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Apr 10, 2023 17:37:55 GMT
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A bit late to documenting the progress as Ive had the car now since 2017, but anyway this is my 1988 TVR 290 S. I acquired the car after doing some work for a customer at the time when I used to be self employed, and by car I mean cars. This was a package deal with a good doner vehicle and a ropey but complete car. The job of switching over the parts had been started by the previous owner but various setbacks had resulted in a lack of interest, hence where I came in! I also documented the resto on my YouTube channel "The Rust Room" (The Rust Room Click Here) which follows every hurdle I had to overcome and will be more in depth than this, and my Instagram is alexhatcher for more regular updates This was what they looked like when I got them...      After a few evenings soon after I got them, I had stripped the remaining items of the red car and sold some of the body parts to a racer who wanted spares. Everything to get the grey car running was already in (engine/loom etc) so I managed to get it running and even took it down the lane and it worked okay but there was a rats nest of bodged wiring and although it ran okay then I could never get it to run nicely. The decision was made to convert it to Megasquirt, not just to make everything easier to diagnose and tune, but with the end goal to turbo the cologne 2.9 and keep up with the big boy TVRs! (**this hasn't happened yet in 2023 so don't get too excited but it is the long term plan...) A couple years passed without doing much work to the TVR but I did amass some parts like the aforementioned ECU and new engine loom. Then after getting a new job and buying a house I moved out from my parents and got myself a unit with my mate. (**pause for covid) Winter 2020 was when the resto really started    First of all was the strip down, then I could do a partial lift and inspect the outriggers. which luckily I got away with as they cleaned up really well so I could rust treat and re paint the affected areas. Although in hindsight they will probably have to be redone in the next few years as after a couple of years its just stated to bubble in a few places here and there but nothing serious and I avoid the wet stuff! The rest of the chassis was remarkable as I presume it must have had it refurbed fairly recently and then never used.     After the chassis repaint it was a matter of refurbing suspension arms and various parts that I could reuse in conjunction with new poly bushes from super pro. Then I went through the original loom and made sure every thing was continuity checked and the re wrapped it. It was then more or less a normal resto doing bits and pieces where I can.... Again, please check out the YouTube channel where there are loads of videos of the whole process...         SO it passed MOT and was on the road in possibly 15 years or so as there was no previous records on the dvla mot history. Everything was going okay bar blowing off a rad hose in the middle of the city due to something faulty in the fan circuit. After a radiator and fan upgrade I was still chasing an intermittent cut out issue, it would run great then instantly cut out and then not start or run lumpy and be un drivable. leave it 10 mins and would b e spot on and drive home. This was eventually diagnosed to the ford TFI unit in the dizzy that I used as an rpm trigger not being interpreted by the Megasquirt and would randomly through the timing out. then you could shut it off and restart and it would find its feet again and be fine. But I didn't like the uncertainty, so I converted it to a trigger wheel and sperate coils using 1 and a half VAG 4 pole coils. Since then it has run great and always started on the button and never cut out. Over the last 6 months or so I've been using it in the dry weather just to get confidence and doing a few bits here and there like a full set of staggered BBS LM reps (forgot to mention I've lowered it as much as possible on adjustable coilovers as the stock arch gap is ridiculous) sorted out the interior to an acceptable standard with MX5 seats with about 5mm of foam left due to lack of headroom. Made some door cards as mine were missing and given it a machine polish so looks the part as well. It goes well but I suspect a rolling road session will get the best out of it so that's something I'd like to get done as some point, I'd be happy with something around the 160-180 mark and the butt dyno is putting it less than that imo. Here and the pics of how it sits now, I'm planning to bring it to the weekender so don't be a stranger come say hello as I'm always keen to have a chats with car people.        |
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Apr 30, 2023 17:50:04 GMT
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Have had a missfire issue of late and typically occurred a week before the MOT! changed coils and plugs and checked leads and I think a loose plug lead end was mostly the culprit. However there was still a slight stumble at low rpms around town. When diagnosing the miss I noticed the ECU voltage was low and fluctuating which i'd never seen before. It was touching low 11s to high 12s. I installed new earth to the battery and new chassis to engine earths which helped, but still had the fluctuations, although the starter spins much faster now and electrics seem better/brighter. Although the ecu main power is pretty straight forward ( battery - starter - ECU) I wired it directly to the battery and this solved it. the megasquirt now reads better than ever matching the battery voltage. I'm thinking the alternator or starter is creating/amplifying electrical noise. Managed to get to the MOT and passed with just an exhaust leak as an advisory. I have improved it but need to split the system and re seal it as they are all slip joints which are a pain to seal fully, so I'm waiting for some ramp time...  |
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With equal excitement and anxiety I've applied and subsequently been accepted for track time at the weekender!! I'll be participating in the early morning sprint around the whole track which I have done before in my van but will be a completely different experience in the TVR. Although some of that experience with be worrying if it'll make it or not 😂 Its a fair way from Exeter and probably the longest its driven in over 15 years and definitely in my ownership. That being said I have been using the TVR a lot this recent week, clocking up about 200 miles with commuting and attending a local evening car meet mid week. This did come with the slight issue of the headlights failing when I left in the dusk. The usual fuse and relay wiggle didn't fix it so I had to make use of the remaining lights as I only had the side lights. After some investigation one of the wires had slipped out the connector to the dip switch so an easy fix. When investigating it I found that the main lighting circuit fuse had almost melted! this prompted me to relay the headlights to take the load away from the fuse board and switchgear, with the added bonus of making the lights brighter.  |
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stealthstylz
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 14,960
Club RR Member Number: 174
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Never been a fan of the rear lights on these, but really like the rest. Looks great lowered and with those wheels. Cosworth 24v would be a nice upgrade.
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bstardchild
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 14,971
Club RR Member Number: 71
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Never been a fan of the rear lights on these, but really like the rest. Looks great lowered and with those wheels. Cosworth 24v would be a nice upgrade. Agree - wheels and stance looks great Cosworth 24v engines are getting bloody hard to find these days and last time I saw one it was silly money More likely to find a Vauxhall Omega 3.2 V6 -they've been shoehorned into a few cars Like this one www.ebay.co.uk/itm/145063045235 |
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looks great at that height .love that colour too .
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Beautiful car,
Always liked these and, having had a 4x4 Sierra, also like the 2.9 Cologne engine,
Looking forward to seeing where this goes and will be checking out the YT channel,
Bookmarked,
Nigel
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BMW E39 525i Sport
BMW E46 320d Sport Touring (now sold on.)
BMW E30 325 Touring (now sold on.)
BMW E30 320 Cabriolet (Project car - currently for sale.)
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Never been a fan of the rear lights on these, but really like the rest. Looks great lowered and with those wheels. Cosworth 24v would be a nice upgrade. Each to their own, I personally think that the lights work really well, considering they're from a mk4 escort! I'd even go as far as saying the back end is one of the best angles imo. I'm really happy with the whole stance and look though thanks 👌 |
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Never been a fan of the rear lights on these, but really like the rest. Looks great lowered and with those wheels. Cosworth 24v would be a nice upgrade. Agree - wheels and stance looks great Cosworth 24v engines are getting bloody hard to find these days and last time I saw one it was silly money More likely to find a Vauxhall Omega 3.2 V6 -they've been shoehorned into a few cars Like this one www.ebay.co.uk/itm/145063045235My plan long term is to turbo the existing 12v as there's been a lot of success in the Nordic counties with sierras. With the standard motors getting in excess of 300 brake! |
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Took the TVR to Haynes breakfast meet this morning as it was a rear wheel drive theme. I met up with a few other owners for the convoy up. Had a slight miss after the car got a bit heat soaked after a hot start but it sorted itself out after cooling down a bit and didn't do it for the rest of the day. I think I'm going to improve the heat shield for the coils to try and remedy this. Also I hit a pot hole and one of the roof panels flew out! luckily there was no one close behind and it didn't get damaged. I managed to double back and pick it up so all it well. All in all a good test covering 150 miles in a morning and the longest drive I've done so far. Was great in the que to get into Haynes as well the temperature was rock solid. I also calculated a rough 25 mpg which is decent.   |
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May 15, 2023 21:14:40 GMT
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May 26, 2023 14:11:15 GMT
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Weekender UpdateThe TVR made it to the weekender, thrashed around the track, then all the way back with no major issues! 😮 Firstly I believe relocating the air temp sensor fixed a lot of the slight missing and starting issues it had. It runs richer now when warm, as in it smells well tuned if you know what I mean. I believe the sensor was getting heat soaked then pulling fuel out thus making it too lean, same on hot restarts. For the weekender I managed to pack the car up with all the camping gear and bedding etc quite well, with the tent and chair etc behind the seats, tools and hard stuff in the boot and the bedding on the passenger seat. The drive up went well ( from Exeter) , although there was a lot of traffic from the A303 the TVR kept its cool and proved its fine on warm days in traffic. That being said I was very warm as I had to have the roof up and it gets bloody hot in a fibreglass shell! Moving on to the Saturday and getting up and over for the track time, managed to pass the noise test fine as the rev limiter is only at 5k so didn't have to rev it up much. Then sat there lining up, again was fine temperature wise. My turn was next so I planted the accelerator and dropped the clutch and my god does it spin up easy 😎 Flew out of the pits and around the circuit, I wasn't going crazy around because: A - I have to drive home and B - I'm no racing driver 😂 but the handling felt good and the brakes are amazing, definitely tested them on the lavant chicane and scared my passenger. It ran great round the track with no missfires and plenty of grunt even through it still hasn't been dyno tuned as of yet. It was a bit frustrating having the two remaining runs cut short (imo cause the groups were too big) but I still really enjoyed doing it in the Trev this time. Sunday was the usual chill RRW vibe with loads of cool cars. The TVR got a load of attention and met dome cool people.    
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May 27, 2023 14:46:55 GMT
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I know a lot of people refer to the "unreliability" of TVR's but, in my opinion, you can't deny they nailed it with this particular model,
It really is a beautiful looking car,
Nigel
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BMW E39 525i Sport
BMW E46 320d Sport Touring (now sold on.)
BMW E30 325 Touring (now sold on.)
BMW E30 320 Cabriolet (Project car - currently for sale.)
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May 27, 2023 19:50:40 GMT
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I've uploaded my coverage of the weekender which includes the in car footage of my track time in the TVR.
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Jul 15, 2023 17:30:24 GMT
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Jul 16, 2023 16:28:21 GMT
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Just to update on the removal of the shroud...
It's so much better at high speeds now, sat at 90 pretty much constantly. Seems to be the same in traffic but almost instantly cool a couple degrees when you start moving so I'd say it's a win 👌
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Jul 16, 2023 19:52:53 GMT
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Alex , re dyno , i had a 2.9s on the dyno , originally fitted with catalytic converters , i think it was a tvr test car , it had 124 bhp , i put a pressure gauge on the headers and it had 40 psi back pressure. i then took off the exhaust , and chiseled out the bits of broken cat wedged in the y joint , and re tested it , it made 156 bhp crank , this on a very accurate maha calibrated dyno .
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Jul 17, 2023 12:35:34 GMT
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Alex , re dyno , i had a 2.9s on the dyno , originally fitted with catalytic converters , i think it was a tvr test car , it had 124 bhp , i put a pressure gauge on the headers and it had 40 psi back pressure. i then took off the exhaust , and chiseled out the bits of broken cat wedged in the y joint , and re tested it , it made 156 bhp crank , this on a very accurate maha calibrated dyno . Yeah mines a pre cat car they came with cats after the S3 generation, they seem to vary as I've heard of them being up to 180 standard! Hoping I can get the best out of it with the tuning software eventually... |
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Jul 17, 2023 12:47:06 GMT
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yup this was a weird car , 1989 S2 , but cats , air con , dark green full leather interior , and nimbus grey paint with a s/c designation set into the body pin stripe , also only previous owner was tvr ... so i guessed it as a development vehicle , getting ready to put the cats design on th s3 . Another part of being on cats was no air flow meters , it used manifold pressure only .
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