Some old pics of L110 BFV

[ruaricoles]

My mum and dad were clearing out some stuff and came across some pics I took while working at the factory during my summer hols in the mid 90s, and I thought these ones would be of interest to at least one person on here!

Apologies for the dodgy quality, but my scanner's stopped working so I've just taken photos of the old 35mm prints. Mike, if you want better ones I'll see if I can scan them properly elsewhere, but unfortunately I can't find any of the engine fully fitted I'm afraid.

This was fairly early days for the AJP8, and the engine development shop was then in the far corner of the site next to the paint shop if I remember right. I can't remember if this was the first time the car had been fitted with the AJP, but it certainly didn't drop straight in and I remember the bonnet didn't fit and a (very noisy!) run down the road to a workshop at the other end of site without much of an exhaust system fitted to get the mounts modified. Unfortunately I was just too young to drive the thing but it still sticks in my mind.

Best wishes

Ruari

[350Matt]

They really should have persevered with this option I think. The AJP8 is a great engine.
In fact if TVR was ever to rise from the ashes then why couldn't this be an option?
Matt

Edited by 350Matt on Sunday 7th October 19:40

[Ballistic Banana]

Nice find Rauri, would you mind if i had a copy of them and put them on TGP?

BB

[The AJP Griff]

Cheers Ruari,those pics are great,and very much appreciated.I'll add them to my 'webshots' page if thats ok?
YHM by the way
BB-YHM too!
Matt,i also think it's a great shame the AJP8 couldn't continue.It's pretty well known that the 8 didn't live longer due to emissions regs,but a 4 valve head would possibly have solved that issue very nicely perhaps?
There are several reasons quoted as to why they didn't put it in the griff.

Edited by The AJP Griff on Sunday 7th October 21:19

[OscarT]

Ruari

Great find - pity there weren't any of the finished installation.

Can you remember which year this was? Any more recollections?

OscarT

[Ballistic Banana]

:brokenrecordsmilie:


Give it a rest Jigs

[LordGrover]

The AJP Griff said:

... There are several reasons quoted as to why they didn't put it in the griff.

Don't hold us in suspenders Mike; what reasons?

[350Matt]

The AJP Griff said:

Matt,i also think it's a great shame the AJP8 couldn't continue.It's pretty well known that the 8 didn't live longer due to emissions regs,but a 4 valve head would possibly have solved that issue very nicely perhaps?
There are several reasons quoted as to why they didn't put it in the griff.

hmmm there are quite a few 2 valve motors selling today, the Corvette for one and thats flogged in california so it can be done.
If TVR had actually put a more sophisticated ECU in the thing with sequential injection and a pair of close coupled cats then I suspect it would pass.

At the time Peter Wheeler said it was too much for the griff but I think that was mainly because he wanted to do a new car...


Matt

[The AJP Griff]

LordGrover said:

The AJP Griff said:

... There are several reasons quoted as to why they didn't put it in the griff.

Don't hold us in suspenders Mike; what reasons?

The main reason cited was that the Griff chassis wasn't up to AJP power(nothing much more specific than that).My personal opinion on this is that this was because it was a pretty short wheelbase,and i imagine it would have been a bit of a handfull to sell to the general public in such a package.The Cerbera was initially designed to have a RV8(4.3 and 4.8),and you can imagine the guys pretty quickly realising that the longer wheelbase would be better suited and more forgiving for the AJP.The Cerbera chassis initially had 10% less torsional stiffness than a griff,and they had to get that back by improving the design,so i dont think the actual strength or stiffness of the Griff chassis was the greatest concern.You also have to think that it was a great opportunity for a completely new flagship model in the AJP engined cerb.
I'm also told that packaging the engine in the griff would have presented too many problems,and knowing what Joo has had to do with L110 you can certainly beleive it!The pic that Ruari has shown us above shows the AJP with the std 4.2 induction on it,and as he says initially they couldn't get the bonnet on!To help get around this problem they fitted the flat foam filter directly on top of the throttle bodies(as per the B+W archive pic on my profile),this then allowed the bonnet to be fitted,but wouldn't have been much good as a permanent solution.When JR had the AJP put in L110 it was done to evaluate the engine for road use in a road car,but was not necesarily put in purely to design the AJP Griff install so i'm told.

Matt,i'd love to know more about why some engines can make such good emissions with only two valves,and others can struggle with four!Perhaps its a lot to do with combustion chamber design or something?I bet if it was possible to get the AJP8 through emissions with things like ecu's and injetion systems,then they would have done,perhaps they could but it would cost too much power?I think they missed a great oppertunity not having the melling 32 valve design

Edited by The AJP Griff on Monday 8th October 19:08

[ruaricoles]

Mike,
PM me your address and I'll happily send you the prints so you can scan them properly (although I'm afraid the originals aren't much better than my photos of them!). The year must have been 1994 as you suggest (the first summer I spent there), either July or August.

BB,
You're welcome to put the pics on TGP of course.

Ruari