Jag V6 swapped Dolomite

[new to this]

So if your now going for the ford axle,what are you planing for the wheels fords have a different wheel stud pattern

Dave

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So if your now going for the ford axle,what are you planing for the wheels fords have a different wheel stud pattern

Dave

My plan was always to use a Ford axle, for cost, availability, and for the wheels! In the front, I’ve used Sprintspeed stub axles which let me use a Ford escort pattern hub

The change in bolt pattern increases the choice I have for wheels 100x over. I’m either going to run banded steel wheels or a Ronal Turbo rep wheel with the turbo part removed at 7 inch in 13 or 15 inch.

The Ford 4x108 patter is so common, can get almost any wheel style. I could even throw 17/18 inch from a modern Ford on there. I never would because it would look so ridiculous.

[SprintV8]

I’m certain a standard rear Escort axle won’t be much stronger than say a Sprint axle.
I know I’ve broke/snapped quite a few.
Even with a mildly tweaked pinto.

Use to change gear when the valves bounced.
Those where the days before Gatso’s and camera vans.

[Boost All The Dollys]

I’m certain a standard rear Escort axle won’t be much stronger than say a Sprint axle.
I know I’ve broke/snapped quite a few.
Even with a mildly tweaked pinto.

Use to change gear when the valves bounced.
Those where the days before Gatso’s and camera vans.

From some online research, a stock English definitely would not stand up to a Sprint axles I think I’ve asked on here before and the rating I’ve been told for a sprint axle is around 240hp with some gentle driving. As far as I can tell, a stock English would break at around 150hp with some heavy driving, new shafts get to around 250hp. but a built English would go pretty far.

RetroFord do a build kit, which is a limited slip diff and larger half shafts which apparently push the rating to over 300hp. Considering that the jag engine makes less power than this stock, but will produce considerably more torque than a high power 4pot, I think even with this it’ll be a matter of time before something breaks.

Which makes the other point easier to make, the cost to repair and replace. I can find and source old English axles with relative ease quite cheaply. I’m going tomorrow to get two English axle casings for the grand sum of £40!! A LSD is anywhere from £300 used to £600 new, there’s dozens of companies making them, same goes for half shafts

A sprint axle?? There currently isn’t one for sale on any market place online, unless there’s one or two available on here, so I can’t get an accurate price, and a LSD from quaife/rimmerbros?? £1000!, and there’s pretty much no aftermarket support.

Yes, I know a sprint axle would just drop in and work, but I’d pay for it in the long run. I’d rather pay the £2k to build up an English with minimal fabrication knowing I could easily replace it

[GlenM]

Sprint axles come up quite often for £200-250. I paid £200 for one last September. The 2Spec Helical LSD is only £580.

[gmsclassics]

I successfully ran a 3L Capri English axle on my race sprint for over a decade. The initial decision came about after a ‘professional’ incorrectly installed an LSD in my original Sprint axle. Given another axle just wasn’t available locally, the Ford unit was the closest fit and the Capri version had 9” drums on the back, same as the Sprint. We cut the mounts off the Ford axle and welded on the Sprint ones, so handling wasn’t affected.

This axle then survived 12 years of racing or approx. 9000km, all of which was competitive circuit racing (Dolomite Sprint No 20 on Youtube). All races started with dropping the clutch with engine at 5000-5000rpm and cornering forces were on 195-60 race compound tyres.

During this period I did have to rebuild the LSD once and also fit a replacement, but not until after 10 years. Standard half shafts were the weakest link with the high cornering forces. Eventually I snapped one during cornering but that left via the inner guard and boot, so caused substantial damage. After that I fitted extra strong half shafts from 3J Driveline which were fine.

Given this I think you should find they will take a lot of abuse on a road car, even if there is a more powerful engine fitted. Obviously they need to re rebuilt carefully and checked regularly, especially if they are going to be pushed to the limit.

Geoff

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Had a good Bank Holiday weekend, and finally did what I should have done years ago, and made an axle mount jig.

Been putting it off cos of the cost of buying box section and trying to work out how to recreate the inner mounts. But I was digging through my wood pile in my garage and pulled out some metal box section that I’d entirely forgotten I owned!!

Turns out it’s a cheap metal bed frame, made of 50x50 and 40x20 box, and perfect for a jig!

So cut it to length, just over the length of the outer outer mounts and rested it on the front of the outer mounts. To ensure squareness and so it didn’t move, i clamped it to the diff housing nuts, making sure that the nuts were in the same orientation.

I cut some of the off cuts up to fit into the outer mount, drilled some 12mm holes, and used the proper 7/16 bolt to align the holes, putting some G clamps to make sure it was the right angle.

Threw a handful of tack welds on just to keep it in place, while I moved onto the upper mounts.

My main issue with these is the design of the upper arms, well my main issue with the rear suspension in general, is the choice use of bushes in some odd ways. The inner axle-side mounts are a sandwich bush, which essentially creates a rubber spring. so when the axle is in bump, it creates a force trying to rotate the axle nose down AND nose up. Nose down from the articulation of the axle upwards and nose up as from the articulation of the inner arms. Also making new copies of them is an absolute pain, so I’m changing to a “solid” bush in the form of a rose joint. This will also allow me to make the pinion angle adjustable, as well as down the line the axle alignment/rear toe.

So, cut some box and use an M8 bolt with a 13mm head, and with the 1mm wall thickness of the box gave the right thickness.

Made some circles that fitted perfectly in the axle mount and centrally mounted the bolt and welded it all together. My idea is to make one side mount first, then use the ball joint to locate the other side correctly.

With this all made up, then welded this to the main box with some stand offs. Went to lift it off and realised how flimsy it was so added some bracing which was spare from another project.

Then, had to cut my nice, perfectly round, perfectly sized circles so I could get the damn thing in and out of the axle!

But now, it slides in and out and fits perfectly!

Now to copy it over to my English casings, one to go on the car and one to build up to survive abuse.

[Boost All The Dollys]

May update

Getting a lot of progress done on the long list of items to get it running and driving. Finally got around to the gearbox mount, which will mount to the floor of the car close to the frame rails and the gearbox cover. I was uhming and ahing over what kind of mount to go with, but in the end I settled on some Volvo 240 gearbox mounts. Cut up a bit of 70x70x3mm box section and some 40x20x2mm and arranged it in a Vee arrangement so the bolts for the mount weren’t directly loaded.


Next, I finally got around to getting an ECU! I was all hung up on having sequential injectors and ignition which severely restricted my options but eventually saw the light and took that requirement off my list and went for a Speeduino ECU. It’s cheap, open source, and can run a 6 cylinder on a paired injector/ignition set up. But I do have to change the coil packs as the Jag ones are dumb coils with the igniters build into the ECU, where as the Speeduino can’t directly drive the coils, so I’ll be swapping to some VAG TFSI coils which are smart coils with inbuilt igniters.
You can get these ECUs either fully assembled or in a kit, I got a kit because it was cheaper and I don’t mind the extra work.


Then finally got around to the exhaust manifolds, which I knew would be a pain. I chopped up a pair of BRISCA manifolds for a Pinto to about the right length and arrangement so that it would sit just above the steering rack and be as tight to the block as possible. I chose the Pinto as it has a very large bore spacing and it’s only about 6mm off the Jag engine, and the BRISCA manifolds are designed to come straight off the engine block so it could be used on both engine banks with some considerable massaging. I got two, and made the mistake of assuming they’re all the same as one came with a 1 5/8 inch primaries and the second came with 1 3/4 inch . Oh well, I knew they wouldn’t be perfectly symmetrical.
The drivers side one looks a whole lot worse because of the snaking between the steering rack and the block bing very very tight.

For the intake set up, I’m going with MG MHB000080 throttle bodies that will be modified slightly to reduce the profile of the throttle cable retainer. These are a 48mm throttle body, which is plenty big enough, if they end up too big, I can adjust the linkages to reduce the opening angle, which is what MG/Rover did on lower power versions of the K series. I modelled up the top of the engine and some of the significant features of the TB and threw an assembly together then modelled the profile of the runner I wanted and had a friend 3D print it. I’ve since coated the inside and sealing faces in epoxy resin to help with sealing and fuel protection. Just need to buy all 6 now, I’ve just got 2 for now.

I also got the fuel tank and fuel pump set up. It uses a Walbro 255 pump on a Subaru Liberty pump hanger that I cut down to length. It now fits into the fuel tank so the pick up point is as close to the old output pipe as I could get it. I couldn’t get it in the centre as there is a bowl for the fuel sender unit to sit in. I’ll have to add a baffle or something in the future to prevent fuel surge.

[new to this]

Hi the ignition coils VAG TFSI what car are they off,
The ECU speeduino you said comes in kit forum,how much building is involved,do you have to solder bits together ?

Looks like youve got your work cut out

Dave

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Subject: Jag V6 swapped Dolomite

Hi the ignition coils VAG TFSI what car are they off,
The ECU speeduino you said comes in kit forum,how much building is involved,do you have to solder bits together ?

Looks like youve got your work cut out

Dave

Hi Dave

There’s two versions of the VAG coil packs; the “TFSI” coils and “R8” coils. They’re almost identical apart from overall height and the pin-out. The “R8” coils come on basically any of the Audi R/RS cars and the “TFSI” coils come on pretty much every VAG 1.4. Part numbers are 0221604 115 for the R8 coil and 036 905 715F for the TFSI ones.

The Speeduino, you can either make your own kit (there’s a Parts List and just shop around for those specific pieces), but I got my kit premade (as in someone else collected the parts but I constructed the board) for £162 including shipping, connector kit, Arduino Microcomputer, and VR conditioner (£99 for the kit, £12 for the Arduino, £18 for the VR conditioner, £4 for the connector, +VAT) but you can get a fully assembled one for £178+VAT that has the same stuff. I got mine from DIY-EFI

You do have to solder your own pieces into place, but took me about 2-3 hours to do and it wasn’t too difficult, all the components are through-board mounted rather than face mounted so no special kit needed, I did mine with a Aldi soldering iron and some old solder.

There isn’t an order to it but there is a preferred order but mainly just so it’s easier to solder it all together

[geeksteve]

The Speeduino, you can either make your own kit (there’s a Parts List and just shop around for those specific pieces), but I got my kit premade (as in someone else collected the parts but I constructed the board) for £162 including shipping, connector kit, Arduino Microcomputer, and VR conditioner (£99 for the kit, £12 for the Arduino, £18 for the VR conditioner, £4 for the connector, +VAT) but you can get a fully assembled one for £178+VAT that has the same stuff. I got mine from DIY-EFI

+1 for Speeduino here, it's running my MX-5 powered Dolomite DIY-EFI are a good bunch if you need parts etc.

Steve

[new to this]

Subject: Jag V6 swapped Dolomite

Hi the ignition coils VAG TFSI what car are they off,
The ECU speeduino you said comes in kit forum,how much building is involved,do you have to solder bits together ?

Looks like youve got your work cut out

Dave

Hi Dave

There’s two versions of the VAG coil packs; the “TFSI” coils and “R8” coils. They’re almost identical apart from overall height and the pin-out. The “R8” coils come on basically any of the Audi R/RS cars and the “TFSI” coils come on pretty much every VAG 1.4. Part numbers are 0221604 115 for the R8 coil and 036 905 715F for the TFSI ones.

The Speeduino, you can either make your own kit (there’s a Parts List and just shop around for those specific pieces), but I got my kit premade (as in someone else collected the parts but I constructed the board) for £162 including shipping, connector kit, Arduino Microcomputer, and VR conditioner (£99 for the kit, £12 for the Arduino, £18 for the VR conditioner, £4 for the connector, +VAT) but you can get a fully assembled one for £178+VAT that has the same stuff. I got mine from DIY-EFI

You do have to solder your own pieces into place, but took me about 2-3 hours to do and it wasn’t too difficult, all the components are through-board mounted rather than face mounted so no special kit needed, I did mine with a Aldi soldering iron and some old solder.

There isn’t an order to it but there is a preferred order but mainly just so it’s easier to solder it all together

Hi i bought my coils off ebay for Audi Mk1 TT they didnt come with wiring conectors but got some off ebay,the pin conectors were rubbish but once i remade the wiring conections they were okay,im almost at the stage off buying an ECU for my set up

Dave
















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Hi i bought my coils off ebay for Audi Mk1 TT they didnt come with wiring conectors but got some off ebay,the pin conectors were rubbish but once i remade the wiring conections they were okay,im almost at the stage off buying an ECU for my set up

Dave
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Yeah, it’s the same part number, VAG have been using that part for some time by the looks of it. If you search by the part number, they come up.

[Boost All The Dollys]

Just an update to include some pictures of the fuel tank modifications

[new to this]

Hi youve modified your fuel tank similar to mine,how are you running the fuel lines,and what size pipe are you using for the return fuel

Dave