BbyCbra - The 7.5 Litre TR6 Project

some updates coming, this is the first post of a few that have been far to long in getting in here

injector part #: 23250-50020
Engine: SC400 1UZFE
Color: Dark Green
Connector: Type E
Impedance: high
Flow Rate: 251 cc/min
Inlet Length: .625"
Inlet Diameter: .410"
Outlet Length: ..261"
Outlet Diameter: .365"

walbro fuel pump: GCA312, 43.5psi @42gph, ~$110
equates to 24lbs per hour per http://users.erols.com/srweiss/tableifc.htm#ITABLE

megasquirt fuel calculator shows REQ_FUEL as 13.3
244ci
8 cyl
8 injectors
1 sauirt
24lbs/hr
sim staging
gasoline
(http://www.megamanual.com/v22manual/mfuel.htm#inject)

Well just as I jumped back into the TR6 project in July I also jumped back into working towards getting my private pilots license. I'm just about done and ready to take both my written test and my flying test, just need to knock out my written first. The downside of this is that the TR6 has pretty much still been sitting. I did look into a 4 point ladder bar system for the rear end - the rear end still causes me concern since the "fairly stock 455" statement is no longer accurate. The 430 heads were port matched and a 3 angle valve job was done over the summer. The other enhancement is the spark and fuel setup. I'm going to be installing an EDIS setup along with a 900CFM Holley TBI with 85lb injectors all controlled by a MegaSquirt EFI controller. The motor should be pretty beefy once back together. Ordered some std size rod and main bearings (still sitting in the boxes). I also bought a complete rear subframe from a 92 300ZX turbo from a Z shop in San Jose that they had advertised on craigslist. I broke it apart and kept the axle half shafts/hubs/brakes, the diff (3.72 posi), and the driveshaft. The rest went to the dump. Installing the diff will be a phase 2 project, need to get the motor in and the car driving before I start digging into the suspension. But that diff should handle 400-500 HP without problem -- the weakspot then becomes the new frame... My new Weldmark MIG welder should be in tomorrow, I can start looking at building the mounting bracket for the diff when I need something new to do.

Anyhow, earlier this week I went to the organic dump where they dump brush cuttings, lawn clippings, leaves, etc -- they also have a lumber area where old lumber is brought in, kind of a slash pile. You can dig thru it, $5 for a pickup truck load. So I got about 35 board feet of 2x8 and acouple of sheets of 3/4" plywood, some 4x4 and some 2x4. Its all going to be used to help build a mockup of the TR6 frame/firewall from the doors forward that I'm going to place on a rolling platform. I'm using my tablesaw to create 2.75 x 3.15" frame sections out of the 2x8's that I've screwed together to make them thick enough. Then I rip them down to size, they look pretty nice. This will help me mockup the engine install to make sure I've got dimensions and locations correct before installing. I should be able to come away with a design for engine mounts too out of this. The guy that sold me the 430 heads also sold me a 455 bare block, crank, harmonic balancer, and intake manifold that I've got sitting for the mockup work. So I've been working on an AutoCAD drawing showing angles and lengths for the mockup that I'll post here once I get it all finalized. So far I've got one side of the frame done, and I'll just mirror it for the other side. I ended up flipping my new frame up on the side of the wheels to expose the underside of the frame. I've ziptied the new wooden frame sections to the actual frame to verify angles, distances, layout, etc. Its a nice option to have the extra rolling frame sitting there to flip onto its side, trying to do this with the body on would have been near impossible. This way its coming along nicely and I'm feeling pretty confident about the mockup dimensions. Taking off for Xmas holidays tomorrow so I won't have much time to get back into the wood work till next week. Pics then

Looking over all this I guess there's been some progress, but its hard to feel like it with the new motor still apart and the tub still on the old frame. But it feels like there is some new life in the project with the frame mockup coming together.

Its been along time since I've updated the blog, not much new on the car. still sitting with the front clip off and the inline 6 in place. The 455 has been cleaned up and the block and heads have been painted Buick Red (duplicolor 1604 i think). I ended up getting a set of large port 430 heads from a fellow V8 guy in San Jose and had them done up by Richard Hamilton out in Tuolumne. I still need to get back to him to get the final numbers on valve stem height and spring pressure but at least they look nice. I ordered a TA212 cam from TA Performance (265/280 @ 112*) along with the dual groove bearings, a timing chaing with adjustable gears, adjustable pushrods, lifters, gasket set, etc to get this thing back together.

I've been stressing abit over how to get the old cam bearings out and then get the new ones in. After trying to get a am tool rented locally (no go) or online (no go again) I realized that awhile back I had a couple of the buick cam bearing tools made up. So I guess the problem is solved, now all I have to do is get in there and actually do the work.

I tried putting out a feeler on the 6pack Triumph list for a couple of listers to come out and help move the tub from one frame to another, only one response so far. Got the frame from an ebay, had it trucked in from MI by a jeep guy who was coming to the west coast (abit of serindipity as it turns out), I'm hoping that the frame won't rust out too quickly. The current frame is pinged abit from a passenger side front end collision. It looks to be in real good shape, but the areas where rust creeps in are not really visible. I'm going to try to measure the frame out and get it into autocad - maybe even see about building one out of 2x4 lumber as a prototype. From there I can look into some frame strengthening at some point in the future.

The britishv8.org site has come back up since I last posted about it, but I haven't spent much time on it to see what, if anything, is new.

going full tilt - installing a fairlane tilt front end on a '53 f-100

I found this today when I took afew moments to investigate how I'm going to build the tilt front, the search term that returned the most on topic hits via google was "tilt front end". Not sure I've got enought room to put a motor setup to lift the hood automatically but its got great pictures. real close to what I had envisioned.

The other site that I saw is a yellow bronco where the whole clip slides fwd a few inches to provide the room needed for the inner bottom corners to clear the firewall. he uses a truck latch motor 'from a towncar' to lock everything down once its back on, nice idea.

Ashton Little emailed me this morning asking if I'd add this site to the Triumphs webring. I've been actually abit concerned (not losing sleep or anything...) about the reception I'd get from the owners who have the nicer cars that they tend to think of in "restoration" terms. My car is in no way a restoration candidate, never has been. So when I thought about customizing it to make it more exciting to drive it seemed like a no brainer to put in a drivertrain with a bigger heartbeat. Anyhow, enough of my guilt... Part of the webring signup is to place the webring navigation code onto the page, I guess so that the webring code can recognize my site. It looks like for now that the code will live in the navigation on the bottom left side. I'll work with getting it integrated into the site abit better as time goes by.

Cannot find server

thats not good... The BritishV8 site is down... hope thats just a temporary issue. Tons of great info and links on that site. Its actually run by Dan Masters but I hear from those in the know that he's kinda burnt out on running the site. I dropped him an email afew months back offering to help out, but got no reply.

I'm commited. The Eastwood part was a whiff, it didn't work out well at all. I tried it on one or 2 spot welds but given the way the welds were done on the corners there was no way it was going to be effective. The tool itself seems like it would work well on a flat surface -- in fact the picture below shows just the way it would work well. What the picture doesn't show is how short the thing is, it can't be more than 1 1/4" tall. The head of the drill must be just out of the picture because there isn't much room left on the shank of that thing.

So I took to the brute force method and beat the welds out. I took a 8" snap-on flatblade screwdriver, filed it abit to get the tip sharp and then used a combo of rubber/plastic mallet supplemented with a small 5lb sledge. I'll mock up a pic later to show the seams I worked loose to get it out. Lots of old, hard putty covering some of the seams, the rust under was not too pretty...

The knife that Eastwood offers might work well here but theres so little room to work between the panels that are all sandwiched together. Give a hand to the welders that put these bodies together, they did quite a job. The welds probably run about 3 per inch, and given the technology its amazing how they got them right in on the edges where they are near impossible to beat out. I think I only had the screwdriver tip go thru the firewall once, but since alot of that metal will be replaced I'm not too concerned - just trying not to make extra work.

Anyhow, got the drivers side off tonight after quite a battle. I ended up leaving part of the inner fender on -- I decided to leave a ~8" section from the firewall near the wiper motor to where the dropoff starts. I figure that I can cut it out later if I need to, but there are 2 bolt holes that I can use as alignment holes for the flipup hood and/or a support of some sort. Also by reattaching the bolt-on wing that goes right below it, it will help enclose the inner panel from as much road dust as possible.

The tub itself, now starting to be exposed, is starting to show its age. The metal is pretty fatigued. I used a regular hacksaw with a cheap blade to cut some metal and welds and it went thru the metal like butter. I've got some firewall work ahead with replacing sheetmetal, but my new Weldmark MIG welder should make easy work of that. I'll do some experementing with some of the extra metal I cut out tonight when I'm getting ready to start welding, I'm sure the metal will need a much softer MIG power setting.

The spotweld remover bit arrived today. I'm concerned that I'm not going to be able to reach all the spot welds once I've started... I don't really have a backup plan if this goes south once I've commited myself by drilling the first one out.

The tool looks almost too big across, wondering if I should have gotten a 5/16" one instead, but Eastwood doesn't offer one. Time will tell. I didn't make time to pull the engine this week, work and the first of what should be many flying lessons started on Tuesday. Frankly I find myself dreading the start of this project, once I pull the motor then I'm commited. Yipes, can you tell I'm nervous?