Chad's Alpine with Rover/Buick V8, part 2

[Roverbeam]

Continuing from where I left off with the other page, now that it has been filled with the full pic allotment, here's hoping for a productive 2025!

I've been working on the steering rack installation. I've "installed" both front suspensions, done a bunch of measuring and figuring and drawing, made a clever (I think!) wood fixture to hold the rack parallel to the front bar of the K-member, and I've done a bunch of tests to see where it needs to be to -nearly- zero out the bumpsteer. Rack height is pretty much what determines bumpsteer behavior, so I've set the rack a little low and added various ply shims under it until I get a setting that works - done!

So in pictures rather than words, here's the fixture and rack clamped into the car:


And from the outside, I have a laser pointer clamped onto the wheel hub, and I'm just measuring from the hub to the wheel arch as I raise and lower a jack in 1/2" bump/droop increments, and then putting a mark where the laser hits the tape on the wall up in front of the car.


Here's the pattern progress - obviously if the hub changes steering angle as it is moved up and down, then the laser will trace a sloped line/curve rather than straight up and down. I did a handful of partial patterns - the ones with a lot of slope - since I didn't need to run through the full travel to see they were way off. I've found the height I need, and I'm 3D printing dummy rack mounts right now to test before fabbing/having a laser cut outfit make them.


Weight behind the axle isn't my first choice, but if I want to sell this as a "us" project to the gal in the house, she needs to be able to sit in the car. The oil tank can't go in the passenger compartment, and it doesn't fit behind the seats between the roll hoop and the rear suspension sub-frame. So it's going out back, next to the fuel tank. Longer hoses dissipate heat, right?


...and the bracket without the tank, just tacked in place while I test fitment, angle, and make sure I'm really wanting to put it there:


Engine-wise, my local climbing-wall recovering guy has finished balancing the crank after using 9 rods to successfully narrow the big end on 8 of them. Baby steps are better than nothing, I suppose. I'd really like to get the short block together and in the car to fully evaluate the room I need in front since I've got some other parts fighting for the same space. For now there's plenty of other things to work on still!

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I've been doing a lot of work on the steering rack mount, but it's not quite done yet.

I've also been trying to get my machining tasks a little more back on track - local guy has done the crank balancing, but wants to do no more as he is downsizing and such. There's a guy 90 minutes away that has my block to put new sleeves into it, which is great - but he doesn't feel comfortable with the heads and installing oversized seats. Sooo, another guy 90 minutes away in a different direction can do that, so I'm planning to make that trip soon.

Which leads to the current priority - getting benchmark flow numbers for the stock 300 heads, before they get sent out for the new seats. I built a "PTS" style Flowbench a little while ago, but never (needed to) spent the time to get it fully functioning. It's working great now, and I'm getting repeatable numbers that are really close to what the pros have reported.

This is the bench - it's a bit smaller than others of this type, because I knew I didn't need big air capacity for the under 200-ish flow I expected to be dealing with. It's a "rationometric" design, meaning it compares two different flow-created pressure changes to each other, so there's no need for correction factors for temperature or barometer. And, unlike the Superflow design, the air passes through the fan motors after being measured, so the changing fan temps don't change the readings. Seeing what valve adjusting rigs sell for, I made my own as well.


There's a little computer gizmo available to take the place of the old-school style pressure tubes, but I haven't decided I need that yet. This one works by reading two pressure changes - the loop at the bottom is used to set fans to the flow amount to create the pressure that the port will see - 28" of water is the standard - and then the logarithmic inclined scale shows the percentage of the flow capacity of the aperture that's been installed in the bench at the moment. Superflows use a range of apertures on a turret or wheel - I have to open mine up and unscrew 4 knobs to change apertures for different flow ranges.


And my 1st attempt at harvesting data:

I have a small aperture that flows up to 93fpm, then another that goes up to 157, and a bigger one that goes to 260. I was trying to see how well they do when they overlap, and the first test wasn't great - I had an air leak that skewed things a bit. Tracked that down, applied some silicone, and things have ben getting better!

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Steering rack mount is in! This is a Miata NB rack, mounted to a NC/RX8 subframe that's been narrowed. The subframe came with some weldable steering rack mounts, but they were for a NC rack. I did repurpose the one for the left/driver side, changing the hole center spacing slightly to suit. The other end is supported out past where the subframe curves, so the mount needed to cantilever over there. The driver side carries all the side-to-side load, while the other end just sort of clamps the rack body and keeps it in line with the subframe. I played with some ideas using tubes, bent tubes, box sections, and none of them seemed to be what I thought would be best. In the end it's a fabricated 14g sheet structure which I think nicely answers all the loads, and isn't clumsy or heavy.


This is one of those things that really ought to be just right before you commit to weld. I had earlier tacked just the top plate to the subframe while I measured a bunch of stuff, and I sort of bent the plate off the welds when I was ready to start building - now, the little tack weld nubs sort of realign things for me as I put it back in as a bigger assembly.


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Scant progress in the shop due to work and life lately, but I did get my front bell crank / pushrod suspension rockers built, as pictured below. They're water jet cut and cnc-bent pieces of 1/8" plate for the sides, and 14ga sheet wrapped around the top/bot/ends. So far, I think they came out nifty:


Other progress has been just chipping away at the shopping list - new instruments, dash switches, a steering wheel and quick release, some brake parts, suspension parts, a crankshaft pulley drive mandrel, and so on.

On the machine shop front, I did get my crank back, balanced. Due to some previous big balance holes, he wasn't able to internally balance it, despite the lighter reciprocating parts - the heavy metal would have been going through old radial holes. So that meant using a stock 300 balancer (he did shave a little off its counterweight), which I had rebuilt by Damper Doctor.

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Still going, just dodging the life issues that keep cropping up!
I'm making steps on the front suspension pushrod setup. The 3/4" box section is a shock stand-in, so that I can have a fixed height while the car changes weight as I add or remove heavy stuff. That'll allow me to put wheels on, and put it on wheel stands once I'm done with the rotisserie. There's some snug packaging happening in this area to make the shocks overlap and still clear the front engine pulleys and the steering rack. I've got a solution, but it'll involve a little rework to the two 1.25" uprights that reach down to the subframe.



My most exciting bit of recent news is getting the heads back from the machinist. His task was to install new valve seats for the Ferrea V6/6000 series 1.775/1.5" valves, cut the spring seats for a locator and stem seal, and get me a consistent spring installed height near 1.8 (108#). He was afraid to cut the spring seats too much without knowing where water was, so he added .050 valve locks, and ended up with an installed height of 1.740, for 133# closed, and 357# open. That's right where Erson wants to be on the closed side, and about 20# higher than they want open. He also did a modest cut of the head surface, although some light pitting still remains. It's all inside the gasket perimeter, so I'll just gently Dremel the craters so they don't present any sharp edges or hot spots.





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Progess on a few fronts.
First up, working on passenger side seat rails, and extending them aft to form a battery tray shelf. The mockup using 1" strips of 1/4" ply, hot-glued:


...and welded up 1" box section, and checking the battery fit. (It stinks to buy a expires-soon kind of product this soon, but like seatbelts I need the units in hand to make sure they will fit properly.)


I got the heads from the machinist, so while I have them in hand I thought I'd check the rocker clearance to the covers. Making a rough template of the cover interior:


Tossing the rockers in place and holding the template against them. Plenty of room!


And I hadn't turned the car on its side in a while, so this made a decent overview of most of the chassis work so far. (My motor mount/K-member brace isn't in place, since this is just the mockup block, which is also why the 2x4 and strap is in place to restrain the front of the trans.


Still puttering away at the front suspension and sway bar - I get so far, realize I need some parts, order them, wait, make some more small steps, and so on. I'm going to finish the seat install (brackets arrived this week), add all the seatbelt mounts, then it's exhaust fitment. Then, sheet metal, oh boy!

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Lotta work, for what seems like little progress. Here it is...

I'm happy with the front sway bar now - this is maybe the fourth geometry test I've done, and it now looks very good. With the front track width narrowed 3", the stock roll bar that came with the all the front suspension assembly just doesn't reach the stock mounting tab on the lower A-arm, with the bar or the links fouling something nearby as the suspension moves.

Somebody on this forum posted an article about early RX7 solid axle race tuning and in that article was a pic of a stock sway bar with welded-on extensions: eureka! -that just wasn't in my vocabulary of mods, and once that idea was available, the bar geometry began to fall into place. I could mount the links further out on the A-arm to the shock mounting point, and offset the revised motion ratio with a similar revised lever arm on the sway bar. Here's two pics with some of the parts just tack welded, but in their final position:




I tried angled rod end washers at one point, and then decided I want to have higher-angle conical washers to allow the rod ends to articulate without fouling the flat plate that they mount to. One supplier has them in aluminum for a couple bucks each, McMaster for maybe $7/ea, so naturally I spent a couple hours and made my own. Sometimes I realize by the choices I make just what I think my time is worth, I guess!


And finally, I spent a day mounting the seats. I drilled and installed rivnuts for the seat brackets (water-jet cut and bent from 3/16" aluminum, and all 4 are a different shape, grr!), and since I don't have a rivnut installing tool (do they make them for 3/8" bolt size?), I just tacked the flange so it wouldn't spin in the hole and compressed each one with a bolt against several washers. It worked fine, and I don't think I ever need to worry about them spinning if I install/uninstall the seats a few times in the future.


I fought pretty hard to get this all to fit like this. The shoulder "ears" of the seat tuck behind the B-pillar where an old sheetmetal panel used to be, and also sits just in front of the main roll hoop, with perfect 1/4" clearance to both. Narrow car, maximum room!


A little more work (I hope!) is all that's needed to complete the front suspension/coilover installation so I plan to tackle that next and finally cross it off the list.

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Gotta figure out how to spend more time on the car, less on life and other projects, sigh.

I knew I needed to swap some CVs around to make the Miata diff and the RX8 uprights work with a common axle. The solution is to use a Miata axle and inner CV, with circa '04 RX8 automatic transmission outer CVs. The rear subframe assembly I purchased had manual trans axles, and for giggles I heard that a Honda Civic of a certain era had 32 spline axles so I bought one of those from eBay to try out - no joy. Basically, I've ended up with a Bunch of axles and CVs to get the goldilocks combo of parts. Sheesh.


I've wanted a basic mill for a while and one came up not too far away on the Facepage marketplace. I've added a 2-axis DRO (the z axis for a column mill is a little iffy) and naturally had to spend as much on accessories and tooling as the original machine.


Lots in the works on the car, just not able to get to it all right away, but trying to make some progress on something each week.

[Roverbeam]

Ok, so the Projects category allows more than a single post now. I can reply to myself instead of editing the first entry, woohoo.

So here's the only car related thing I've made since last time. Brake line straightener, on the cheap:


But, I did buy an old 13" lathe, get it here and get it set up - I don't have 3ph power, a VFD didn't work, so I swapped in a 1ph motor. Then I bought a 4 jaw chuck and some tool post holders and tooling, etc.

Over the Christmas break I spent most of my otherwise car time doing a bath remodel at home. Sometimes she needs to know her priorities are important, too!

I've snuck in some purchases to keep the car project alive - brake pads and soft lines, some sheet metal in trade for the old lathe motor, some minor tools, etc.

I used the new year as an excuse to reach out to the fella that has my block, lo these last 12 months. No promises, but I get the impression he was embarrassed enough to now get it done this winter. I hope.

Moving forward!

[BlownMGB-V8]

Will you be using a roller cam in that engine? The springs sound about right for one is why I ask.

Jim

[Roverbeam]

Yup, a hydraulic roller cam from Woody/Erson. Specs in attached pic.
-Chad

[BlownMGB-V8]

Very impressive build Chad, you obviously have some mad fab skills. You'll undoubtedly pick up some weight but that's going to be a very rigid platform. I like your intake too, that's nice work. Have you looked at the TA/Rover heads by chance? I bought mine bare and they weren't too dear that way. Still high but at least possible. Not really suitable with your short block though, not chambered for the 300 heads. Might be a thought if you decide to build that 300. Get in touch if you do. You will like the long tube headers. Mine are over 40 years old now and I still love 'em. Be nice to see this one hit the pavement. Do you plan to use it on the street at all?

Jim

[Roverbeam]

I'm pretty mindful of the weight, but there's no way to put a cage into a car without some penalty. I like to fab stuff, but I didn't trust myself to design/build a full birdcage chassis, so I added the 2x3 frame rails.

At the time I chose this motor recipe, it seemed the TA stuff was pretty costly, and the 300 head option appeared to meet my goals. In retrospect, I might choose differently - not sure.

The long tube headers went to DanJ, but I have a set of mustang long tubes that I'll cut apart and re-attach to a Rover-shaped exhaust flange and new collector. The Ford V8 has a similar port pattern, so it doesn't take a lot of altering to get the old tubes to each their new holes.

I still have the 300, and almost got a new intake for it last weekend, but it sold prior to my availability. Still looking at other options to get it to run, but it hasn't been a priority lately.

Hoping to keep it streetable, while compromising as little track suitability as I can.

[BlownMGB-V8]

I really like what you are doing. I also went the 300 head option on my 340 which now has late Rover heads. I cut the piston dishes deeper. (They were spec'd for a blower and had extra crown thickness.) The reason I did that was for cross compatibility with the TA heads, as the 340 is my spare. The 300 heads will probably go on my stock 300 later on. By that time I'll have the new stroker 300 in the car. I think the 300 heads are pretty good, I got decent power out of the 340. But it was running 5 lbs of boost so that sort of clouds the issue. The TA heads ARE costly. I think I gave about $1500 bare. But they came with valve seats that could handle a 1.9" intake and 1.6" exhaust and the ports get a clean-up CNC port job as supplied so that was kinda nice. For the 300 they had a cavity on each end of the head that needed filled (TIG) but they might have corrected that by now, it would only take a slight adjustment of their mold.

I bought a set of used race part titanium valves and cut them down to fit the head. Had to use lash caps since I didn't feel like installing hardened stem tips but in retrospect that might have been better.

Your reworked SBF headers sound like a good solution. I did understand you were doing that. Did you hear about the new EFI single plane for the 300? I'm pretty sure TA bought the rights but don't know what their lead time is. Based on past intakes it should be available soon so if you do decide to go forward that might be a pretty good option.

Jim

[Roverbeam]

Hah - I've never seriously considered the 300 for my project. I just can't get past the extra deadweight from the cast iron block. I get that there's more power available with the right combo, and that sort of hp is great for the hot rod or strip crowd, but I don't see it working for a road course. My car idols are the small stripped-out lightweights, not the big block chevelles, if you get what I mean.

The 300 I have I purchased for the headers that came with it, but those were too tall for my low engine location. So I've got this 300 sitting here with no intake that I'd like to get running mostly just to make it viable to sell. Going single plane on the intake might be overshooting that goal a bit! -unless they've included something like a 1/2" of mating surface thickness that I can cut off to fit my Rover deck height!

[BlownMGB-V8]

Sounds sensible, I was right there with you in my early days. In fact, Harry Johnston tried his best to get me to take his torn down and cleaned up 300 when he moved to VA. I took the alloy heads and the crank but wouldn't take the "boat anchor". What a mistake that was. I eventually ended up selling both the crank and the heads.

Fast forward past about 4 215's and I found my path illuminated. That weight I just couldn't accept turned out to be pretty minimal and far outweighed by all the advantages. As an example, did you realize that the alloy head 300 is only about 50 lbs heavier than the late Rover? 50 lbs is 50 lbs of course, but for power you basically start where the 215 leaves off and the durability is off the scale by comparison. Stronger means understressed, which means reduced maintenance and breakage. Anyway when I went to IRS I added weight to the rear and the engine weight balanced it out nicely. Wasn't that much corner tuning required at all.

Anyway, since your location is pretty central I doubt you'd have too much trouble selling the lump, which version is it? (I have a 2bbl intake I could make available if it helps, with carb and air cleaner I expect.) Even a 2bbl iron head makes a great engine combo in an MGB.

So how well is your brake line straightener working out? I can see that being a pretty handy tool. I've always straightened my coils by hand and I get them pretty near perfect that way but not quite, you know?

What's next on your list?

Jim

[BlownMGB-V8]

I meant to ask you Chad, did you go to the Rover V8 specifically to reduce the weight? I mean the obvious would be to go with the 302 because- Tiger of course.

Jim

[Roverbeam]

Hi Jim,
I've been using the lack of an engine to postpone the final mounting of the front coilovers. I have a dummy block, but it doesn't accept the crank and thus the front drives - which I'm trying to leave room for. I have about a 90% certainty of how much room I need from earlier planning, but it feels pretty scary to commit without actually checking the live item.

The brake straightener is awaiting some coiled tubing to straighten, but as long as the tubing is less than about 5/16, there's no reason it won't work. It's a pretty common design.

I see a 63# difference, just in the blocks, between the 300 and the 4.0.

So yeah, I chose the aluminum V8 because it is light, it is likely to fit better than say an LS, has the British/American crossover history that is sorta Tiger-analagous, and of course has a different vibe than say a Honda or turbo-Miata or similar engine.

The 300 I have is I think a '65, and came to me with no carb or intake. I have a small Edelbrock and a 215 intake that I might be able to fit with spacers and a valley cover, but sheesh. I was pretty bummed to see a nearby clapped out '64 with the aluminum goodies sell while I wasn't available to get it!

I'm not a Tiger historian at all, but I think they initially came with the Ford 260, and then either early owners or maybe the later cars switched to the 289. Both iron blocks of course, although I suspect the 289 has the most potential to easily upgrade. I suppose the 302 would have even more aftermarket support, but it starts to drift away from my other goals - heavy, and no connection to these cars.

I was just on a work trip, stopped along the way to buy a tool from the Facepage, and the guy had an estate's worth of machine tooling that he was also trying to get rid of. Picked through it for stuff I could use, and got a bucket full for about $65 - good times.

[MGBV8]

The Tigers did have the 260 SBF.  Only the final year came with a 289. Probably quite a few have been changed to the 302.

Back in 2003, I chased a 260 Tiger on the Tail of the Dragon.  The driver's handle was Funbeam Chuck.

[BlownMGB-V8]

I remember Chuck. Been awhile.

You know, for fitment purposes you could use that 300 as the only difference is the the deck is about 9/16" taller. The front assembly is only different if you are going serpentine I think, and that could be fitted to the 300 maybe for mock-up. Just a thought that could maybe help you along a bit.

63# sounds like a good number as we know the late Rover is heavier than the 215 and there's an 80# difference between the weight of the 215 block and the 300 block. The heads are a few lbs heavier too and that puts us pretty close to the estimated 50# difference between the late Rover and the 300 so that all checks. If you compare the intake weights it's probably within a pound or two of 50. Not bad for an estimate. I used to have actuals on the head weights, I'm sure they are posted somewhere.

Here's a tidbit for you regarding the iron head 300. The late Rover heads can be used and can sometimes be found cheap at the pick-n-pull. You TIG fill a void at each lower corner for gasket match and size the piston dish for the Rover chamber. The flow is very similar to the 300 alloy heads. Then you have a straight bolt-on swap upgrade path to the TA-Rover heads which are really as good as it gets.

For econo builds of course the iron head is excellent though another 50 lbs heavier if it also has the iron intake. Even the 2bbl version is 9:1 so it burns regular gas. Not especially interesting to you, but there's a market for those. Might come into play when the time comes to sell it. Around 3-400 bucks isn't a bad price for one that runs. Since yours is missing the intake it was likely the 4bbl version which should be 10-1/4:1. With an alloy intake it would be 34 lbs heavier, or 84 lbs heavier than the Rover and 114 lbs heavier than the 215. It doesn't apply to your car but just for reference the 1800 in the MGB comes out to the same weight as the Rover.

Jim

[Roverbeam]

" You know, for fitment purposes you could use that 300..."

I see that camel nose, trying to sneak under the tent! -I've considered doing that, but dealing with the heavy lump is a hassle. I was really hoping to put my final short block together soonish instead.

I have the crank, the trans is in its final location, so I could just mate those two together, add the balancer and drive mandrel and pulleys, and rig up some temporary support to hold it on in alignment. That's been my latest idea.

[BlownMGB-V8]

Kinda risky using your brand new crank thataway... But you probably don't have the bellhousing for the 300 anyway so you couldn't do that if you wanted to. Best not to get in a hurry. Haste makes waste, that old saying's there for a reason.

Jim