Couple more bits - pricing of conversion.

Be a shame to break tradition and pay full price anything.

Got a Piper cambelt, wide version for £19 - £42 normally :)

Got some OE spec head studs, need swapping each time, stretchers...£19 - £54 retail.

So far my costs have been:

£160 Clutch system
£40 exhaust silencer
£90 Manifold
£330 cam kit
£240 engine, bellhousing, clutch, flywheel, spigot bush (sold £210 worth of stuff that I didn't need from it £450 paid in total)
£16 engine mounts
£12.50 water pipe
£79 inlet manifold
£36 trumpets
£15 in steel
£30 in small parts

£1048..

Another £400 in bits left me thinks.

If it wasn't ebay that lot would have cost over double I reckon.

Still acquiring parts. I am not doing anything till all the elements in the equation are gathered. I think a two week binge should surfice, bar the bulkhead/tunnel its all just related to attaching stuff to the engine and turning the key.

K-series conversion = doddle. You could do one in a couple of weeks in the evenings I reckon if you had all the parts.

New seat? Mallory TR Trackday.

Had a fun day at the TR trackday, 3am to bed, up at 6am...its now 1am, but shagged. Need another Triumph I think to do some more events etc.


Has to be time? Sold my spare verniers!

May as well respend the cash.

Some bloke makes nice seats on good old ebay! £99 each, not FIA or anything but rather light and strong. Also only 39cm wide, very thin. Should fit, can make some alloy bases, cut up that front thing.

Can make my own padding, support, comfort from some special foam....

Shiney bits

Just my cams eh. Nice understated black anodising, no bling blue or red! Quite like black!

These odd pieces blank off the removed VVC mechanisms and house cam seals, very well made kit I must say.

Sweet Camshaft Purchase!

Won my cams on Fleabay!

Retail for new chilled blank cams is:

£376 for the pair
£110 for the VVC blanking kit
£179 for the pulleys

£665 + VAT I think = £781

Won them for £350 :)

I also now have two sets of vernier pulleys so after selling one pair for £130? I make £20 and get my £110 back so the cams effectively cost me £330 which is a £335 saving or £451 with VAT :)

That makes me happy. New cams too, not regrinds. Torquey buggers too 270 deg.

Sweet!!!

Shiney Carbs

A solid days work here. Another set on its way to a 1300 Spitfire race car.

Some vacuum cleaner trumpets, like the ones on my old engine.
A rare Magard linkage, my favourite. The best by far.
Carbs are bolt on ready, having been trial fitted to a head and manifolds, levers bent and corrected, full throttle checked, linkage adjusted.
Yum. Pumps calibrated, fuel levels in the bowl calibrated, OE spec gaskets, viton valves, jetted to spec. Thats a proper job.

Good things often come to those who wait.

Just when your about to buy something, its odd how ebay often comes up trumps...

Have to enquire about whether they are reprofiles or new...to work out how much I would be willing to bid.

Can flog the Pulleys as I already got some.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/PIPER-CAM-KIT-FOR-ROVER-MG-VVC-K-SERIES-FAST-ROAD_W0QQitemZ330097385605QQihZ014QQcategoryZ72205QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Cam kit for VVC! 270H was going to fit 285's but see what pans out...

Would nice not to pay full price for anything!

Bending stuff the easy way.

Self appointed techno has been bending stuff this evening.

I needed an extra 6mm clearance under the handbrake area to enable the prop to be fitted without dropping the rear gearbox mount, thats after settling on a final engine location.

The Ford prop slides into the gearbox rear extension not bolts on as per triumph box..So you need to be able to slip her in.

I needed to raise the back of the box 5mm where it sits over the crossmember, to stop the rear extension rattling on the crossmember or risk of rattles. Having left this gap the prop wouldnt go on...

I didn't want to cut out and raise this area for the sake of a few mm...

So my solution was to jack the back of the car up...Place a jack under the handbrake area of the tub and repeatedly lower the car onto the jack, so the whole weight of the car is sat under the handbrake area. With help of several different shaped objects sat on the jack, alot of creaking and ticking noises, the prop now fits and you'd be unaware this area has been adjusted :)

I just need to cut off the handbrake mount and move it towards the passenger as the already shortened handbrake lever fouls the gearstick...

I do intend to shorten the gear stick mech, but handbrake lever will still sit on the gearbox tunnel so needs moving anyways...

Engines needs to come out now. Headgasket, possibly reface head, port head a bit, buy and fit cams, time cams, sort trigger system on flywheel, add clutch slave, shorten gear mechanism on box, sort custom made oil take off block, replace bottomend gaskets, baffle sump, fit remote filter, sort exhaust piping. Engine should run then...Leaving prop shortening, bulkhead, gearbox tunnel.

Isn't YouTube fascinating....

Great tool for knowledge you simply cannot obtain elsewhere, snippets can be pieced together, odd ball reports, the internet is a wondeful thing.

Without it I fear for many things...Its really a tool of the people.

I wonder how long we can hold onto the Internet freedom we have...

I find it disturbing some of the information on Youtube is being removed "due to violation of service"...

I noted this trend a short while back there were 100's of videos of bombs (IED's) blowing up US soliders and convoys, painting a pretty accurate picture of why there are US deaths each day...and what not.

A few weeks ago this was- since these have all been removed, none were graphic, the ones left are now US soliders de-arming IED's not being hit with them...

You cannot escape the current war on freedom anywhere it seems...

I wonder which politician is lining Yahoo-Youtube's pockets? These videos do not specifically break terms of use.

There was a guy called "Halifaxion" on Youtube who had hundreds of videos about the New World Order etc.

Makes for great watching I like to flex my mind.

I make no bounds I dispise the current US government...Did from the election in 2000.

If you research these subjects and I mean REALLY research them, not just a quick bit of dabbling but some serious late night reading, you find all sorts of things.

Without the internet we would live in a world without any answers.

This "Halifaxion" bloke has been removed from Youtube today, he had no Porn etc etc...He simply had videos about things, ones you don't see on BBC, ABC, CBN, Fox etc (controlled media) information classed as sensitive in a policestate? Information with a global audience.

I find that quite disturbing...Most of his videos had up to 500,000 hits...Quite a tool of information.

Maybe his videos were so popular they were using all of Youtube's bandwidth?!

Freeworld?! Sorry for the politics, I feel I must do my bit! We can't all sit back like battery hens and cluck eh?!

We live in a world of complete and utter apathy...

Before we know it we're gonna be f*******.

UPDATE: Seems someother users have no been removed!! "Operation Northwoods" info is easily obtained on yahoo it was de-classified a while back, as is information about "NORAD" and what was cooking at 8.30am 9/11/01

Nothing to report on the Spitty :)

Sorry!

Most funky !!

Very happy with the end result!

Rare I am very happy with stuff I do, but this is a real gem if I do say so!

Almost looks meant to be to me!
Barely sticks out.
4.25" of ground clearance.
Rubber mounting pad inplace, 3 bolts fixing it, the silencer is rock steady, there is now a 3mm thick alloy plate on the inside of the wing too, shaped to hug its form.

The most simple engineering is always the best. I could have ended up with big nasty ugly bracket affair or some old mess, but this looks meant to be, can it be any neater?!! Kicks the arse of a Caterham mount which falls apart regularly, wobbles all over the place and uses 1 single small mount rubber like a non-overdrive gearbox one...which splits alot.

Best warn passengers about leg burns! Although the roll cage door bar makes you naturally cock your leg outwards alot...as it touches the door skin.

Sweet! Jag needs some major hours next week so will see what pans out next weekend. I estimate there is 2 solid weeks work left in it.

Should be VERY fast. I drove a Sylvia Striker with a 150HP Zetec, I guess it was 80kilos less weight than the spit, even with the lighter engine (50kilos! less than Zetec), but the Spit should have 25HP more...That Striker was mental, nearest to a motorbike I have been in, you just aimed it at a straight and grabbed gears, you couldn't lift yourself out the seat even under 4th gear accleration :) :)

Oh I also note the nose is sticking up in the air alot more than it was...There is not much left to add in the engine bay really and the bonnet has little effect being only 17kilos fully fitted. Thats a good sign! Needs to drop an inch!

Must be because the engine is so far back, might also have something to do with the fact a standard 1300 is 125kilos, and my K is 85kilos without the carbs and the 1400 flywheel fitted.

Silencer fun!

Alas, tis roughly mounted. Only took 20mins!

I used the stainless silencer which has a mounting bracket that can take 3 bolts/studs.

Spot the silencer! Doesn't stick out too far.

Have to make a little deflector for the tailpipe to keep it from cooking the edge of the tyre, no problemo.
Sits neatly inline with the sill only 12mm from it. Door clears by 2mm.
Its roughly fitted awaiting an extra stud, making it bolted in 3 places.

You might be able to make out two nuts between the bracket and silencer, these are just for trial fitting/spacing. These nuts will be replaced a cushion to damp vibration a bit (I am not bothered about vibration or whatever entering the tub, look at the car!!)...20mm x 17cm piece of high temp rubber, 2 existing studs and an extra stud will pass through the rubber and clamp the rubber between the silencer bracket and the sill so giving some basic flexibility...

Inside the sill will be a bent sheet of metal which the studs pass through to spread out the load of the 3 studs as otherwise it'll rip the sill/wing to pieces, there will be another small plate between the rubber and outside sill/wing section also. The studs will be welded to the silencer bracket so they don't rattle loose, inside the wing/sill will be 3 nylocks on the other end of the studs.

I will drill out the pop rivets holding the silencer bracket to the body of the silencer and replace them with allen key bolts and weld the nuts to the inside of the silencer tube to stop fatigue, the bracket already has a large plate inside the tube to spread load.

I don't factor in much vibration, movement on the silencer due to the very stiff engine mounts, also the main exhaust pipe will be mounted to the front outrigger so this will damp vibration also.

I will try and hunt down another silencer the same and make this silencer twice the length. I could then mount it like this at the front too..I could add a section of flexible exhaust pipe in too by the outrigger, to completely damp out any vibration to the silencer...Its all in hand. I see this as a lasting and ideal solution.

I loose 3/4" of ground clearance from the sill seam downwards, no biggy the old exhaust was lower in this area dragging on the ground, but will need to inspire confidence and leave the limits of my ground clearance and watch out for massive curbs at Nurburgring on left handers? :) I don't want to rip the thing out the sill and destroy my wing!

Silencer will bolt apart and repack, its 304 stainless throughout, should last a lifetime! I will make sure the pipe I get to make the rest of the system is also shiney stainless, will turn nice and blue :)

Could extend the tailpipe slighly to get the gases away from the wheel but a simply alloy section will do the job, I was forced into locating it in this place due to the fact my stick like arms can actually reach right down and touch the sill / floorpan seam from the holes inside the cockpit by the hood frame mounts! I best not put on any weight. I can use a spanner in there also...

I will knock up the remaining final pieces tomorrow and call this job done, sweet. I couldn't start hacking 5mm thick steel to bits at midnight!

Don't really feel any different towards the car nows its well on the road to being a mungrel its just a car to me, its never been a Triumph thing, its just been easy to work on and modify...I couldn't care less about walking through a line of standard Triumphs and marvelling at the spangly chrome etc, rather watch paint dry, sorry but its true ! .... I am sure the purists won't like it, but the pleasure of a car for me is the engineering and how it responds on the road!

Actually there is ZERO reason why I couldn't in refit a 1300 in couple of days hard labour, I haven't done any mods that aren't backward compatible...Bar the removing the gearbox mount plate holes, even then I can just wedge the 1300 4.5inches back, problem solved.

Shiney bits!

Another ebay steal!

Set of nice Piper Powerpulleys.

50% off retail and new! So far I got all my kit new or mint from ebay at reductions ranging from 30%-200% :)

I now just need a cam kit (£500 max), pukka axial starter motor (£130) and a few bits of pipe, plus small items....

Guessing the entire conversion will owe me less than £1500, bargain!

Major Porting!

Terrible manifold! Designed for a non VVC head, non VVC has smaller ports, valves, crappy port shape, rough casting and full ported spec 1800 head still only flows as much gas as a stock VVC.

Even on the stock 1.8 head it would have needed a load of work! Junk.

Decent Burr helped.
WD40 cap was just slightly smaller than the port opening. First job was to open the openings to match the head. Which was time consuming fitting and removing the manifold a million times.

Above shows how much material needed removing after the openings had been adjusted! LOADS! No chance the WD40 cap will pass down this, even with a hammer. 2nd task was to make the WD40 cap slide through, then and use it to check the port is tappered and even increasing in size from the gasket face. Above shows it going through but still shed loads of material to come out.
Finished porting, you can't see the sides of the manifold tapper in the shot now! Good tapper.

Job done, all ports match the head perfectly and tapper down equally to the gasket face and also the tapper matches the tapper in the port too! It was quite a job...Around 7hrs!
I will spiraband the ports and manifold with them bolted together to clean it up even more...Once the head is off that is, off to swap to a new spec gasket and steel dowels...I will probably polish the ports too and address the valve seat area as even on the VHPD spec engines they are poorly finished with a ridge where the seat is inserted...I read its an instant 10HP from the seat area alone the rest of the port is fine. Don't want to get into flowing it as the stock pistons fall apart over 190HP/8000rpm anyway.

I will lap the valves again with diamond paste and polish the edges a bit.

Another days work there sometime. Then the motor will be ready for 285M Piper cams and wotnot.