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Saw this site mentioned on the Imp club site and I thought I'd put up a wee bit about my Stiletto. I live in Ireland nowadays and while wandering round a classic car show,found her up for sale.I had one for my very first car and this was the first I'd seen since,so I had a punt.  Sadly,she was the most unreliable car I have ever owned  ;D. So I thought I'd try and do something about it. |
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Last Edit: Oct 2, 2007 14:51:06 GMT by rmad
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The postal service here means that parts ordered from the UK can sometimes take months to arrive,so a modern alternative had to be found.I was looking at a k series motor when a friend who does autograss racing mentioned the Peugeot/Citroen TU motor,found in AX GT's and the like.All alloy and tough,I hunted around for one. I managed to find two in a field and took them home to see if they would fit.  A bit taller,but shorter and more or less the same weight.  A spare box shoved up against it looked like it might fit.  The starter looks like it might just fit too. |
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The TU engines are feisty little buggers! A friend of mine has a 106 with one in. 1.3 top end on a 1.6 bottom end, cammed and running on bike carbs, got some other bits n bobs but basically it's a monster! Think his car is running 150BHP at the wheels! To give you some idea  Looks a cool little car dude, keep us updated |
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'84 Honda Civic 1.3 AH The Daily
'86 Nissan Leopard F31 The Weekend Cruiser
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The motor was stripped and rebuilt.I tried to use the Imp flywheel,but that wouldnt work.  To fit the tu motor,just in case anybody wants to try it for themselves,heres what I did. BTW,I apologise for the rustic nature of the work,I don't have a garage or anything. The input shaft of the box is 9/16",the easiest way to mate it up is to have the crank machined to take a normal Imp spigot bearing and fit that. In the bellhousing,pop out the little oil seal and have a little sleeve made to rigidly locate the input shaft. I got a bit of steel plate,1/2" thick,about 18" square. In the middle,drill a 9/16" hole for the gearbox input shaft to fit through. Sit the gearbox on the plate and drill through the mounting holes.I tapped them M10 cause UNF can be hard to find. Take the plate to a machine shop.My flywheel ring gear was 256mm in dia,so I had the plate bored to 258mm concentric with the 9/16" hole in the centre. This means that I can put the plate over the flywheel and use a 1mm feeler to centre the plate all the way round and line up the engine and box precisely.Frill the holes to mount the engine to the plate,again I used M10 bolts. Sorry for the long post! |
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So,time to bite the bullet,I fired up the trusty ankle grinder and started cutting  Sorry I don't have pics of the whole process.The parcel shelf had a wee bit cut out,but it fits below the engine cover,which was a relief ;D  |
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The TU engines are feisty little buggers! A friend of mine has a 106 with one in. 1.3 top end on a 1.6 bottom end, cammed and running on bike carbs, got some other bits n bobs but basically it's a monster! Think his car is running 150BHP at the wheels! To give you some idea Looks a cool little car dude, keep us updated Yeah,Griffo,my mate has one with R1 carbs in his grasstracker which really flies! |
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I don't have a welder,but managed to borrow a wee arc welder,mig would have been better but you have to use what you can get.  I made some reinforcing from 3mm plate since the parcel shelf is structural,to keep the strength in the shell.   While I had the welder,I made some basic mounts.One fits the original mount and the other fits behind the alternator mount using 4 bolts. The original crossmember has a bit of 1/2" plate fitted and 2 Volvo truck exhaust mounts have it sitting in. I got a header tank from a VW T25 van and mounted it on bits of an old road sign for now. ;D   |
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Cause of the new motor,I wanted to fit a front radiator.I got one out the scrappy from some kind of Nissan,dunno which it was lying on a shelf.  Back to the scrappy,I got as many 1" pipes as I could find and joined it all up with copper pipe.The front panel had the "heater box" cut out to make it all fit.Strengthening was again added to keep it right,   I drilled a few holes to help airflow through the rad too. |
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After a lot of arsing about,which I wont bore you with,I managed to get it running. However,I couldnt get a gear,there was something wrong with the clutch. What I think was happening-the Citroen clutch is thinner than the original Imp one. I couldnt fit the Imp slave cyl,cause the Cit motor is sitting where it went. The adaptor plate has moved the clutch further away again from the release bearing. I got a slave cyl from a Toyota Carina,the shortest I could find.   But despite cornering the world market in small,irregularly shaped pieces of steel for brackets,I couldnt get it to fit right. Then I discovered that Rally Design do a slave that pulls instead of pushing as normal.Got one and made some brackets to fit it.  I extended the bearing itself by using an old Imp one welded to a bit of tube 1" long and with an early beetle bearing welded to that. Still couldnt get a gear.The fingers on the cover seemed to be fouling on the plate,so I just sanded it out bigger with a sanding drum on the die grinder,doing my best to keep it concentric. BTW,the clutch plate is an AP Racing one from an MG Midget.It has the right splines and is only slightly bigger than the Citroen one. |
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wicked skills mate, I'm definately keeping an eye on this i love these sorts of builds.
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Engine swaps that involve gearbox adaption always seem like simple prospects until you're involved in one...keep working through those niggles!
It's all looking very interesting!
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V8imp
Part of things
Posts: 203
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good work there
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67 Sunbeam Stiletto
72 Clan Crusader 998
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street
Posted a lot
6.2 ft/lbs of talk
Posts: 4,662
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Excellent stuff! Love your attitude and ingenuity, should be a fantastic bit of kit when it's finished. Keep it up!  |
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Many thanks for the kind comments lads,they're much appreciated. I could now get the engine to run,but it wouldnt run cleanly.I think the carb was sitting too close to the bracing under the window.It's so close,you couldnt get a fag between them. I phoned the Bogg Bros who I'd seen in a magazine and they recommended Yamaha R6 carbs,so some were bought from ebay.  However,I wasnt happy with them for several reasons.- Mounted at the correct angle,I'm still going to have space problems.Bogg bros say that they'll work sitting flat,but I reckon the float levels will be all wrong.I could well be wrong,tho. Whilst the two outer carbs line straight up,there's a steep angle between the inners and the ports.I considered this less than ideal. Time for a rethink. I got a set of carbs,again from ebay,£20! for a Kawasaki ZRX 1100. These sit flat and although wider than the R6 carbs,they all have more or less equal angles between the ports.  I cut another bit of 1/2" plate and drilled holes in it to make a manifold.I welded on some wee stubs of pipe at what I hoped was the right angles,it was fairly tricky to get right.It didnt help that it started raining halfway through,so some of the welds turned out a bit rough. The plate was machined flat and the carbs mounted with bits of silicon hose.  |
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ORSUM! Keep it up, looks ace!
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So,thats about where we are just now.I've fitted a Fiesta disc conversion,I had previously put on some Monte Carlo front springs to lower the front. A set of Cobra alloys and some ally mesh for the holes in the front and shes looking not too bad. There's a lot of rust issues to be dealt with but they can wait,I want to see if I can get this working first. Thanks for the welcome,this is a great site.     |
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ORSUM! Keep it up, looks ace! Thanks Frank,hope your probs with yours get sorted.Love your wheels! ;D Cheers John. |
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bazzateer
Posted a lot
Imping along sans Vogue
Posts: 3,653
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1968 Singer Chamois Sport
1972 Sunbeam Imp Sport
1976 Datsun 260Z 2+2
1998 Peugeot Boxer Pilote motorhome
2003 Rover 75 1.8 Club SE (daily)
2006 MG ZT 190+ (another daily)
2007 BMW 530d Touring M Sport (tow car)
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;D.
