17/18 in wheels that goes round tracks on rails so knew they
1 fit
2 work well.

Mostly using a modern compound as in Rainsport 3 which are very soft allows much higher levels of grip than the usual older Toyo road based tyres as traditionally used on these cars unless they are 888 which really is a dry use tyre

Larger wheels on Toyo T1R old spec was horrendous for a bumpy ride, Rainsport changed all that.
Fantastic cheap reliable tyres.

Excuse the poor photo, older iPhone frown NOTE. You can click on image then click again on image and it should scroll down and give a clearer image.

The grounds rather uneaven so not the best shot but gives an idea ( rear sits slightly lower than in this pic )



Edited by Classic Chim on Tuesday 15th October 04:54


Edited by Classic Chim on Tuesday 15th October 04:56


Edited by Classic Chim on Tuesday 15th October 04:59

Wiltshire Lad

306 posts

68 months

Tuesday 15th October 2019
quotequote all
indigochim said:
Colin Newbold said:
To indigochim: Mine was supplied new by Redhill Ltd (tvr-redhill.co.uk) on 10.10.98...is that local to Christopher Neal? I guess so.
I guess not CN is in Cheshire. They perhaps got registered at the factory.

Colin Newbold said:
Given that the factory chose the 15 F/ 16 R combination, do you think there was a huge amount of strategic planning in that combo (or did they just get offered a job lot of wheels, do you think!)? If so, doesn't a choice of 16s all round give it's own problems?
I too run 16" all round in order to get decent speed rated tyres. The std 15" are 7" with a offset of 25 where as the rears are 16" 7.5" wide with an offset of 33 so I've added a 5mm spacer to a pair of rears, mounted up front to bring the offset down to 28 which is close enough. I then mounted 205/50/16's which as you can see here is only 5mm difference on the diameter compared to the 205/55/15's mind had fitted as standard. I've found no adverse effects on the handling and it also allows for fitting larger discs and multi pot calipers.
Later Chimaeras came with 16in all round from the factory - I've replaced the original front 15" with 16" - I think it suits the car better - just looks a bit more balanced.

Colin Newbold

Original Poster:

12 posts

53 months

Tuesday 15th October 2019
quotequote all
This is all fantastic stuff guys, much appreciated. Who was it that wrote "we'll soon get you dipping into your wallet"!!!

One other car club I'm involved with has set up a Wiki page, with different folders depending on what info you need. Maybe we could consider doing something similar:


schmokin1

1,212 posts

211 months

Tuesday 15th October 2019
quotequote all
Colin, apologies for the thread creep but would you mind asking Chris Alford if he once raced a dry sumped Westfield Eleven? If so I think I have that car. I’ve googled him a few times after being told the supposed history of my car, but never found any contact details for him.....

Regards
Tim

Colin Newbold

Original Poster:

12 posts

53 months

Tuesday 15th October 2019
quotequote all
Sure Tim...I've texted him just now...he's not always that responsive to texts so if no reply in a couple of days I'll call him.

Best,
Colin

Colin Newbold

Original Poster:

12 posts

53 months

Tuesday 15th October 2019
quotequote all
To Classic Chim: Am I allowed to ask your first name (or does that break a rule)? What tyre pressures are you running? And what wheels did you buy? Car looks terrific BTW!

Same questions to Dougal9887 (although I'm guessing you're Dougal!). Do you alter tyre pressures for track (wet and dry conditions...what pressures have you found best)? And are those Estoril wheels, in which case are they different widths/offsets to the Chimaera ones?

So many questions....

Thanks,
Colin

Edited by Colin Newbold on Tuesday 15th October 15:37

Classic Chim

12,424 posts

148 months

Tuesday 15th October 2019
quotequote all
Hi Colin, unfortunately I’m the bloke known as Alun and yes your welcome to use my rather infamous name rofl

For every day use I stick with 22F 24R COLD even on Rainsport.

Takes a bit of getting used to at first as the car feels a bit well infact a lot softer on the tyres but this offers great tyre compliance to our rather ailing roads in all conditions, summer months tyres warm up real good, which usually adds a few psi so all good. Motorway driving to Monaco biggrin I’d probably go upto 25/26 maybe but just for fuel returns mostly.

Light car
Stiff suspension
Limited body roll on public roads into corners unless chucked in!
Front wheels are forward and feel quite outboard to me and light so low tyre pressures are the norm for all of us or the car bounces and wheels don’t really bite into the road surface.
Rainsport just offer lots of grip and soft enough to add suspension like old tyres used to,,
It fits the cars age as back in the day big tyres would have been employed on the 60’s cars

Low profile tyres and these cars don’t really go, big fat soft ones they seem to love. Just nicer ride over bumps and corners like rails but it’s just my way of thinking which is the suspension travel is limited and designed to be pretty firm, the tyres just give mine a more refined ride. It’s really very different from old hard tyres that are easy to break traction.
Example my 450 in the wet could spin wheels in 3rd gear on motorways yikes
Now same conditions it can barely spin wheels in 1st gear let alone 3rd, that’s a huge difference in performance and grip.

My final example would be knocking 1/2 second off my 1/4 mile time simply because I could rev to 4000 revs and Rainsport gripped as I dumped clutch... and yeah I shattered the clutch pretty much biggrin the car was simply faster off the line as terminal speed was always about the same on any tyre I used.
They work smile

PS my ride height is standard as I use very old Koni shocks which were on early cars, this is raised slightly more by virtue of the bigger tyres, I’ve measured it to be about 10 higher front and about 8 mm rear so overall the car sits slightly higher,, mate I’ve hit the jack pot, it just works really nice is all I know.
It’s important to note I want a softer car for the roads so this might not agree with many but I can drive a little, country roads I feel confident now,,, never ever before could I say that on older tyres. I can just feel them now smile
I do go on,, basically buy the most suitable tyre for your needs and a good tyre can right many a wrong, these cars are very sensitive to them, my car doesn’t rattle over bump now for instance, shocks absorbed before coming up through steering wheel etc simply through a tyre change that has a very soft compound and tyre wall that absorbs road shocks which the wishbone suspension set up can never really hope to do.

I had an old XJ6 once, soft as a Roller yet gripped like fury for a massive motor and as an old engineer explained it was all in the tyre/ spring / damper rates working as one, big old tyres in those days engineered onto the cars in conjunction with these spring rates, im trying to achieve a similar thing, it’s bang on thumbup

Just need to get my ass in gear and swap out some riggers, I miss driving it since getting the tyres/ shocks as I want, I drove it every day for years, never ever boring thumbup
And never ever broke down.

Edited by Classic Chim on Tuesday 15th October 22:07

Dougal9887

230 posts

80 months

Tuesday 15th October 2019
quotequote all
Yes, I'm Dougal!!
I do go a couple of psi higher on track to 24F, 26R but think I could go higher still which might delay the tyre overheating. Can't say for wet as I've been lucky with the weather and only had to wait a while for a damp track to dry.
I'm doing a last trackday of the season at Croft on the 30th so will no doubt experiment some more. And it may well be wet!!

Classic Chim

12,424 posts

148 months

Tuesday 15th October 2019
quotequote all
^^^^^ sound thinking, funnily enough I did a track day in a Jag XJ8 so later model and was advised by the club to add 10 psi per corner, saved me destroying the tyre edge smile

Colin Newbold

Original Poster:

12 posts

53 months

Wednesday 16th October 2019
quotequote all
Fantastic Alun, a huge amount of detail there. Thank you.

Thanks also to Dougal and good luck at Croft! One of my fave circuits. BTW...I aim for 30psi all round on track once heat's got in...I also have a little infra-red gun that measures temp across each tread...I'm looking for consistency there.

Finally...to Tim: Chris called me last night...he never raced a Westfield 11 but remembers selling 4 over the years, one with a dry sump. It was red he thinks. That your car? Anyway he's happy for you to call him. I should probably do that via Private Message, anyone know how I do that?

Cheers,
Colin

Colin Newbold

Original Poster:

12 posts

53 months

Wednesday 16th October 2019
quotequote all
To Tim: I think I worked it out...check your email;)

TV8

3,118 posts

174 months

Wednesday 16th October 2019
quotequote all
Classic Chim said:
Hi Colin, unfortunately I’m the bloke known as Alun and yes your welcome to use my rather infamous name rofl

For every day use I stick with 22F 24R COLD even on Rainsport.

Takes a bit of getting used to at first as the car feels a bit well infact a lot softer on the tyres but this offers great tyre compliance to our rather ailing roads in all conditions, summer months tyres warm up real good, which usually adds a few psi so all good. Motorway driving to Monaco biggrin I’d probably go upto 25/26 maybe but just for fuel returns mostly.

Light car
Stiff suspension
Limited body roll on public roads into corners unless chucked in!
Front wheels are forward and feel quite outboard to me and light so low tyre pressures are the norm for all of us or the car bounces and wheels don’t really bite into the road surface.
Rainsport just offer lots of grip and soft enough to add suspension like old tyres used to,,
It fits the cars age as back in the day big tyres would have been employed on the 60’s cars

Low profile tyres and these cars don’t really go, big fat soft ones they seem to love. Just nicer ride over bumps and corners like rails but it’s just my way of thinking which is the suspension travel is limited and designed to be pretty firm, the tyres just give mine a more refined ride. It’s really very different from old hard tyres that are easy to break traction.
Example my 450 in the wet could spin wheels in 3rd gear on motorways yikes
Now same conditions it can barely spin wheels in 1st gear let alone 3rd, that’s a huge difference in performance and grip.

My final example would be knocking 1/2 second off my 1/4 mile time simply because I could rev to 4000 revs and Rainsport gripped as I dumped clutch... and yeah I shattered the clutch pretty much biggrin the car was simply faster off the line as terminal speed was always about the same on any tyre I used.
They work smile

PS my ride height is standard as I use very old Koni shocks which were on early cars, this is raised slightly more by virtue of the bigger tyres, I’ve measured it to be about 10 higher front and about 8 mm rear so overall the car sits slightly higher,, mate I’ve hit the jack pot, it just works really nice is all I know.
It’s important to note I want a softer car for the roads so this might not agree with many but I can drive a little, country roads I feel confident now,,, never ever before could I say that on older tyres. I can just feel them now smile
I do go on,, basically buy the most suitable tyre for your needs and a good tyre can right many a wrong, these cars are very sensitive to them, my car doesn’t rattle over bump now for instance, shocks absorbed before coming up through steering wheel etc simply through a tyre change that has a very soft compound and tyre wall that absorbs road shocks which the wishbone suspension set up can never really hope to do.

I had an old XJ6 once, soft as a Roller yet gripped like fury for a massive motor and as an old engineer explained it was all in the tyre/ spring / damper rates working as one, big old tyres in those days engineered onto the cars in conjunction with these spring rates, im trying to achieve a similar thing, it’s bang on thumbup

Just need to get my ass in gear and swap out some riggers, I miss driving it since getting the tyres/ shocks as I want, I drove it every day for years, never ever boring thumbup
And never ever broke down.

Edited by Classic Chim on Tuesday 15th October 22:07
Plus, proven to be the fastest ever TVR in Reverse.... smilesmilesmile

Classic Chim

12,424 posts

148 months

Wednesday 16th October 2019
quotequote all
TV8 said:
Plus, proven to be the fastest ever TVR in Reverse.... smilesmilesmile
rofl
My fame goes far and wide biggrin

And here’s me trying to come across as credible, thanks Grey hehe

For clarity Colin, I went backwards off the line drag racing,,, just giving Jacko a chance at the time biggrin
My head went forward like an F1 drivers on the brakes without HANS device rofl





ChimpOnGas

9,637 posts

178 months

Friday 18th October 2019
quotequote all
Colin Newbold said:
.I'm booked in to the AC Owners Club Annual Sprint at Goodwood, Sat 2nd Nov! Any spectators are most welcome...you don't need tickets and it's completely free.
That sounds amazing, and I bet there'll be some amazing sounds.

I've added this one to my diary, there's nothing more thrilling than the thunder of bed of V8 snakes thumbup

Belle427

8,861 posts

232 months

Friday 18th October 2019
quotequote all
Wiltshire Lad said:
indigochim said:
Colin Newbold said:
To indigochim: Mine was supplied new by Redhill Ltd (tvr-redhill.co.uk) on 10.10.98...is that local to Christopher Neal? I guess so.
I guess not CN is in Cheshire. They perhaps got registered at the factory.

Colin Newbold said:
Given that the factory chose the 15 F/ 16 R combination, do you think there was a huge amount of strategic planning in that combo (or did they just get offered a job lot of wheels, do you think!)? If so, doesn't a choice of 16s all round give it's own problems?
I too run 16" all round in order to get decent speed rated tyres. The std 15" are 7" with a offset of 25 where as the rears are 16" 7.5" wide with an offset of 33 so I've added a 5mm spacer to a pair of rears, mounted up front to bring the offset down to 28 which is close enough. I then mounted 205/50/16's which as you can see here is only 5mm difference on the diameter compared to the 205/55/15's mind had fitted as standard. I've found no adverse effects on the handling and it also allows for fitting larger discs and multi pot calipers.
Later Chimaeras came with 16in all round from the factory - I've replaced the original front 15" with 16" - I think it suits the car better - just looks a bit more balanced.
I have a pair of 16s in the garage waiting to go on the front, Do you have any info on where to get the spacers or are they not critical?

2 sMoKiN bArReLs

30,230 posts

234 months

Friday 18th October 2019
quotequote all
By the way new owners.....don't panic when the dash lights stop working, the answer is by your left knee!

(I've had a Chimaera since 1996 biggrin)

Dougal9887

230 posts

80 months

Friday 1st November 2019
quotequote all
Update on track tyre pressures:
Croft on Wednesday was dry! and cool. I set the tyre pressures at 25psi cold which, in those conditions gave 30psi hot and felt perfect. The tyres got a lot less hot than on summer days with little wear by comparison, in fact plenty of tread left for another outing at Oulton on the 15th 😁. This was my first time at Croft, a great circuit, took me most of the day to get the right lines through all those sets of corners - great fun. Here we are getting our money's worth in track width 😂

Dougal