1995 Ginetta G27 4.5 V8

Phew - just back from Snowdon - bit wet and windy at the summit but was a nice day out with the lad.

Originally the G27 uses a Spitfire rack but I find that the Escort rack is better in regards to bump steer has better options on ratios even though the ends are a bit of a pain to convert as almost every rack now produced is M14 ends.

When the N/S/F suspension is finished it's the rack mounting that's next.

Great to see a G27 getting some love. Always had a soft spot for them since the '90's.

A favourite motoring memory is following a G27 running a Vauxhall twin-cam driven by a 70+ year old friend on a track day, me in my Pinto'd Westfield. For 15 minutes, I couldn't catch him, he couldn't get away. That was 1996, saw that car for sale last year.
Thanks for the reminder

Nice fabrication and bird-cagery BTW.

Rack CAD


Drew up the rack in 2D - finding any info on the MK2 rack that made an sense on the net was a pointless waste of time so out with the tape measure.

As the MK2 rack is the MK1 rack with metric ends I measures all the dimensions in mm but looked at the Imperial conversions and it made sense
Between ball ends is 23", rack centre between stops is 16" = 8" centreline - and mounts are centered at 5.125" from centre of rack (10.25" between)

Can now start fabricating the different parts ready for tacking up.






Once this is tacked checked - checked again and then fully welded the chassis can be relocated so I can get the Gemini in the garage.

As a start the ball pivots of the rack are exactly aligned with the centres of the upper and lower inner wishbone mounts - there is a drawing on a previous page that threw a construction line through the datums to pick up on the rack centre. The fore aft location of rack is part determined by the positioning of the upper wishbone chassis tubes but it aligns pretty well with the positions of the steering arm pivots across the chassis. That gives me a reasonable place to start - As I can fabricate steering arms (necessary anyway as I have Ackerman to build in) as they are not part of the upright, and also build in a lot of vertical adjustment I can fine tune with spacers if the geometric positioning does not pan out as ideal.

Most things covered but if I don't like the way it handles when done it will be modified until I do - easy

Well, to get to the point below (awaiting welding) took rather longer than it should have done - Round, square, straight, angled - far too many decisions to try and make and then checking and double checking old photo's to make sure things will not clash. - Finally landed on 5/8" box angled down and forward.





The rack also needed a little relief notch here and there and the front supports miss where they don't touch so close it could well have been designed that way

By all accounts the weather is dreadful tomorrow so I will have plenty of time in the garage sanding the surface rust off to prep for the paint as to all intents and purposes once these are welded its ready to move out.

Lunch and a bit of F1 over with so better get with the program.

It has moved out of the garage and into the garden fro noisy dirty surface rust removal at which point it rained ! so its now under cover going rusty - I do hope I have a couple of sunny weekends because all holiday has now been used up and this WILL be in primer and moved in the next couple of weeks.



The sump is off for paint and that will mean the engine can be fully assembled - I will then start saving for the silly lightweight flywheel and clutch assembly.

Just pleased that the front end work is complete and its half way to being ready for some paint.

It has just been pointed out to me that there is a G27 V8 for sale on Pistonheads

www.pistonheads.com/classifieds/used-cars/ginetta/g27/ginetta-g27/9119045


Ginetta G27 (1973)




The reason I get asked about every G27 V8 that comes up for sale is that I know of pretty well every one of them.

This particular car I know quite well as it was built by a chap that lives about a mile from me and in 2012 he was still building it and then sold it on without actually getting it registered. I would get regular updates as he lived next door to my MOT tester.

Now here we are a few years down the road and it's up for sale with the plate covered up and "not sure of actual build date" which is rather odd as the car would have needed to pass an IVA within the last few years and passing IVA's normally remain pretty clear in the mind Plus, once passed they stick around as a major selling point.

I would suggest that any potential buyer checks the registration documentation on this car very carefully - If date of manufacture or registration prior 2013/14 alarms bells should ring.

Here it is at Brightwells auction in 2013 with all the correct 1999 factory manufacture dates and the correct 994144 Chassis number and confirmed that it was not registered at that time

classiccars.brightwells.com/viewdetails.php?id=3820

And parked outside the builders home in 2013




As they say - buyer beware.

For that car - £1000 and about 40 hours work. - But there will always be the £250 and 20 minutes brigade.

To be fair, first time I read the IVA regs after being told my Spit project would probably need them they seemed very, very daunting. Especially on an older car. And ~£600 for a test, and ~£100 for a retest. It was only reading Blackpop's thread that gave me a bit of a sense of what's actually involved.

Oh, and in case you hadn't noticed I mentioned something in the old 'what influences braking performance' thread about an offer for some brake balance calculation

Also, how have I not commented on this thread already Darkspeed? This is very much relevant to my interests.

- RV8 build advice - tick
- Fabrication and chassis design, with enough detail so we can understand why you're doing something - tick
- Vaguely Spitfire-based stuff so there's transferable info to my own project - tick

What did you use to ream out the polybushes? I've had similar problems with the kits for my MG F and my sister's MX5 (MX5 ones are notorious for fatiguing wishbones until they snap).

Interesting reading about the Spitfire caster arrangement on the front suspension. Never occurred to me that the rigidity of the trunnion was the reason for that but it makes eminent sense. I'd always assumed it was something anti-dive related, but reading up on anti-dive I'm not sure why I thought that was the case...

Also, I'm a little jealous of your bundle of tubes and boxes chassis. A little easier to visualise load paths and set up CAD diagrams than something made from pressed steel.