The Triumph Dolomite Club - Discussion Forum

Hi guys and girls, I have a 73' triumph Toledo 4 door that was my daily driver for a few years. To give some back story here's what happened up until the present day and my dilemma of which direction I should go in.

Back story (skip to the next paragraph if your not interested lol) Unfortunately in march 2019 on a wet country road me and another driver slid off the road and my beautiful classic rolled over onto its roof. No one was hurt fortunately and was just a freak accident. Unfortunately as a cabinet maker I had all sorts of glues and tools in my work bag which in the accident burst open ruining my original interior and obviously the original paint outside was ruined ect. Fast forwards till the first lockdown, I like many others were put onto furlough so decided to strip my Toledo down and see what sort of damage we are looking at. A structural engineer at the time looked it over and gave it the okay as the main structural pillars weren't damaged just the roof skin was dented ect so I stripped it back to bare metal and removed interior and engine bay bits got stripped out as my mechanic at the time when it came off the road adivesed I need some structural welding to the chassis legs, firewall and floor pans which meant the interior and engine had to come out anyway, even if I could do it with the interior and engine in I would still pay to have it removed as my mechanics garage burnt down a few years back cos of this exact reason. Whilst stripping it down I found some bodged previous work under but overall pretty amazing shape asides the roof and some tiny dents on the door from the roll over. I've sourced replacement wings, sills ect and what I belive to be a very rare NOS roof skin which I was elated about! Back in March 2020 I'd started deciding what I wanted to do with the Toledo and decided I was going to completely restore and modify the car either for racing and to allow her to live on and be a bit more reliable and safe such as a better more modern engine, brake discs, wider wheels, lower stance to improve the body roll and centre of gravity. I outlined my initial concept for what I want ect. I found a beautiful alfa romeo 156 2.5l busso engine and I know these sound beautiful and have a moderate amount of horsepower for a small v6 engine. I bought the engine and a 6 speed gearbox from a different seller. I received the gearbox no problem but we were in a lockdown and I intended to go pick up the engine as its in the next town over from me which was no trouble, I had been trying since march to get the guy to arrange a pickup date for this engine which is in his ex gfs garage. Unfortunately it's been about 9 months and now cannot even reach the bloke and have a gearbox and no engine rather infuriatingly may get the engine or my money for the gearbox as I'm starting court proceedings for the small claims court which is more ass ache. I had intended to mount the engine the other way to make it a rwd alfa engined Toledo with a roll cage ect as whilst stripping her back I did find one small crease in the front drivers side A pillar that the engineer either missed or didn't think was bad enough to condem the car. I liked the idea of a challenge building something no one else has such as this. Rather unfortunately though I belive this car is cursed and doesn't want to be rebuilt as I've had such bad luck with it and the NOS roof skin I purchased about a month ago was being transported from liverpool to the south coast and the guy crashed and wrote off the delivery van! Thankfully no injuries and the roof was perfect still but had to go through the police to get it out of their evidence locker soo that's all the current bad luck and misfortune I've had in dealing with this Toledo. Sorry for the lengthy back story!

However in heinsight perhaps a fwd engine and all this engineering to build it into a rwd car is a bit excessive so perhaps this is a blessing in disguise as I do like the idea of racing the car at Goodwood which is down the road from me at the goodwood revival so perhaps a sprint engine would be a better idea? With historical racing there needs to be evidence of it being used in the vehicle and I cannot find any evidence of racers in the past swapping a sprint engine into a Toledo which makes me believe I won't be able to legally race my Toledo if I put a sprint engine in the car! I understand people have done this in more recent years but I need evidence that predates 1975 unfortunately.
So this is my dilemma do I source a new alfa romeo busso engine and begin the lengthy process of adapting and engineering one off components to build an almighty unique little Toledo for non historical racing and road use which would be a incredible build worth waiting for. Or do I look into a sprint engine conversion and whether that would be legal to race and go that route with it? As much as this car it is cursed and has been a nightmare to own. Despite this I bloody love it and couldn't sell it so killing the value doesn't concern me as it would likely be on a scrap pile by now if I went through the insurance companies they would have condemned it for sure.
Just looking for some honest opinions and advice as I have never done something like this before and have no clue which way to go with it?
Many thanks and apologies for the lengthy article!
(Also posted in the restoration chat room)

There are 2 parts to this I think
1. Body restoration. That part is pretty straightforward in the main
2. A desire to race. Have you raced before? Because if not I expect getting into it is rather harder than most anticipate. I think many historic events are by invite too, so don't just expect to apply and be accepted. The simpler approach is to build a road legal car, and use it on trackdays. Much simpler with no real rules about engines etc. We were at Goodwood a few weeks ago on a trackday. Plenty of fun to be had, though obviously without the competitive aspect. On the plus side, very little danger of causing damage to the car.... Of course, if you want the competitve aspect a simple route would be the TR Register sprint and hillclimb series. But even that you would be restricted to a sprint engine, and then be in the modified class https://www.tr-register.co.uk/motorsport

Regarding engine swaps, I have a Toledo. And spitfire with an ST170 engine/ford box fitted, so have an idea about what is involved. My Toledo started life with me as a 1500, but after several cranks failing (one at Goodwood, one at te Prodrive track) I fitted a TR7 engine/sprint box and axle. Car was quicker, more economical etc but last year the rings finally expired at Spa. Got us home but used 5L of oil.... Then it was decision time. I can't sell the car, my daughter wants to use it for her wedding. I seriously thought about the Ford zetec/ST conversion, a well trodden RWD setup. Also the jag/ford V6, again it has been done a few times in kitcars etc. However, in te end I bought a sprint engine to build. This is the simple option as it is all off the shelf, and with twin 45s could give a reliable 175ish BHP. Dan Brown and others are putting all sorts of modern engines in these cars, if you want one, make contact with him, probably the cheapest way to do it unless you intend doing it all yourself, as he knows how to do it, wheras a local mechanic will be starting from scratch.

(for clarity, my sprint will be std spec in most ways. I found the TR7 engine really good, so the sprint will be that with a little extra. My spit is my trackday car of choice...)

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Clive Senior
Brighton

It sounds like you need to prioritise.

Especially now you have stripped the paint off and the steel is unprotected, sort out the bodywork now as you are making your mind up

If you delay for too much longer, you'll be left with a very rusty Toledo - so get paint onto it, then deal with the mechanicals.

R

I agree certainly going to try and get a coat of primer on sooner rather than later but thankfully it is dry stored so should help in the meantime but thats half the issue as I ideally need a firm plan of what to do regarding the engine so I know if I need to cut out the firewall, custom make a new tunnel ect as I can only afford to paint it properly the once but in the meantime I'll just primer it myself asides the damaged areas.

Yeah I am aware that most historical racing events especially at goodwood are invite only and that's the mistake alot of people make is building a historic track car and not getting invited there to race. I am steadily getting into the racing scene but historic racing is a different game compared to track days ect mainly cos of the restrictions to class ect.

I like the idea of the easy off the shelf sprint conversion for good bhp whilst being sympathetically and tastefully modified.
However Dan brown is a good shout as I have no clue on what is involved in doing an engine swap myself so that could be the answer if I wanted something more modern. I do still love the idea of something a little bit unique so potentially if I can recover my Alfa engine I might look at going that route with it, my thinking with the sprint engine is would it be more fun to race historically in a classic car and should I try to modify it for that but I definitely don't want it to be only a track day car so am leaning towards the alfa engine still despite the extra costs involved although the bank balance isn't all that healthy due to the coronavirus so might be a slower but more worth while build. Many thanks

Is the alfa 6 speed gearbox RWD??

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Clive Senior
Brighton

No unfortunately the engine is a fwd and so I bought the corresponding fwd alfa 6 speed gearbox, I was just going to turn the engine and have a custom propshaft made, the alfa romeo 156 q4 sportswagon was a 4wd car made in Europe so I was thinking about getting a 4wd alfa sportswagon and making the Toledo a 4wd with about 189 to 256 bhp depending on the variation and performance upgrades ect.

It won't work like that unless you do something radical to the gearbox, but that would be in the realms of "difficult" and "nobody has done that before". If you were thinking of using one of the front driveshafts as the prop, what about the other? The diff inside the gearbox will not like it, even if welded.
4WD toledo? We are getting into the realms of IVA, again that would be "complex"
You would be better off doing something that has been tried before, it will halve the (not insignificant) costs.

Just my opinion. But having fitted a few "foreign" engines into cars, I have an idea of what is involved.

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Clive Senior
Brighton

Yeah I can understand what you mean, I'm definitely no engine expert so these sort of things eluded me until now if I'm honest, I will still try to recover my alfa engine as I have a few projects planned for the future where I could use a fwd engine however perhaps I will look for a standard rwd engine that would be a more straight forward engine swap. Not too long ago I was looking into a porsche boxter engine and mounting it where the rear seats are obviously looking at a lot of custom fabrication but the drive shaft on the boxter is on the gearbox sides connecting straight to the wheels either side so a rear mounted engine was a potential option I was looking at and would certainly be an unusual build although might throw the weight distribution off by miles. Perhaps a better option would be a more standard conversion I've seen others do such as mx5, saab ect.

Before you decide what you want to fit, it's a good idea to understand what you can LEGALLY put on the road! If you're not going to use it on the road at all, then the sky is the limit, but for road use, you must either comply with DVLA's 8 point rule or be prepared to face a costly and difficult BIVA (British individual vehicle approval) test, loss of identity with a Q plate issued and effective road tax and MOTs for evermore. I won't go into all the rules here, they are easily researched, the main tripping point for modders is that a monocoque car such as the Toledo MUST retain an unaltered original shell (or a new, not second hand, original shell, good luck finding one) or it can't qualify and you are up the creek sans paddle. It's not quite as black and white as that, some small extra bits added on for strength are permissable, but you may not cut ANYTHING away. So a project like a mid mounted Boxster engine is a no-no. You just couldn't do it without cutting a large chunk of shell away, just to get it in.

I've now built 2 modified Dolomites the first being the Carledo, a 73 2 door Toledo with a 2.0 8v Vauxhall motor and the second the Dolomega, a 78 Sprint auto with a 2.2 16v Vauxhall motor from an Omega along with it's matching 4 speed transmission. I'm currently collecting parts to build a 3rd car on the 2.0 8v Vaux drivetrain. Both the cars i've built so far have complied with the 8 point rule scrupulously.





Neither of these cars are massively powerful, the 8v Carledo boasts around 140bhp but is pretty quick because i've put it on a diet, it only has a kerb weight of 760 kg. I regularly trackday this car and it's a lot of fun and fairly competitive. I also take it to "run what you brung" days on dragstrips where it runs very low 16s (my PB is 16.014 @91.6mph) There's still room for improvement here, I reckon a 14.5 is achievable with not much more than a remap and maybe some bigger injectors.The Dolomega is heavier but the 2.2 gives 147bhp straight from the box, it's enough for a roadgoing, daily driven automatic car which is what i've built it for. (It's still nearly a ton lighter than the donor Omega!)

If you want a lot more POWERRRR, go see Dan by all means, I think he has one of his Dolomites up near the 400bhp with a turbo'd Nissan motor at it's heart, there's youtube vid of it around, ferocious thing and still within the 8 point rule I think, JUST!

Or go for the Busso V6 (lovely soundtrack) and use either a Alfa 75 transaxle or a box from something different (Ford T9, Mazda RX8?) You'd have to make your own mistakes in the build as it's unknown territory, but it'd make a monster car!

In all honesty, I wouldn't bother with classic racing as such with a Toledo, I'm not aware of any 4 door Toledo bodied cars being used by works or private entrants in period, there'd be no advantage unless you used the lighter, stiffer, 2 door shell. Which I think WAS done once or twice in the 70s. But not by the factory. So I think you'd be outside homologation before you even started. Besides that, the specs and rules you must conform with and the level of the competition would make this a very expensive undertaking indeed. These guys think nothing of spending £10K+ on an engine, then blowing it up in practice!

Steve

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'73 2 door Toledo with Vauxhall Carlton 2.0 8v engine (The Carledo)
'78 Sprint Auto with Vauxhall Omega 2.2 16v engine (The Dolomega)
'72 Triumph 1500FWD in Slate Grey, Now with RWD and Carledo powertrain!

Maverick Triumph, Servicing, Repairs, Electrical, Recomissioning, MOT prep, Trackerjack brake fitting service.
Apprentice served Triumph Specialist for 50 years. PM for more info or quotes.

I had read something about the iva 8 point system and retaining the original regestration as I certainly don't want it to be a q plate vehicle as I'm already heavily involved in the IVA rule book for a different project I'm building but that refers to building a custom vehicle rather than retaining a registration so it's a bit more technical but I've learned it is an absolute pain so I'd like to avoid the IVA at all costs

I definitely think I'll talk to Dan at some point as I definitely want a bit of power under the bonnet and it'll make for a competitive track day car or as you said the "run what you brung" drag race would be certainly something I would be looking to do. I certainly don't need a ridiculous amount of power but I'd like something surprising almost a sleeper type of project. Does Dan have an account or website I can have a talk to him on? This will likely be a conversation for the future as it's been said I definitely need to prioritise the body work and since I now know I can't cut out bits of bodywork for the engine ect I can crack on getting the body sorted and then hopefully have a chat with Dan and see what can be done with the busso v6.

I'm surprised the carledo only has 140bhp even though it is on a diet and vastly faster than my 58bhp 1.3 engine I currently have in my Toledo I think I'm aiming for something in the 200bhp range as I certainly love speed funny enough the first engine swapped Toledo I heard about was the Carledo and that made up my mind that I want to engine swap it so I'm very pleased for your imput and advice so many thanks!

I do believe I saw Dan's Nissan Ca18det powered dolomite on YouTube and loved it, even though its unnecessary I would like to have a pretty engine in it like Dan's or the busso engine I found as it certainly will help bring any lost value up again but as I said I don't intend to sell it so lost value doesn't particularly bother me.

I'm soo pleased to hear you say the busso v6 has a lovely soundtrack as it is the key thing that sold me on trying to convert a fwd engine for a rwd application not to mention its a very pretty engine!

Love the shout for a alfa romeo 75 transaxle as that might work really well as the q4 rear differential I was looking at is only available in Europe, a rx8 box might work as I also heard some people on the alfa pages raving about rx8 box working with this engine.

Yeah I totally agree I've looked more into the historic racing and it seems like too much work for too little reward and I can't find any historic 4door Toledo so as you say it'd be out before I began. I definitely don't have 10k to drop on an engine, I already have a build that I have to meet IVA and FIA standards for so don't need more rules to research and follow!

Out of curiosity what sort of vauxhall drive train are you going to use for your 3rd triumph project? I own a 1976 mk1 Cavalier so had looked into getting the 4wd cavalier drive train from 4x4 turbo version and making a 4wd Toledo or perhaps a 4wd Sierra sapphire cosworth drive train but overall seems quite expensive although the 4wd cavalier would be certainly an interesting drive train to put in a triumph dolomite/Toledo if it could be kept worhin the 8 point IVA guidelines?

There is a reason the Carledo is only 140bhp and the reason is the answer to any question that starts "why don't they.......?" COST!

I have always been of the cafe racer mentality, financially strapped, but (I like to think) of a fairly innovative mentality. All my life and many modified cars under my belt, i've had to substitute lateral thinking and consummate scrounging for money cos I never have any! (2 wives, not concurrently, and 5 kids might have something to do with that) I'm also a firm believer in Colin Chapman's guiding principal "to go faster, add lightness!"

The car was originally planned to run a Rover V8, kitsch now, but still viable in 2008 when I started the build and bought the car. However I soon worked out that a LOT of work was needed to keep even a semblance of legality and turned to the 2.0 8v motor from an 89 Carlton that I had "lying around" as you do!

I had the project running and MOT'd for a tad under £600 which included the original purchase price (and emphatically NOT including labour) Tidying the body and painting came later, but even now it probably owes me less than £3k. Proof of concept for me, I COULD build a quick car on a tight budget. It's also proved utterly reliable during the 9 years i've been hooning it around, which is a HUGE bonus!

Now the running gear is just as sound as it was at the beginning, but the body is again getting tired, it's spent all it's years out in all weathers and been a daily for most of them. When the Dolomega hits the road, hopefully within the next 6 months, the Carledo will be temporarily retired to the garage for a well earned tidy up, which may include conversion to either a "long tail" Dolomite body style or a 2 door "shooting brake" estate body and a mechanical upgrade which may well feature a Z20LET turbocharged Vauxhall motor. Since i've already DONE the hard work, the Z20LET with 200 or more horses is virtually a bolt in job and should make it pick it's feet up a bit more! By the same token, several on the forum and in the club have used the C20XE "redtop" motor to good effect, this motor, treated carefully will deliver close to 200BHP normally aspirated and will, of course, fit just as well as my 8 valver.

The gearbox I use in all manual conversions is the venerable 5 speed unit from the Omega, it's small, short and light but extremely tough and the shift extension is easy to shorten to suit other cars. It's very similar to the Manta and Carlton gearboxes of earlier days , but has the advantage of hydraulic clutch operation which makes life a lot easier. There aren't any ratio choices and the gap between 2nd and 3rd is just a tad too long for comfort, but that's my only complaint.

I don't THINK you'll have a lot of luck getting ANY of the transverse engine/4wd drivetrains into a Dolomite shaped shell, mainly because of the width of the shell. even a MKIII Cav is a good foot wider than a Toledo. The chassis legs that you CAN'T delete will get in the way. Plus it'd be so nose heavy with all that weight forward of the front axle, it'd handle like a brick!

Easiest way to get hold of Dan is via his FB page/group "Triumph Dolomite/Toledo - buy, sell & wanted" He's the admin and founder of the page, so often on it. Worth joining anyway, just for the ads!

HTH, Steve

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'73 2 door Toledo with Vauxhall Carlton 2.0 8v engine (The Carledo)
'78 Sprint Auto with Vauxhall Omega 2.2 16v engine (The Dolomega)
'72 Triumph 1500FWD in Slate Grey, Now with RWD and Carledo powertrain!

Maverick Triumph, Servicing, Repairs, Electrical, Recomissioning, MOT prep, Trackerjack brake fitting service.
Apprentice served Triumph Specialist for 50 years. PM for more info or quotes.

I reckon I thought it was a lotus carlton engine hence why I assumed it had more power not that 140bhp is anything to turn your nose up at I wished mine was that fast!

I would say I'm of the same mentality I don't want to spend a fortune on it but definitely want to do it correct so I don't need to re do it later on although it will be a bit of a mongrel with a miss match of parts I can scrounge together thankfully I don't have any wives or kids although several cars and projects are constantly stealing my money away

I love the sound of the potential shooting brake conversion I'm not sure what the long tail body style is as I'm pretty new around the triumph scene.

With my conversion I'm looking to put a fibreglass sprint speed kit on it anyway and wider wheels ect just to try and reduce body roll and improve stability as I don't want a repeat of a rollover crash so if the cavalier 4x4 running gear fit whilst still remaining within the 8 point system then the extra foot width wouldn't bother me too much but as you said it'd be nose heavy and potentially require cutting out the chassis legs ect so not viable to retain the reg number although potential for a future project if there was a rusted out shell that had little hope of seeing the road again without major modifications perhaps then maybe I'd consider cutting the car up making a 4wd monster or a mid engined vehicle lol
Many thanks I'll try and message him although I'll do a bit more digging perhaps asking some of the alfa pages what they think so Dan might have a better idea of what needs doing ect, I found out Dan uses the sprint axle with a Quaife lsd or something so if that's what Dan uses in his Nissan powered dolly I'm sure it'd be able to take the power of an alfa if the gear/axle ratios match up or aren't too far apart!
Many thanks

I toyed with the idea of a Busso engined Dolly when my 166 was written off and I bought the salvage. The Busso engine in the 166 has very odd mounting points and stabiliser locations; when you turn it through 90º and imagine it in a Dolomite engine bay, they become almost unworkable.

I sold the engine to a bloke in Portugal eventually.