Nick Moore
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Everything posted by Nick Moore
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A set of reconditioned short EV6 injectors arrived today. They're the same ones Craig is using, and have been ultrasonically cleaned, tested and flow-matched. The last is important, as a partially blocked injector would cause a cylinder to run lean and could melt a piston. By the way, the old 0280 155 712 injectors are still available for beer money, low alcohol beer at that. 😉 I've decided to make a fuel rail from 3/4" square steel tubing (I have lots lying around), and some steel weld-on injector bosses are on their way. The steel rail should sit lower than a chunky billet alloy rail, and the end hose connectors can be welded on at an angle rather than pointing straight out like the fittings on the ends of alloy rails. At the front, that angling of the fuel supply pipe might make all the difference.
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I looked at it briefly. My aim is to produce a modern interpretation of the factory's PI setup, which used six throttle butterflies, but using electronic injection instead of mechanical. I'm much happier tweaking the tuning and timing with a laptop than endlessly fiddling with vacuum gauges, feeler gauges, springs and files, so didn't long consider sticking with Lucas PI. I thought the Patton system was less efficient because it places one injector in each carburettor body and retains the stock inlet manifold, which apparently doesn't deliver equal inlet charge flow to each cylinder. On the other hand, it would have been a lot easier to fit, which I guess is its biggest selling point. I think Andy Thompson fitted a Patton system or similar to one of his cars, but has since upgraded?
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The inlet length may provide a resonance around 5000, but that's not intentional. There simply isn't enough room to make the inlet runners any longer, and even the length we're aiming for is longer than stock TR6 PI manifolds. It won't be seeing high revs very often as it's intended to be an open road cruising car, albeit one with plenty of motivation. I was going to fit a GT-42 camshaft, but it broke in transit. Andy Thompson very kindly gave me a '43' from his race car when he moved to a '42'. Here's how the two cams compared in his car. I'm sure my horsepower numbers will be lower due to different compression and exhaust, but the torque curve should be similar. And fun in a lighter car!
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I guess that if Craig has posted his video, then I can show a couple of photos he sent me. The cat is officially out of the bag (apologies to animal lovers). We're using the same hardware, including the same 32mm runners with 45 degree bends. My injectors will sit where his are located. As you can see, his injector pockets are laid as low as possible, and the bonnet does close. The big difference is of course that he has a single throttle and I'll use six. It should make for an interesting comparison. Nicely done Mr Trimble.
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Oooh, that head is interesting. The injector ports look quite small (for the Lucas PI injectors?) but I guess they could be machined out to 13mm? I don't plan on pulling my head off again - the engine is built, dammit! - but it's a good idea. How close are they to the water jacket? Marcus, I really have been listening to what you say. The side feed injectors are a possibility, but I hadn't found much info on their flow rates. And Craig's busy making his Mk2 inlet, which has shown that the short EV6 injectors and an extruded fuel rail do fit under a Mk3 bonnet. Just. I'll leave the 'big reveal' to him. I very much like your home made fuel rail though - the Ross Machine rail everyone uses is massive and would be referred to by the police as a blunt object. If I copy your rail though, I'm afraid it won't be red. As for the single throttle body, I started down that path, but was worried about charge robbing between cylinders due to the amount of camshaft overlap. Individual throttles seemed like a better way to go, and even if I'd started with the single throttle, it would probably have evolved into a six-butterfly setup eventually. It seemed simpler just to chose the evolved option right from the start. The throttles will be hanging quite low, so linkage clearance shouldn't be an issue. Edit: Craig's just posted a video of his Mk2 EFI manifold to Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ArkQMSR6os. We're using the same inlet manifold plate, runners, injector pockets and injectors, so if it fits his car, it should fit mine too!
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Craig's emailed some photos showing that his shorty EV6 injectors can be mounted near the inlet ports without the fuel rail creating a pretty new bonnet bulge, so I've ordered a set of the Vectra 3.2L 0280 156 080 shortys. By the way - $24 a set? I rang a whole bunch of wreckers today and no luck. They either didn't have them (not a real Holden mate) or quoted $35 each! Luckily eBay came to the rescue with a cleaned and flow-calibrated set of six, for about $24 each. Looks like I'll have a set of the Vectra 0280 155 712 injectors for sale. These are the ones often fitted to EFI'd saloons and TR6s, where space isn't such an issue. I have eight - who wants 'em? The GT6 went off to Exhaust Innovations today. Their first job is to finish the headers that Performance Pipes struggled with, and then they'll start fabricating the inlet manifold.
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Thanks for looking up those injectors, Nick. Craig (âGT6 Mk3â here) has also suggested shorter injectors. I guess I'm being stubborn in trying to use the Vectra injectors I've already got, rather than buy new ones. But, if lying the injectors horizontal won't cause poor running, then the lack of space issue may have been avoided. And of course, if the EV6 injectors fit but are awkwardly tight, the EV14s will free up some space. I take your point about making each runner a different shape. Plan A is not to slope the throttle bodies, but keep them parallel to the engine. It'll be easier to make and will ensure identical gas flow to each cylinder. Sloping the throttle bodies would only be tried if there was no way to fit the front hardware under the bonnet. Having seen what Craig is currently cooking up, I think Plan A will work. As for clearance at the bulkhead, I'm considering having the fuel return takeoff exiting from the side of the fuel rail beside injector 6 rather than the end of the rail. That would give more room too. PS- EFI Hardware make some great stuff, and I'm using their throttle bodies and many other fittings. They don't quite understand what I'm building, though, despite me sending pictures and specifications, as they market mostly to people building massive horsepower machines. I rang their manager once to enquire about a fuel pump, and he kept recommending one that would support 600hp. I replied that I'd have to mount it to four cars at once to use that capacity! I'm not sure if those hose tails would reduce the fuel rail height, but it's worth considering.
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The new-but-crap rear brake cylinder has been sleeved in stainless - at $50 it didn't cost much more than ordering another from the UK, and this way I know it'll last a long time. For that price, the shop also replaced the seals. Nice. We have brakes again, and this time they're not leaking. The car's off to get measured for an inlet manifold on Tuesday, so I've been playing with Cardboard Aided Design to figure out bonnet clearances for the fuel rail and throttle linkages. The silhouette is on number 1 cylinder, as that's the trickiest to fit under the bonnet. The overhead linkage needs about 50mm above the throttle bodies. It was 70mm until I got medieval with a hacksaw and trimmed the pushrods. An underslung linkage probably won't work because of the header pipes. One design I considered was stepping the throttle bodies down, similar to GT6 Weber manifolds. It won't work though, because the middle throttle body's lever is on the opposite end to the front and rear bodies. That would alter the opening angles. However, the inlet manifold could slope down towards the front of the car if the throttle bodies stay in line. Each pipe would be a different shape, so that's an expensive option. Another thing I'm pondering is lying the the injectors horizontal and locating them on the elbows, so that they squirt straight down the inlets. That gives a goodly amount of bonnet clearance, but there's a chance having the injectors that far from the inlet valves might hurt low-speed drivability. Various internet sources are hazy on this, so I may have to suck it and see.
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While lying under the car fitting the CV spacer on Wednesday, I noticed a trickle of ickle running down my back. One of the new brake cylinders was leaking 🤔 When I pulled it out, I found that the bore had deep radial grooves. It's never been on the road and only had brake fluid pumped in for the first time a couple of weeks ago, so the grooves can't be wear. There wasn't any rust. Obviously, whoever machined the cylinder was a complete numpty. My advice to Gary F about whether to sleeve his TR5 master cylinder or buy a new one was ringing in my ears... I don't remember when or from whom I bought it (this restoration started in 2009) and the original cylinders have long since been chucked out (silly boy), so the obvious choice was to get it sleeved in stainless. It should be ready today - just in time, because the car's going to the inlet machinist on Monday and I don't want to roll down my driveway of doom without brakes. What Triumph's engineers would have done to a supplier who sold them rubbish like this?
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The left hand CV spacer has been thinned down by 6mm and now fits perfectly. I was able to get the inner wishbone bolt lined up, which means that the left hand CV now has enough plunge to accommodate the suspension at full droop. The right hand CV spacer is 13mm thick and the left is now 7mm thick, so I think we can conclude that the diff is offset 3mm to the left. If the diff were 3mm to the right, both spacers would need to be 10mm thick. This is the right way to adjust the clearance, too. During the discussion about adjustable wishbones, it hadn't escaped me that having one wishbone 6mm longer than the other would affect the camber. That would be a big, bad bodge and not at all a cunning plan. I tried to confirm the diff offset by measuring, but it was hard to make measurements that precise with steel rules while lying under the car, especially with the exhaust in the way. My guess is that the diff offset is because the cast alloy back plate's dimensions are a bit, errr... approximate. Although the machining of the cast alloy back plate (the milling and drilling) has been precisely done, the plate's cast 'ears' may be in the wrong locations relative to where the bolt holes are drilled, because there's no exact datum mark on the casting for the machinist to measure from. Lastly, I fitted an adjustable fuel pressure regulator to the bulkhead. It has a pressure gauge - I'll be aiming for 3 Bar - but the gauges are fragile, so it will be removed once the car's been tuned.
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You're right, Gary, when you say that the NOS one could have rust in it. Been there, done that with a tandem brake cylinder, and had it resleeved for about AU$150. If you fit a reproduction cylinder, check the smoothness of the bore. Some aren't well polished, and so can eat seals like a killer whale. I'd shop around for a good price to get your original cylinder resleeved. Don't tell them it's for a TR and the price may come down, too!
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Yeah, Marcus' alternative is always cited when alternative rotoflex wishbones are suggested. Then someone exhumes Dr Eickoff, the conversation turns to the peculiarities of modelling a leaf spring as a suspension arm, and the thread quickly unravels. The tubular wishbone idea dies yet again, and the original poster slinks away for a drink. My biggest problem with changing the geometry is that it might increase the amount of plunge for that inner CV - something you, Nick, will be perfectly placed to judge! Now, of course, we have Clive's Subaru inner CV option as well, which appears to be able to accommodate greater amounts of plunge. I've shamelessly copied Clive's photo from the Sideways forum. Is he using the same axles as you supply in your kit, Nick? He used the word 'Metro'.
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Yeah, Marcus' alternative is always cited when alternative rotoflex wishbones are suggested. My biggest problem with changing the geometry is changing the amount of plunge for that inner CV - something you will be perfectly placed to judge! Now, of course, we have the Subaru inner CV option
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Hi Simon, Adjustable rotoflex wishbones have been mooted before, but the discussion always veers off as people suggest changing the design. If there was a tubular wishbone available that replaced the heavy, bent iron wishbone, without altering the chassis brackets or the suspension geometry, I'd be interested.
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The Subaru diff (hopefully) penultimate episode! To recap: There's been a lot of discussion about whether the Subaru diff conversion kit locates the new diff centrally or offset in a Triumph chassis. It's an important question, because the common CV conversion has only just enough plunge to accommodate the rear suspension movement. If the diff's offset, then the adapters linking it to the inner CV joints have to be different thicknesses. Otherwise the inner CVs will reach the end of their travel before the suspension has moved through its full arc. When I set up my suspension a year or so back, I found that one CV joint did need a spacer, while the other didn't seem to. So I figured that yes, the diff was offset. However, when I moved the car the las month for the first time to take it to the exhaust shop, the non-spaced-out CV joint pulled out of the diff. So obviously it needed a spacer too. Maybe the diff was centrally mounted after all? I've just spent two days (Two Bloody Days!) lying on my back fitting the second spacer. It's a job requiring tiny fingers, allen keys, long nosed pliers and a mirror, with everything a few cm from your face. When the spacer was in, I tried to put the lower wishbone bolt back in, and it didn't go. You can see in the photo that the suspension is being held 6mm out from where it should be, at full droop. The arrow shows the direction it needs to go, but it's being held out by the inner CV joint. I guess that means that in my car at least, the diff is offset 3mm to the left. That could be down to my individual diff mounting kit, or my chassis. Oh, for an adjustable wishbone. I am not crawling back under the car today.
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It might take more than two weeks to drive a Triumph around Australia. My Christmas trip included 4 states in 14 driving days, although I did stop at a lot of cafes, or just to take a walk and cool down. People sometimes rent their houses out while they hitch up a caravan and 'do a lap'. I've looked at Roy's Golf radiator conversion and considered doing something similar. Elderly Golfs are as scarce as Emu's teeth in Aussie, but a custom aluminium or copper/brass radiator would do the trick, at a cost. However, I'd already recored my GT6 radiator, so decided to fit that to start with anyway. Tim, it's possible that you will have to fly a bit further to see the finished car, as I'm thinking about shipping it back 'home' to New Zealand once it's mobile. My last job finished in December and the market for geologists in Australia is very tight. If I can find a permanent position I'll stay here, but the last couple of years have been slim pickings. Still, trading the wide brown grasslands of Australia for New Zealand's South Island isn't a terrible choice!
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A few days after the cooling system was filled up, the 1 1/4" frost plug behind the distributor pedestal started weeping. The seating surface on the block turned out to have localised pitting. At least it's about the easiest core plug to see and replace. I'll fit a new brass plug with a smear of silicone sealant and keep an eye on it. (I want a brass plug because the metal is softer than steel, and hopefully will seat better than the old steel plug. None of the local car parts shops have brass plugs though, so I had to buy one from eBay. Annoying.) Apart from the last frost plug though, the cooling system is finished. I've fitted a 12" sucker fan behind the radiator, on a shroud which is essentially a flat sheet of stainless steel. The idea of the shroud is to make sure that the fan sucks air through the entire radiator matrix, not just the circular portion it sits over. As with everything else in the GT6 it's a tight fit, with the fan cunningly placed to avoid the water pump pulley and the timing wheel. Just 🙂 The radiator had to be tilted slightly forward with washers under the chassis mounts - so now, of course, the radiator cap is even closer to the underside of the bonnet. Sigh. It seems to work - the airflow through the radiator is enough to hold a magazine against the front of the core. I used 'Triumph Torque'. The fan is powered through a relay, with a thermo switch in the top tank, an override switch (I repurposed an overdrive column switch) and an indicator lamp on the dashboard. Oh yeah, a couple of unrelated details in the middle picture. The EFI's idle valve has been installed on the right hand engine mount bracket. That seemed like a good place, if I can keep the wires and hoses away from the exhaust. And the cardboard template duct-taped to the inlet port is an attempt to model the profile of the inlet runners so that the fuel rail doesn't hit the bonnet. CAD = Cardboard Aided Design.
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Apparently Ken Bryant did this swap - he discusses it at the end of this thread: Sorry , link no longer available
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The redesigned gearbox tunnel is finished - the hard part anyway. Because the rear of my Supra gearbox is longer and wider than a GT6 box, the standard tunnel wouldn't fit around the gear change remote and the gearbox mounts. However, the front portion of the tunnel fitted perfectly, so I chopped a plastic tunnel in two, fitted the front section and started hacking around the rear portion. Various bulges were crafted (bodged) from aluminium, duct tape and body filler, and once I was happy with the shape, the altered rear section was used as a mould for a fibreglass replacement. My original plan was to use the first fibreglass moulding as a mould for a second tunnel, but the first casting was close enough to the final shape that I decided to use it instead. Its edges still need sanding, and it will be covered in Dynamat sound insulation, carpet and vinyl. Done this way, the gearbox mounting bolts are accessible under the rear cover, so the interior, main tunnel and H-frame won't have to come out if I want to pull the engine and gearbox out. There's a small door for checking the gearbox oil level.
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Don't mind lavender purple bushes.. in my garden. Just filled up the cooling system for the first time, to see if it's watertight. When the radiator was recored about six years ago, I was warned that the solder can 'bloom' in radiators that stand dry for long periods. So far, no leaks 🙂
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I'm sure they were Polybushes, but haven't kept any receipts to prove it, or say where they came from. It would have been either Rimmers or Canleys, as nearly all my parts orders came from them. The replacement red bushes have come from Canleys. Some of the Herald's two-part yellow bushes are at least fifteen years old, so I know that some urethane bushes last very well.
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Few more jobs done. First off, the brakes were re-bled using all four bleed nipples in the Canley Calipers (i hadn't seen the outer nipples the first time round). Now the pedal is nice and firm, for the first time ever in this rebuild. 🙂 It may not go, but it can stop. Next, I replaced the front Koni lower bushes, again I'd already 'upgraded' the original rubber bushes with blue Polybushes about five years ago, believing that modern rubber doesn't last as long as urethane. The car has sat on its wheels for the last couple of years, but hasn't turned a wheel, and yet the blue bushes had deformed and extruded. This time I've gone for red Polybushes. To add insult to injury, when I was refitting the Konis I noticed that two red Polybushes in one lower suspension arm have also started disintegrating. No others have, just those two. I know I didn't buy all the bushes at the same time, so maybe they're produced in small batches, and my failures are from poorly mixed or cured batches? Next, I replaced the 2500 and GT6-style stainless water pipe with a TR6 pipe, as the GT6 pipe clashed with the exhaust. Lastly, I had the hi-torque starter adapter plate drilled so that I could rotate the motor away from the exhaust manifold. I'll need to get a heatproof sheath for the red and white wire. Oh, I also touched up the engine paint where the exhaust monkey obviously used a pry bar. More may be said about him later, as his number 1 & 6 primaries include loose 'slip' joints and need to be redone. In the meantime, the car's booked to get the inlet manifold fabricated in mid-March.
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The secondaries are quite short, merging around the back of the bellhousing. In the end packaging efficiency outweighed further performance gains. It's hard to find quantitative information on the perfect secondary length. I've seen it stated that longer equals to peak torque at lower rpm, but all the figures quoted refer back to primary length. I think mine will be OK. I've no idea why Ipswich in Queensland was named after Ipswich in England. Ipswich QLD is an hour's drive in from the coast, and in summer is plain stinking hot. No doubt a nineteenth century expat felt homesick and named it after his old home town. Yep, the induction side is next.
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On our way home. It looks surprised to be out in the daylight!
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The headers and exhaust are finished. The header primaries - all I was sent - required a lot of alteration for the secondaries to fit without notching the chassis main rail. The exhaust guy commented that frankly, it wouldn't have taken any longer to have made them from scratch. Ouch. Number 6 pipe is very close to the starter motor, but that can be rotated out of the way. The stainless water pipe has been changed for a straight TR6 one, which moves the rubber hose away from pipe no.6 as well. The steering column now clears by miles. 🙂 The secondaries merge into a single 65mm pipe with provision for an oxygen sensor, and there's a flexible joint before the headers connect to the rest of the exhaust system. The exhaust pipe, central resonator and back box are located with three mounts, so they won't move much. There is very little clearance around the central resonator, so the pipe needs to be well located. The Rimmers 'sport' exhaust is only 45mm diameter, so we had to include a step-down from the headers. I suspect it was designed to work with the cast iron manifold, as it is certainly not sporty! I could have chucked the Rimmers setup out and run a bigger pipe but dammit, I paid many pounds for it! Also, it will be interesting to fit a 65mm system and larger back box one day and see how many extra horses are unleashed.