New wedge owner questions

[lear]

Hi All, I have just acquired this slightly unusual track prepped wedge on what was admittedly something of a whim.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1985-TVR-350i-RACE-CAR-R...

I pick it up on Friday, have found insurance and am now planning what needs doing. First and foremost (on the assumption it does not blow up driving it back to London) will be replacing those awful wheels. From the pics, can anybody tell me if this looks like the standard hub and therefore which wheels would be the most appropriate fit? Also what is the collective wisdom on choice of tyre? Ideally I would like something for both track and road use but otherwise more track biased. What are the first things to check and are there any specialists you would recommend around the London/M25 area to have the car checked over, serviced and the suspension set up? The current owner runs a garage so I am hoping it is reasonably good shape! Sure this will be the start of many questions but thank you in advance.

[JR]

Nice whim. Standard hubs have Granada stud spacing, 5x112. Biggest problem with wheels is the standard TVR 350i offset of 23 and most alterantives are about 55. Some fit Tuscan race car wheels but these are becoming rare now, esp if not bent. Compomotive et al can easily make a besoke set but a bit pricey compared to the value of Wedges. Standard wheels are 15" and many tyres such as R888s don't come in a suitable dia. (627mm) 205/55/16 would work fine but you need the bigger wheel. 205/55/15 works well but track rubber availability. That leaves the A048R

[Number 7]

lear said:

will be replacing those awful wheels. From the pics, can anybody tell me if this looks like the standard hub and therefore which wheels would be the most appropriate fit?

I should have a set of O.Z. Racing split rims (8 x 15) to sell very shortly which you're welcome to try. PM me if interested.

[adam quantrill]

Why not just take off the Merc bosses and fit TVR logo-ed bosses on instead? At least until the tyres are used.

[lear]

Number 7 said:

I should have a set of O.Z. Racing split rims (8 x 15) to sell very shortly which you're welcome to try. PM me if interested.

Thank you; I'll get the wedge home (hopefully) and may give you a shout.

[lear]

I'm wondering if those Merc things may be 16" which might explain why they are fitted. Do wedge owners typically tend to run 15" or 16" wheels?
I am certainly looking forward to picking it up. Not sure if it will turn out to be a good buy or not but I am hoping it will handle pretty well and I would have thought should have a fair amount of grunt!

[grahamw48]

Fellow Wedger 'chedder' has these rather tasty wheels on his supercharged 350,
shod with what appear to be R888s.

Hopefully he'll enlighten us.



3.8 litre seems an odd size by the way; wonder why they didn't go with the normal 3.9 re-bore and pistons.

I'm assuming it's a trailing arm rear suspension model ?

[chedder]

grahamw48 said:

Fellow Wedger 'chedder' has these rather tasty wheels on his supercharged 350,
shod with what appear to be R888s.

Hopefully he'll enlighten us.



3.8 litre seems an odd size by the way; wonder why they didn't go with the normal 3.9 re-bore and pistons.

I'm assuming it's a trailing arm rear suspension model ?

Standard 400se OZ racing alloys 15" x 8" only difference to the normal ones is that the centre caps have been colour coded to the spokes, and yes Toyo 888's that stick like st to a blanket in the dry, do tend to tramline a bit untill warm though.

Chedder

[lear]

Well it made it back, albeit most of the way from Doncaster to London it was running a V7. Turned out to be just dodgy spark plugs. In answer to the trailing arm question, the chassis has been replaced and highly modified with the trailing arm replaced by an A-frame set up with adjustable Nitrons and uprated drive shafts on a LSD. I guess this set up reduces unsprung mass - any other advantages? On the 3.8 point there is a reference in the car's history to the engine being replaced and rebuilt with a Range Rover 3.5 stroked to 3.8 and a high torque cam. Not sure how much of the original car there is left! Those wheels are indeed 16" but oddly only running 205s.

[Number 7]

lear said:

Well it made it back, albeit most of the way from Doncaster to London it was running a V7. Turned out to be just dodgy spark plugs. In answer to the trailing arm question, the chassis has been replaced and highly modified with the trailing arm replaced by an A-frame set up with adjustable Nitrons and uprated drive shafts on a LSD. I guess this set up reduces unsprung mass - any other advantages? On the 3.8 point there is a reference in the car's history to the engine being replaced and rebuilt with a Range Rover 3.5 stroked to 3.8 and a high torque cam. Not sure how much of the original car there is left! Those wheels are indeed 16" but oddly only running 205s.

That capacity is certainly unusual - the route which Land Rover etc. used to get from the 3.5l engine to the next step up in development was by boring out to 3.9l. Only when the capacity went to 4.2 / 4.3 did they use a different crank. Any idea who built the engine? As for the wheels / tyres, I would imagine that although they're 16" diameter, they may only be 7" wide with that size tyre. 7" was the standard wheel width for the 350i series. Glad you got it home in one piece though.

[lear]

Still going through the history. There is a description of the engine from a 2009 advertisement by a previous owner who I think converted it as follows: "engine rebuilt using a range rover 3.5 block and a stroked crank taking the capacity to 3800cc, all new big end and main bearing shells fitted, also ARP main bearing cap bolt kit fitted. Very torquey cam, duplex timing set, heads stripped and valves reground, lifter pre load checked and adjusted." Otherwise I know little about it. There is loads of history for the chassis/suspension/drivetrain but hardly any for the engine itself. Most of the work to the chassis was done by Roush Technologies and Moore Racing both of which seem to be pretty good provenance. I think (albeit not entirely certain) the previous owner (of the chassis at least) was the engineering director of Roush, now managing director of merlin sports cars.