Building a car from scratch

[CirclipParticipant @circlip]

Ford E93A in a fibreglass shell. Think someone had used the Alfa two seat sports as the 'Male mould'. AKS. 1938 Ford 10 pop chassis and rod brakes. Shell was good enough to fool at least one genuine Alfa driver as he used to wave regularly.

Regards Ian.

[Chris Evans 6Participant @chrisevans6]

Posted by Alan Waddington 2 on 08/09/2023 11:31:05:

Built this a good few years back, in fact it was why i bought my first lathe a Cromwell 3.5”. Mr Sparey’s book was a well thumbed tome back then.

Kawasaki ZX900 engine, very lightweight car, approx 450kg with 140bhp and an 11,000 rpm redline.

Made my own rear brake set up using Motorcycle disks and homemade alloy bells. And a mechanical paddle shift system with a quickshifter for clutchless up and down shifts.

Had lots of fun with it once finished, did trackdays at most of the British tracks, Harewood Hillclimb, Curborough Sprint, also plenty of drag racing at York Raceway.

Eventually sold it to lovely chap who drove all the way from Hungary with a trailer attached to collect.

Nice car, I may even have seen it at Curborough I only live three miles away. I have helped build a few kit cars but never one of my own. I did build a few sporting trials cars and one for the long distance events loosely based on a Dellow.

[Howard LewisParticipant @howardlewis46836]

Possibly very few kit cars are identical.

helped a friend to build a Locost. The front discs, and stub axles were a bit lighter than when they left Dagenham, to minimise unsprung weight.

We set the camber angle, and tracking, carefully.

The engine was bored out to +0.090″, the con rods were balanced, in line with the 750 Motor Club rules of keeping one original. (But the caps did have nice pads which made the job a little easier )

The Main and Big End bore were clocked and individually torqued to ensure roundness.

Bump heights were equalised to match dead volumes.

The coolant to the manifold was restricted to minimise charge heating, without having carb icing.

I would have preferred independence exhaust manifolding, but had to make do with 2 into one, interference type, so suspected that we never quite got the maximum possible output, and was unable to tune either inlet or exhaust systems.

Never drove it beyond 6,000 rpm in top, and the owner moved away before we could really fine tune it.

Could have been a nice project and fun track days!

Howard

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[StueeeeParticipant @stueeee]

Well, I built this car from scratch…

It’s a hillclimb & sprint racing car. I started here:

Through here:

And here, I did the pattern making and machining for the car’s special castings; these are the carburettor tops with their pattern and corebox. I did the bellhousing pattern as well; there being nothing available commercially as I wanted to mount the hybrid Renault 25/30 transaxle ‘upside down’ in order to acheive the minimum driveshaft angle.

 

The car is very quick, sadly I’m not at all a quick driver, but it has been great fun to build and is a real buzz to drive. I’ve laid it up for the present as ‘the powers that be’ upgraded the rollover protection requirements a few years ago, and as my roll bar setup forms an important structural part of the spaceframe chassis, changing it to comply will require a full strip down of the car.

[SteviegtrParticipant @steviegtr]

That is very nice. Is it a small block motor. I remember a lot using the Renault 25 gearbox transaxle for kits. The Lambo replica guys used them. They got in very short supply back then.

I now have a lovely old TVR Chimaera 450 to do lots of vids & mods to. So looking forward to getting my hands dirty again. Just a bit slower these days.

Steve.

[Dave HalfordParticipant @davehalford22513]

Ford 351Cleveland motor?

[Dave Halford]

On Dave Halford Said:

Ford 351Cleveland motor?

Easy mistake to make with the motor having a front mounted distributor. The motor is Rover V8 based. The rocker covers are from a TVR “Tuscan Challenge” motor, making it less easily recognisable. Once I’d chopped off the Rover water pump and adapted a Ford V6 water pump the unit became much more compact. That “dry sump” oil pump is also from a Tuscan Challenge motor.

[SteviegtrParticipant @steviegtr]

A 5.7 litre beast.

Steve.

[Robert Atkinson 2Participant @robertatkinson2]

What is “A 5.7l beast” Steve?

I can find no reference of any Rover V8 bigger than 5.2l. The TVR Tuscan challenge engine was 4.5l

Robert.

[Robert Atkinson 2]

On Robert Atkinson 2 Said:

What is “A 5.7l beast” Steve?

I can find no reference of any Rover V8 bigger than 5.2l. The TVR Tuscan challenge engine was 4.5l

Robert.

Hi Robert. It is a Ford 351 Ci Cleveland  motor with rover rocker covers & other bits fitted.

Not sure but biggest Rover V8 i have seen was a highly modified Griffith taken to 5.2 litres. Merry Christmas to you & your family.

Steve.

[Steviegtr]

On Steviegtr Said:

On Robert Atkinson 2 Said:

What is “A 5.7l beast” Steve?

I can find no reference of any Rover V8 bigger than 5.2l. The TVR Tuscan challenge engine was 4.5l

Robert.

Hi Robert. It is a Ford 351 Ci Cleveland  motor with rover rocker covers & other bits fitted.

Not sure but biggest Rover V8 i have seen was a highly modified Griffith taken to 5.2 litres. Merry Christmas to you & your family.

Steve.

Stueee says ” The motor is Rover V8 based.”

Happy holidays to all.

[Robert Atkinson 2]

On Robert Atkinson 2 Said:

On Steviegtr Said:

On Robert Atkinson 2 Said:

What is “A 5.7l beast” Steve?

I can find no reference of any Rover V8 bigger than 5.2l. The TVR Tuscan challenge engine was 4.5l

Robert.

Hi Robert. It is a Ford 351 Ci Cleveland  motor with rover rocker covers & other bits fitted.

Not sure but biggest Rover V8 i have seen was a highly modified Griffith taken to 5.2 litres. Merry Christmas to you & your family.

Steve.

Stueee says ” The motor is Rover V8 based.”

Happy holidays to all.

Well that explains why . I wondered how you could get rover rocker covers to fit a Ford engine.

Steve.

[Howard LewisParticipant @howardlewis46836]

In the 50s, it was quite usual to buy a glassfibre shell and mount it onto a Ford 10 chassis.

With an Aquaplane head and twin SUs, the improvement could be quite spectaular

The acceleration was better because of the lower kerbweight, but the handling may not have improved as nuch, because the adverse effect on the unsprung/sprung weight ratio.

The first Lotus was made, with a fabricated body, in a garage at the back of north London pub!

More recently, it was possible to construct a Locost by cutting and welding the 1″ square steel tubes oneself, rather than buy a professionally constructed chassis. (Although some were good, being made in a jig to ensure consistency)

One rather hard driving individual did have to abandon a race when the front suspension detached from the rest of the chassis!  So maybe his welding was not as good as he had hoped.

Howard

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Congratulations Steve!

Neil

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