As a long time browser of this site, I thought it was about time my secret proect broke cover. Its been on the back boiler for years and I've just recently been getting back into it. last trip home I removed the Rover V8 engine and box and started cleaning the engine bay. Over the last week i've been stripping the new motor and tonight have been removing the interior and dash ready for the rewiring job.
I originally bought the car back in the summer of 2003. I spotted an ad for it on the internet and bought it without seeing it (had it transported home from near Bristol as I couldn’t get down there to view it) The spec was something that appealed and it looked tidy enough in the photos:- Rover V8 already fitted with 5 speed box, freshly painted, lpg kit fitted and almost ready to run according to the seller…. Er not quite.
Although it was “nearly” ready (used in a loose sense would be an understatement) for the road I had to quite change a few things so that I was happy with it. There were quite a few bodges and if I’d seen it in person, I doubt I would have offered half of what I actually paid for it.
The fact that my storage facility was about 30 miles away meant that any progress was slow, very slow. Over the course of the next 2 years I only managed to replace the brake disc on one side at the front (the other one is till in the car awaiting fitment) and fitted three of a set of four 5 spoke Revolutions (again, the other one is awaiting fitment, I thought I would do the other brake disk first though…..
Between 2005 and 2006 I did nothing to it, just paid for the storage at £40 a month. Lazy and shameful I know. I did however acquire some bits and pieces whilst dreaming up a spec that I wanted to build the car to. Its ridiculous really, I wish I could have just stuck with an idea from the start as I’ve spent a fortune on it and its farther from being on the road than ever.
Are you ready for a laugh? It goes something like this:-
Since moving the car into the garage when we moved to our current house in July 2006 I did manage to make a start on fixing the boot floor though, I cut out the remainder of the old one that had been cut up and had a large box sunk into it. Great for holding the lpg tank but it ruined the look of the rear of the car and was so wide it would be nearly impossible to fit an exhaust past.
Thanks to Ebay I had acquired a new old stock estate boot floor so replacement was made fairly easy. Its not welded in yet but its trimmed to fit and ready to weld whenever I get round to it.
Just as I had nearly enough bits to get going on the chevy build I decided that after spending loads on my Mitsubishi Evo 2 rebuild I didn’t want to/couldn’t afford to shell out £2k on finishing the chevy engine. Besides, the chevy lump is really heavy, wouldn’t help handling and was going to be a squeeze being as wide as the rover engine which already required a mickey mouse exhaust manifold set-up. Ok TVR style manifolds would have fitted but by this time my mind was made up. Shame though as this mock up looked quite good I thought:-
I sold the blower kit (blower, manifold, cam, followers and 750cfm holley) for reasonable money and managed to secure a free BMW M20 six pot and manual box from my mates old 1987 325i. this would be smaller than the rover engine and therefore easier to fit….. Well it was until I thought about it.
Given that the exhaust exits the engine on the drivers side it would require some trickery to get it past the steering column so with the coffers replenished from the sale of the blower I bought the engine, box, ECU and loom from a 1995 Skyline GTS-T that the owner had “remodelled” the front of. Its a 70k mile RB25 single turbo lump c/w most ancillaries. 2.5 litres of straight six turbo with 250bhp stock.
With the RB25 the exhaust and turbo are on the passenger side so there will be no interference issues with the steering. The engine is a little longer than I had thought though… I didn’t measure it before buying… it should go though, just.
Looking at it its quite a tall lump, being a dohc head its taller than the original Triumph unit so the standard Nissan configuration of the inlet plenum intake over the top of the engine is to be swapped for a GTR style one that will allow me to take an intercooler right across the front of the car and into the plenum at the drivers side behind the headlight rather than back across the engine bay and over the top of the motor.
The drive train will need some re-engineering as most people say that the std Triumph rear end is marginal when you get to 200bhp. This engine is about 240-250 in std form and with a squeeze more boost and the aftermarket ecu it should do 300bhp without too much trouble and up to about 500 with the right turbo and mapping.
The plan at the moment is to replace the Triumph rear end with something like BMW E30 3 series stuff, preferable with a disc brake rear end. My initial plans are to see what’s there when I get the car on the lift and do the minimum necessary so she can be driven this year. Eventually I might have to use the whole rear suspension set up with the cross-member, diff, semi trailing arms and drive shafts. The front end will probably get done too so I can have coilovers and better brakes.
I've since sold the Revolutions and am still undecided about wheels. Whatever running gear I end up with, It'll have 16's maximum as I like old cars with some tyre if you know what I mean, maybe 8's on the back and 7's on the front and it'll sit nice and low.
I'll get some more pictures up soon with progress updates as and when they happen.
I originally bought the car back in the summer of 2003. I spotted an ad for it on the internet and bought it without seeing it (had it transported home from near Bristol as I couldn’t get down there to view it) The spec was something that appealed and it looked tidy enough in the photos:- Rover V8 already fitted with 5 speed box, freshly painted, lpg kit fitted and almost ready to run according to the seller…. Er not quite.
Although it was “nearly” ready (used in a loose sense would be an understatement) for the road I had to quite change a few things so that I was happy with it. There were quite a few bodges and if I’d seen it in person, I doubt I would have offered half of what I actually paid for it.
The fact that my storage facility was about 30 miles away meant that any progress was slow, very slow. Over the course of the next 2 years I only managed to replace the brake disc on one side at the front (the other one is till in the car awaiting fitment) and fitted three of a set of four 5 spoke Revolutions (again, the other one is awaiting fitment, I thought I would do the other brake disk first though…..
Between 2005 and 2006 I did nothing to it, just paid for the storage at £40 a month. Lazy and shameful I know. I did however acquire some bits and pieces whilst dreaming up a spec that I wanted to build the car to. Its ridiculous really, I wish I could have just stuck with an idea from the start as I’ve spent a fortune on it and its farther from being on the road than ever.
Are you ready for a laugh? It goes something like this:-
- I bought a new K+N filter for the 38DGAS carb fitted to the rover engine.
- Bought a 390cfm holley and edelbrock manifold.
- Sold the K+N for the DGAS because it wouldn’t fit the 4 barrel Holley.
- Sold the lpg kit as it wouldn’t work that well with a holley carb.
- Found a cheap 350 cu in small block chevy for rebuilding.
- bought a supercharger kit for the chevy.
- sold the 390 holley and manifold for the rover engine.
- bought some more chevy engine bits:- a 750 cfm carb, new heads, roller rockers, uprated valve springs.
- Decided that a straight six would suit the car more so borrowed a BMW 2.5 six.
- Sold the blower for the chevy and bought the Nissan RB25 stuff
Since moving the car into the garage when we moved to our current house in July 2006 I did manage to make a start on fixing the boot floor though, I cut out the remainder of the old one that had been cut up and had a large box sunk into it. Great for holding the lpg tank but it ruined the look of the rear of the car and was so wide it would be nearly impossible to fit an exhaust past.
Thanks to Ebay I had acquired a new old stock estate boot floor so replacement was made fairly easy. Its not welded in yet but its trimmed to fit and ready to weld whenever I get round to it.
Just as I had nearly enough bits to get going on the chevy build I decided that after spending loads on my Mitsubishi Evo 2 rebuild I didn’t want to/couldn’t afford to shell out £2k on finishing the chevy engine. Besides, the chevy lump is really heavy, wouldn’t help handling and was going to be a squeeze being as wide as the rover engine which already required a mickey mouse exhaust manifold set-up. Ok TVR style manifolds would have fitted but by this time my mind was made up. Shame though as this mock up looked quite good I thought:-
I sold the blower kit (blower, manifold, cam, followers and 750cfm holley) for reasonable money and managed to secure a free BMW M20 six pot and manual box from my mates old 1987 325i. this would be smaller than the rover engine and therefore easier to fit….. Well it was until I thought about it.
Given that the exhaust exits the engine on the drivers side it would require some trickery to get it past the steering column so with the coffers replenished from the sale of the blower I bought the engine, box, ECU and loom from a 1995 Skyline GTS-T that the owner had “remodelled” the front of. Its a 70k mile RB25 single turbo lump c/w most ancillaries. 2.5 litres of straight six turbo with 250bhp stock.
With the RB25 the exhaust and turbo are on the passenger side so there will be no interference issues with the steering. The engine is a little longer than I had thought though… I didn’t measure it before buying… it should go though, just.
Looking at it its quite a tall lump, being a dohc head its taller than the original Triumph unit so the standard Nissan configuration of the inlet plenum intake over the top of the engine is to be swapped for a GTR style one that will allow me to take an intercooler right across the front of the car and into the plenum at the drivers side behind the headlight rather than back across the engine bay and over the top of the motor.
The drive train will need some re-engineering as most people say that the std Triumph rear end is marginal when you get to 200bhp. This engine is about 240-250 in std form and with a squeeze more boost and the aftermarket ecu it should do 300bhp without too much trouble and up to about 500 with the right turbo and mapping.
The plan at the moment is to replace the Triumph rear end with something like BMW E30 3 series stuff, preferable with a disc brake rear end. My initial plans are to see what’s there when I get the car on the lift and do the minimum necessary so she can be driven this year. Eventually I might have to use the whole rear suspension set up with the cross-member, diff, semi trailing arms and drive shafts. The front end will probably get done too so I can have coilovers and better brakes.
I've since sold the Revolutions and am still undecided about wheels. Whatever running gear I end up with, It'll have 16's maximum as I like old cars with some tyre if you know what I mean, maybe 8's on the back and 7's on the front and it'll sit nice and low.
I'll get some more pictures up soon with progress updates as and when they happen.
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