After owning my 1964 mgb roadster for 25 years I'm going to try and get it finished by end of next year before I turn 50.
The car was largely finished a decade ago, but money and other constraints stopped work.
I have oodles of photos an details, but I'm on holiday right now so can only share the attached photos. I'll upload more in a couple of weeks.
I've used some software called cartest 2000 to simulate how fast my mgb will go when finished. I won't go into any details here as I do need to do a proper build page, but the car was largely finished some years ago so I have basic info.
The car is running a turbo 4l rover and we saw 630hp on the dyno and masses of torque. It's a running a 9" with a 2.75 rear and 18" wheels and a gearbox with a 1:1 fifth.
Using a cd of 0.4 and the normal frontal area cartest shows it should do 190mph. It's a brick, but it has a small frontal area. Even fiddling with a 2.5 rear it will go 200mph.
Of course this is all simulated but changing the cd does have the right effect and less power dies make such speeds unattainable.
In my base config:
- the windscreen will be replaced by a small lexan one
- front spoiler and large splitter
- flat underbody
- small side mirrors
- cabin will be enclosed except for drivers position, this includes behind driver/passenger.
- rear wing (adjustable)
- rear diffuser with cut outs behind rear tyres to reduce pressure
- front guard vents to reduce pressure.
- car is very low
- headlight covers
I'm planning on 2 configurations. One for straight line speed events such as standing km, where the rear wing will be deleted, and the diffuser reduced. I may also try a full front windscreen and roof depending on how it goes.
The other config. will have large rear wing and rear diffuser.
The majority of the work is panelling but I'm no expert so that's isn't as easy it sounds.
I'm happy to answer any and all queries. I'm sure I'll have plenty of my own.
Cheers
Byron
For my first proper post I thought I'd start at the beginning. Bear with me as there is a lot of photos and details and hopefully some of it is interesting.
The car was purchased in 1988 with a 4.4Litre Leyland V8 conversion and a shortened Valiant Charger LSD diff.
The conversion however was unfinished and the motor was in desperate need of a set of bearings.
The motor went in for a rebuild and at the same time it was decided to offset grind the crank and take the motor out to some 4.8Litres. That engine was eventually sold and a 1995 3.5L Rover V8 engine was purchased.
Not long after this I had a change of jobs and had to move interstate and the car was left in limbo up until 1995 when work was started again, with more money and ideas.
Let's start with the engine as that is probably the most expensive component.
ENGINE
The engine is a 1985 Rover V8; for the unitiated the rover V8 is an all alloy engine and weighs in at a mere 318Lbs,
which is lighter than the original 4 cylinder. The engine sits on custom engine mounts and sits as low as possible thanks to a custom wet sump pan. The engine has been moved back as far as possible and now sits wholly behind the front axle.
The engine was dyno'ed in July 2001 on standard 98 Octane pump fuel made a peak of
>850nm@4500rpm@19psi and
>470kw@6000rpm@19psi
Both figures are uncorrected, but given the correction factor for the day was ~0.028% its irrelevant.
RPM Nm Lbs-Ft HP KW Boost
1500 200 148.15 42.31 31.81 ?
2000
2500
3000 500 370.37 211.56 159.07 8psi(held would go higher if allowed)
3500
4000 800 592.59 451.33 339.34 15psi(held as it was overboosting)
4500 850 629.63 539.48 405.62 19psi
5000 790 585.19 557.11 418.88 19psi
5500 725 537.04 562.40 422.85 19psi
6000 740 548.15 626.22 470.84 19psi
19psi is with the boost control valve fully opened (i.e. wastegates fully closed), so the engine is unlikely to make any more power with the current turbos, however intake temperatures were ~85c so I expect more power when the vehicle is moving and I have an intercooler sprayer running.
I have videos of all the runs, and might post them sometime.
Givens:
Number of cylinders 8
Bore 3.5250in.
Stroke 3.1000in.
Rod Length 6.125in.
Piston compression height 1.2800in.
Distance --- "Top of top ring to Top of piston" 0.1800in.
Distance --- "Piston to cylinder @ Top ring land" (per side) 0.01600in.
Piston dome volume - = Dome , + = Dish 27.000cc
Piston valve pocket volume ( must = 0 or +) 0.0000cc
Cylinder block deck height 8.9550in.
Head gasket thickness (compressed) 0.0420in.
Head gasket bore diameter 3.535in.
Combustion chamber volume 37.000cc
Calculations:
Total engine displacement 242.0253 cu.in.
Bore/Stroke Ratio 1.1371
Rod length/Stroke Ratio 1.9758
Compression ratio 7.9560 :1
The major parts/features used in the engine are:
Heads
•Competition Cams - Valve Spring Cases
•Competition Cams Camshaft 264 degree duration, .500 lift and 112 degree lobe center
•Winona - 11/32"Winona exhaust valve guides
•5/16" intake guide solid 5027
•Ferrea - 1.380 " Alloy exhaust valves
•Manley - 1.600" Severe duty intake valves
•Isky - 7 degree titanium retainers
•11/32" machined valve locks
•5/16" machine valve locks
•Valve springs
•Valve seals
•Umbrella valve seals(exhaust only)
•T&D Machine 13/16" rocker shaft assembly with 1.5:1 rockers
•Custom made ARP head bolts.
•Custom rocker arm stands.
•Custom made rocker arm stand spacers.
•Winona bronze - hone custom guides, hone fit bronze guides
•Custom made rocker covers - required as all the valve gear wouldn't fit under the standard ones.
•Sport port
•Machined receiver grooves into heads.
Bottom End
•Custom 4340 4Litre Moldex stroker crank.
•Eagle 4340 Rods
•Custom Wiseco 7.7:1 dished and fly cut(to clear the valves) pistons.
•Custom single lip rear crank seal, needed because the crank end is 8thou oversized.Line bored and line honed block to Chrysler main bearings Clevite#MS-348. These are bigger than standard main bearings. When the engine was originally lined bored, it was bored offcentre by about 4thou. The bigger main bearings allowed us to reline bore on centre.
•Machined centre bearing support for integral thrust bearing.
•Machined spacers to fit between the centre bearing support and the centre thrust bearing.
•Machine main bearing tang grooves into main bearing supports for new main bearings.
•Dowel pinned girdle to block at four points.
•Machine decks to equal deck height.
•Bored and honed cylinders to 3.525in dia. using torque plates.
•O-ringed block.
Intake/Exhaust
•HKS Blow off Valve
•The exhaust dumps into custom stainless (commercial grade) headers that feed 2(two) Garret T3-TB28 Turbos The turbos are the same ones as used on the all conquering Nissan GT-R touring cars. The turbos feature integral wastegates and are water cooled via a small radiator. The turbo's have had their inlet housings changed to give more airflow.
•Each turbo has a 2 inch mandrel bend stainless steel exhaust pipe that meet in a 3 inch custom straight through muffler under the boot floor. The wastegates dump into a 1 inch pipe that is muffled through a separate section in the same muffler.
•A removable plate will allow this to be dumped straight out, prior to the muffler when racing.
•The 6" muffler is packed with exhaust fiberglass, and is a straight through system with minimal damping and has a 3" exhaust tip.
•The whole exhaust system to the rear bulkhead is to be Ceramic Coated to prevent heat getting into the cabin. The ceramic coating is amazing, whilst checking out one of the local V8 touring cars I found that I could put my hand around the exhaust header without discomfort about 3 minutes after the engine had been turned off.
•On the induction side a late model rover EFI manifold is used with a custom plenum chamber and a Holden Commodore 65mm throttle body.
•Air from the turbos is cooled via 2 HKS intercoolers that sit in front of the radiator before entering the throttle body.
Cooling Water/Oil Bits
•The 3 stage Moroso dry sump pump is driven by a belt on the back of the alternator and the oil is cooled by 2 small oil coolers.
•We've had to move away from using a dry sump, due to space restraints, but we are still using the 3 stage pump(as a 2 stage).
•The wet sump is fully baffled and holds about 9 Litres of Redline oil.
•The whole original front cover has been removed and replaced with a Gilmer drive system.
•We ditched the Chev water pump, and changed to a Davies Craig, electric water pump and controller. This enabled us to finally fit in 2 thermo fans, something we couldn't do before. See Davies Craig for more info.
•Fuel from the custom fuel tank is pumped via 2 Holden Commodore fuel pumps and is injected using Bosch injectors.
•2 oil cooler mounts have been fabricated. They sit either side of the intercooler.
•A smaller turbo water cooler has been bought and will sit into front of the intercooler in a horizontal position.
•Due to space constraints the turbo cooling system is now being integrated into the main cooling system.
•A custom 4 core radiator and thermo fan keep everything cool (I hope).
Electric's
•2 Accel DFI Coil packs send the sparks via Magnecor leads to the spark plugs.
•Both spark and fuel are controlled by a Motec M800 engine management system. This state of the art system is fully sequential and incorporates Wastegate control, Traction Control/Launch Control and Data Logging. The MoTeC will datalog exhaust gas temperature along with all normal engine parameters reducing the need for a dash full of gauges.
Unfortunately during a recent house move I lost the Motec :-( It may turn up, but I'll probably replace with a new Haltech Elite as it's a lot lot cheaper and I can do fly by wire throttle. It also supports racepak SDL3 dashes which are a lot cheaper than motec.
•Wheel speed sensors on the front wheels and the tailshaft will enable the use of traction control and launch control.
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Now that's an engine! You can't post too many photos of that one. Welcome to BritishV8.
What is that going in?!
Empressive engine Byron!! I see that it is going in a 64 MGB. Will that fit in an MGB with the those headers and all the plumbing and intercooler associated with the two turbochargers?
Holy Shmaboly!
Now that's a power plant.
Beautiful work.
Uhmm...what part was Rover again?
As far as CD, even if you were driving a sheet of plywood it would still mph.
Cheers
Fred
It fits, but it is tight, I've got oodles of photos I just didn't have time to upload everything at once.
As for what part is rover, it's a fair question, it is a rover 3.5block, intake etc, we just enhanced it a little. Reliability is a concern so speed events will limit the amount of run time, and of course we can fiddle with the boost etc.
The major tasks at the moment is panelling at the rear (tubs etc). The running gear is all sorted, but needs to be checked as it's been sitting around for 13 years.
I'll post more tomorrow and you'll see that it all fits.
More soon.
Byron
A few more engine shots.
Byron
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Part 2 - Weight
We did weigh the car at 1490lbs with a nice 25% split at each wheel. Not ideal for racing but I'm sure I can tweak that. Things like the turbos, battery and part of the fuel tank are on the passenger side to even up things for a solo driver. Also all weights except for radiator and intercooler are inside the axles. The car is effectively mid front engined.
I'm hoping for a wet weight of ~1750Lbs all up. We shall see.
The roll cage has to be redone (or parts of it) since 4130 is no longer allowed in Australia and what was compliant 15 years ago is no longer. I can retain bits. I will need to do that this year as I need to enclose the mid mounted full tank from the cabin, and I need the roll cage done before I tackle that. Not super expensive. Just a bit annoying.
Byron
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Some more pics!
Byron
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Part 3 - fuel tank
The fuel tank's been custom designed to fit behind the seats and just in front and partly over the differential to give the best weight distribution as well as capacity(65L) The design gives room for the spare wheel, and can now be installed from the top (no need to remove the diff). When it was a road car this was true. Now it's a track car I have to seal the tank off so now it has to come out underneath. This means the diff carrier has to be dropped. A little painful but not that much extra work.
The lower section holds about 20 litres, which is perfect for sprint stages etc.
Byron
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Part 4 - Drivetrain
The horses are transmitted by Ford Falcon GTHO (351ci V8 Australian car) single plate clutch that fits the original Rover flywheel, and is rated at 550lb/ft of torque which should be enough. Ideally a smaller clutch (say 7 1/4") would be better, but then it would have to be twin-plate. I'll roll with the single plate for now and perhaps change to a twin plate if it fails. Clutches have come a long way in the last 15 years when we sourced the original.
Billet steel flywheel that weighs in at about 4kg. This lives in a custom bellhousing made locally by Dellow. I need to make a scatter shield for it.
A Getrag 5 speed gearbox from a Ex-Dick Johnson Racing Sierra passes power to the custom tailshaft. These cars ran around 580hp/500ft-lb for 8 hours around Bathurst on 10" slicks and as far as I know never failed. The MG is lighter and a little more power.
A custom shift mechanism that gives shorter throws and has no play. The Getrag 5 speed uses a custom gearset with a 1:1 5th gear.
The 9" differential was shortened by Harrop Engineering and has Harrop full floating hubs. A Strange Alloy Carrier holds a Detroit locker and a set of 2.75 gears. Top speed with this gearing is about 190mph.
The 9" is heavy but I was concerned about breaking anything smaller with a full power launch.
Byron
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Part 5 - Suspension/Wheels/Brakes
Suspension
•The front suspension is a custom designed double A-arm arrangement using Porsche 944 Turbo magnesium front hubs. Coil-over TraxSpax shockies take the bumps with 1000Lb springs. The suspension is a rising rate design as used on most modern cars and hence requires heavy springs. The suspension was all CAD designed for the car.
•The rear suspension is a 5 link arrangement with a panhard rod setup as used on Australian Group A touring cars. Adjustable Coil-over Spax Aluminum TraxSpax shock absorbers take the bumps and 265Lb springs keep everything in place.
•It appears the bump stops have rotted over the last decade and need replacing. I'm hoping the shockies are ok. Given they've done nothing and a shock can last a decade on a car they should be fine.
•All suspension components use high quality rod ends and all tubing is 4130 chrome moly.
•Custom adjustable front and rear sway bars are made from hollow chrome moly tubing.
•A standard MG steering rack is used in conjunction with a custom steering column. We did modify it to increase the steering ration. A removal MOMO steering wheel helps access.
•A custom cross member provides radiator mount points as well as joining the 2 chassis rails together at the front of the car.
•The Chrome-moly roll cage joins all four shock absorber top mount points to ensure maximum chassis stiffness, in addition the front shock absorbers are laterally braced at the top and the bottom.
Wheels and Tyres
•Simmons FR18 Wheels are used, they are 9inches wide on the rear and 8 inches on the front. They are pretty darn light for a largish rim.
•I'm adding flares to the car (courtesy of Paul Trevathen) so I can go wider. Clearances were very tight so this gives me plenty of room and of course wider rims means wider tyres. I have external rim halves that allow me to jump and inch front and rear. But I think I can go 2 inches (11inch rear and 10 inch front). The front wheel nuts (3 piece rims) are rusted and need removing/replacing anyway. Simmons went out of business but came back and still make these rims so I will need to get that sorted before they disappear again
Brakes
• The front brakes use Porsche Big Red Calipers and discs. I need to get a radial mount to allow these to be mounted on the 944 hubs (common in the US).
• The rear brakes were some basic brakes and I need to sort something out for this. I was chasing some rare 911 GT3 calipers to go with the original front discs (12"), but that might be too hard. There are a lot of aftermarket options to explore.
•A Tilton balance bar in the custom pedal box ensures that the car stops as quickly as possible.
Byron
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More pics.
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More pics.
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More pics.
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Part 6 - Interior
•The very obvious chrome moly roll cage ties the whole car together from the rear suspension to the front shock towers. This ensures that car is incredibly rigid whilst providing real safety (and proper side intrusion bars).
•A Stack 8130 Instrument cluster incorporates all normal instruments in one convenient display that provides threshold alarms for things such as oil pressure, oil temperature etc. Switches to control the stack are in easy reach without needing to take your hand off the steering wheel. This will probably change to a Racepak dash. I'm not sure the cutout is the same size which means i'll scrap
•Various warning lights and a shift light are mounted off a single piece carbon fibre dash.
•Sparco Pro 2000 Fibreglass seats are bolted to a custom floor pan. The floor pan incorporates the seat mounts and allows the exhaust system to sit above the chassis rails. A box section replaces the normal gearbox cross-member, and holds the gearbox from the top.
•The floor pan is custom folded mild steel, and incorporates mounting bolts for the seats(using a captive nut setup). This means the seats sit as low as possible in the car.
•Bar work has been added to hold the spare tyre and the muffler.
Byron
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Part 7 - Exterior
• The external body panels(except bonnet) are largely original (apart from flares). The guards are rusted and need repairs which will be fun.
•The underside of the car will have aluminum sheets fitted, which not only protects things, but it also ensures that the underbody is perfectly flat. This in conjunction with a venturi style boot floor helps airflow under the car. This also means that the lowest point on the car is the chassis rails, which enables a 100mm ride height to be used legally and without fear of bottoming out.
• Ford Falcon GTHO mirrors
•The original aluminum bonnet got the flick in favour of a fiberglass one. This made it easier to integrate the intake and extraction scoops.
•The scoop at the front of the bonnet is to extract hot air from the radiator/intercooler.
•Another scoop feeds air directly into the new intake system. This needs a hole cut into it to be complete.
• 2 Ford Cosworth Sierra scoops will sit in the rear corners of the bonnet to extract hot air.
•The spoiler needs a bit of a tidy up, and since this one gives us about 75mm of ground clearance.
•The spoiler is flared at the sides to ensure airflow is not interrupted by the tyres.
•A splitter will also be fitted.
•Not shown in the photographs is the bottom of the spoiler that has an integral venturi to provide a small amount of downforce.
• A rear wing has been sourced from an RX7 sports sedan.
•This is not some poser wing and will provide noticeable downforce. It will most likely be mounted from the centre of the boot, via an adjustable mount (TBA)
•Ends will added to the wing prior to painting it in the same colour as the body
Byron
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More pics
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Very very impressive. I really like that you have been able to get the ground clearance by keeping everything above the chassis rails, this is something I will be going back to fix on mine. I didn't see the fender flares in the pictures but I know that can be another sticking point on the ground clearance. It was for me so I'd say go big, especially with those wheels. Rear clearance was tough while trying to keep the monocoque together under the flares. I really like your watts link in the rear, very clean. I'd love to see more pictures of it all together, this has got to be one of the most impressive and well engineered MGB builds I've seen.
That does it. I'm moving to Australia!
Thanks for the kind comments. It was a labour of love (and money).
The car is about as together as the photos show, but work is back on in anger and i'll post progress shots.
The flares are from Paul Trevathen and I'll be tackling the rears this month I hope. I need to box in the rear chassis rails as we cut them in half originally to give us more tyre clearance (pics shortly).
I'm cutting the rear part of the rear guard to it follows the panel at the side of the boot. This allows a nice big raised area for airflow, which means only the front part (wraps around the sill I think) is going to affect ground clearance.
I'm not sure what you mean "Rear clearance was tough while trying to keep the monocoque together under the flares". I'm about to embark on this and would like to understand if there's something I'm missing or a pending mistake.
All up it was designed to have 100mm which is minimum for road clearance. We might be able to drop it a little more for the track, but I'm not sure how much vertical adjustment there is. I'm probably better retaining some clearance in the chassis and dropping the spoiler/splitter lower.
I also can now have a side exhaust which gets rid of the big muffler and clearance issues around the diff. I may need a muffle and I see they make flat rectangular ones which hopefully won't destroy ground clearance. I think they are only as thick as the chassis rails.
I should not the photos are old and I can take new ones of anything anyone is interested in.
Cheers
Byron
This is what I mean by the monocoque connection to the the flare. As you can see I cut the inner wheel well, which is structural, and fanned it out and then welded it to my flare so that my flare is structural. Well the clearance problem, and I have 8 inch wide wheels in the rear, is the outer edge of the tire hitting those fanned out and welded pieces. So my ride height is limited by this tire contact point, I have it set just high enough for the suspension to travel without hitting. Basically I would need to tub the inner fender (and shorten axle) or fan the wheel well more and make the flare larger to decrease my ground clearance.
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There are a few more pics under my "how its done"
http://www.britishv8.org/MG/IvanCollins.htm
I see what you mean. In my case there is no inner guard, tub or in fact on this side here even an outer guard. This means I'm free to drop the ride height. Without flares the tyres would scrub on the guard around the crease line.
What I need to do is box the frame rail with some 2mm sheet. The back half template was fairly easy to create. The front part is harder as the bend is slightly 3 dimensional. I might have to do it in a few pieces as 2mm is hard to bend and the gap between the rail and what was the shelf behind the seats I'll do in 1mm. It's not structural, but a good place to collect dirt. The tub will then run from the rear to here.
I then need to replace the outer guard, position/cut the flare and voila.
I'm sure it will be 100x more fiddly than it sounds as I've never done this before.
Byron
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Don't forget your tire clearance will change if one wheel is up and the other is down. Also allow for sidewall flex.
Jim
Ok yea I see you have done a lot more cutting than I had originally thought so what I was saying is irrelevant. I like how you tied the cage into the frame, that whole area looks really strong and well thought out.
WOW!
Good points Jim. The tyres are 18" so sidewall flex will be minimal, but the side to side issue needs to carefully checked. It was always tight and my hope is that the flares will give me plenty of room. A rough fit up shows about 2" extra clearance which should allow an 11" rim with a spare inch. I shall see.
Ivan, all that cutting is great in terms of clearance but it's a pain to reconstruct (and I'm only just starting). The cage etc is great, however I have to get parts of it redone to comply with the latest regs. I've worked out how I can do that by leaving the bar you see and the cross bar for the top shock mount. I can then replace the main rollover hoop , cross brace, and the rear mainstays. The current mainstays aren't straight (slight dogleg) and they are meant to be, mind you I can't see how they can, given they have tie into a certain point on the main hoop and the only place to put it (and keep the angle right) is where they are now on the chassis rail or further forward. I'll see when I talk to the cage guy in a few months. For now, there's work I can, and whilst I'm motivated I'm maintaining the rage!
I have lots of pics of this, but it's a it boring.
I cut out a plate for the chassis rail yesterday and need to clean it up for an exact fit and bend it slightly in 2 places. And next week I'll have power for the welder so I can start making a mess.
I also cleaned up some of the paint around the tail lights and discovers so much filler that it amazes me how poor the build quality was, mind you I don't know if they car was ever in an accident. The car is straight as we checked when it got the sills done, so it doesn't matter. I also discovers some rust. There is rust hole at a join near the tail light, but I can rust convert and fill with weld I think. There is a few other bits of rust, I can see oodles of it high up under the guard but it looks to be surface only, so apart from access to clean up it looks pretty good. I did discover the graffiti wheel I'm using doesn't get that black tar stuff off very week. I was thinking of trying paint stripper.
Byron
4 hours worth of work to clean up the old paint/rust and rust convert. I think I used every wire wheel/graffiti wheel/wire brush I own. The tail light section is very tight and fiddly. I had to remove a section which I'll need to make as it was full of rust and lead. I need to make some other bits as that panel you see is only really attached on the inside chassis rail. My plan is to weld it all round and connect it to the outer guard (spot weld) and seal vs the foam strip that was in there before (allowing it to sort of float).
It shouldn't be too hard, but getting it to line up on what could be considered the correct line will be fun. Mind you having massive flares will discuss any misalignments. And I must remember that it's not a concourse car.
After the rust converter the surface is a bit rough (mind you it was rough anyway) but not rusty now and now primed. Lots of filler will be needed to get it looking nice. The inside bits I don't care about the external bits came up ok.
The plan here was whilst the guard is off to get in and clean what would be hard/impossible with it on. I need to now clean/convert up inside the top half of the guard. An initial go showed some minor rust pitting but the panel is solid (no holes), it's a big area, but should take a lot less time than the tail light.
Fortunately there is not a lot of the car left, but I think I'll need shares in wire wheels.
Byron
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Sorry it's been a long time since updates, but nothing exciting has been happening. I hurt my shoulder and wrist so there were some delays. Essentially I paint stripped the entire left rear inside and out with wire wheels and a little draw through sandblaster. It's taken ages and made me realise I like the assembly work not the paint/rust removable piece. Overall for a 50 year old car the rust is 99% only surface rust which is incredible.
The panels so far are in great condition and I'm sure the car is getting a lot lighter!
The plan is to send it off for bead/sand/media blasting in the next couple of months and get it back to bare metal. This will save a lot of time and wear and tear on me, and reduce injuries (wire wheels on grinders tend to want to kill you sometimes).
Meanwhile I fired up the welder and started closing in the chassis rail. I foolishly welded the whole lot and now realise I didn't get enough penetration. I need to get my shoulder better and then I can grind it all back and reweld. No big deal, just a waste of time.
Once that's finished and it shouldn't take long I can then attach the outer guard and add the flare. I had to remove part of the inner guard near the taillight since it was rusted through.
I have some questions I hope someone can shed some light on.
1) There is a lip near the door area that I'm not sure should be removed to attached the outer guard or not. The right side of the car has the full guard and I can't tell from that. The replacement guard is from the trim line down and logically the lip in question on the replacement panel goes on the door side. When the door is in place the gap here is very tight so I do wonder if this lip should be removed or not?
I've attached some photos of this.
2) The guard was removed on the outer edge of the ridge above the trim line, and the replacement panel sort of sits over this fairly well so I could join it here. I did notice however that the original ridge slopes down whereas the replacement panel is deeper and flatter, it's also varies in depth a little. Since I'm doing both sides I can make them even (i.e. flat). Also it's a track car and will have big flares covering most of the guard anyway so it won't be that neat anyway. Any thoughts on how best approach this?
3) There is an odd gap between the new outer guard and the door/sill area. This is missing again on the other side so I have nothing to compare with. Mind you I'm taking the doors back to a shell and welding in so this would be covered with the door in place anyway. Is there meant to be something here?
Thanks
Byron
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Attached are few more photos. A few showing the replacement guard and it and the original guard near the trimline and the also the mystery gap. In the gap photo the guard is not fully pressed in at the bottom (only held with my knee) so it's a bit bigger than it should be.
Cheers
Byron
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Almost a decade later and things are finally happening.
The car ended up in storage until early this year because of "life".
I did try and get it road registered but the Australian regulations are very strict regarding engine capacities vs weight of the original car and it was too hard.
More time passed and I now have a heart condition that precludes me from racing the car, but my son is now 16 and has the interest to race it. He wants to be a F! Engineer and racing a car will be learning experience. There is an MG racing series in Australia and the target is to race in that one day.
So with that in mind we have to first get the roll cage compliant and log booked, The old cage was not compliant mainly due to the use of chrome moly which is no longer allowed and my son is about 10cms taller than me and it wouldn't be safe.
The original plan was to retain a lot of the old cage and build a new rear hoop and back stays only. But the more we looked at it we couldn't find a way to provide adequate protection to the occupants with just a centre bar from the main hoop to the dash.
Also the fabricator didn't like the rear control arm setup. Too weak.
So we are, with the blessing of Motorsport Australia doings full type 3b cage. Normally this would be what is inside a sedan vs. an open top car but our first rule is safety above all else.
Attached are what a type 3 B cage looks like.
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Here are the latest progress pics.
So much has been removed compared to original. But steps backwards means steps forward.
Photos are off to Motorsport Australia Monday to ensure we are on track. Which I'm sure we are.
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I'm delighted that you're continuing this wonderful and inspirational project!
Progress!
Motorsport Australia is happy and the fab work is incredible.
NOTE: I'm not sure why the first image is rotated. It's correct when you click on it.
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Control arm brackets in place.
Cage welded. Looks ace.
New seat in position. Just fits... phew.
Next up is the control arms. Anti-roll bar mounts and panelling and tubs.
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And it's finished.
One minor change to show a better connection between backstay and chassis and it can be registered.
National level type 3b cage. Well above what we need but safe.
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And the cage is registered. Big step forward.
Working on pedals and EPAS now.
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And it's home.
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The car was stripped back to bare metal and a few months of work has the tubs and boot finished.
The rear guards had to be re-attached including the sections at the back of the doors and then cut away for the tubs. A lot of welding and grinding.
As we will be running flares I didn't bother grinding back the welds where the tubs meet the guard as you won't be able to see it.
We have around 14" from the inner part of the tub to the inner edge of the flares so will likely go for 12.5" wheels.
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The next task was the firewall on the drivers side.
It was made with 2 removable sections and a lid for 2 main reasons. The first was to allow the headers to be put on with the engine in the car as I'm not sure the engine can go in with them on. It also gives more clearance so the engine can go in with them on.
The second was the lid that allows access to the top of the pedal box for adjustment of the master cylinders and also access to the brackets holding it in. If it wasn't removable there is no way we could ever get the pedal box in or out.
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Many many hours of work and I have closed in the top section of the cage.
I made curved bars to match the rear section near the boot, which was a pain to get right. I then made little brackets all the way around the outside.
Lastly the aluminium top sheets were done in 5 pieces as there is very little access. The infill pieces will be riveted in.
We are thinking British racing green as the body colour and with stainless bolts gives it a sort of riveted look. Perhaps.
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Then it was time to close up the vertical section. This wasn't too hard but after installing 78 rivnuts on the top section I knew it would be fiddly. Especially getting the bend in the lower quadrants exactly correct.
So there are 4 quadrants, the top quadrants connect to the curved bars. The lower connect to basic brackets welded along the bottom and side, with a bar across the car to connect the top and bottom together. As always making the panels was easy, the drilling, rivnutting took many hours. That and the 90 degree bend in the left hand lower quadrant. I wanted it to be exactly the same height as the right. That took about 4 hours and 50+ measurements before I was confident to do it.
Now onto the trans tunnel which should be easier.
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The tunnel and passenger firewall is now done. Looking like a finished car more and more.
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Both rear flares are on.
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I have one new front guard and one old so decided to get the old one blasted. I have a rust repair section for the rear of this fender so if I screw up I can replace it.
I knew it had some rust repair but it ended up not too bad. There is a section that was cut out and filled and a weird hole on top, plus the lower rear lip is rusted.
I was pondering going fibreglass front guards but the spoiler mounts to the guards so it can't be fibreglass and by the time I finish there won't be much left.
I'm planning to cut the entire rear section out just above the seam line in the panel and then rivet in an aluminium section to funnel the air out like the cars below. This removes the bulk of the rusty section and removes weight. The folded in section can't go all the way to the door as there is an internal panel that holds the back of the guard to the body. But that is fine.
I will put a vent/louver like the ones here which will very nicely cover that weird hole.
https://elianmotorsport.com/products/universal-front-fender-vents-louvers
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And both sides are done.
The front flares are not identical, nor are the wings/fenders but everything is as exactly matched as I can do.
The louvers are from Professional Awesome as they were bigger and cheaper than racing louvers.
Now onto brakes.
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Interesting thread, nice builds!
Thank you.
Lots of updates;
1) Brake hard lines run. Will do flex lines down the track
2) Dry sump pump rebuilt from single stage back to 3 stage. Had to reinforce the rear of the pump to stop flex.
3) Dry sump tank mounted
4) Mocked up front brakes with Porsche big red adaptors. Have since bought 2 piece rotors to fit different hats so offset is correct.
5) Fuel tank made and straps fitted
6) Lifter pump bracket made
Now onto mocking up fuel lines etc.
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Dry sump pump. It had to be rotated on its mount to allow the returns to clear the sump. Sump will likely need to modified as well down the track to put in more pickups.
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Front brake mock up.
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Dry sump tank mounted. Can be accessed via small panel in the section behind the seats.
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Fuel tank mounted. It's about 81.5litres but due to the angle of our modified boot floor we will need to have the car jacked up to fill it that much. Should be good for 30 minutes of racing.
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Lifter pump mount. 2nd photo is a reinforcement to stop it wobbling too much.
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Fuel system is complete. As it's mainly push on fittings I've left one end off for now as it will all need to be removed for painting etc.
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Some months back I painted the rear section of the cage and took the diff out to clean up the rust inside and out. I also fitted a drain plug to make oil changes easier.
It's a full floating 9" with Strange lightweight centre, Detroit locker. The only negative is we have no negative camber which is not optimal, but it's too expensive to fix at this stage, given the focus to get the car on the track and optimise later. I will however talk to the fabricator and see if it's worth doing the trick where you use a welder to bend the housing a degree or so. This apparently is easier with floating hubs. My concern is getting it even side to side.
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Next up was to remove the surface rust and paint the floor underneath the car. I finished that and then sat my son in the car to test locations of switches on the dash (next post), only to find he'd grown 5cm or so in the last 2 years. This meant I had to cut out the existing seat rails an put in a completely flat floor with compliant mounting points. I'm about 10cm shorter than my son so we needed a forward and backward position, plus we did an angled back position as well. Very time consuming getting the mounting plates and captive nuts positioned perfectly.
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I got to assist in the pits for the one of the Australian V8 MGB racers, who kindly made a set of even wider rear flares for me. We should be able to fit a 13" rim in easily now.
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Next up was wiring. The car had a MOTEC loom that was only setup for dyno only. I had to do the loom from scratch. 200 wires for everything from taillights to shock travel sensors.
I still ended up needing some relays for EPS, Hazard lights, fuel pumps and starter solenoid.
Took me about 3 months from empty spreadsheet to completed wiring.
I'll be using a Haltech Nexus R3 and UC10 dash which gives me enough I/O between the two with a few inputs left over.
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