Photo test 2 - Project Silver

[Paul Roberts]

Ah, that's better!!!!

Thought it was about time I posted a couple of pics of Project Silver. Progress is slow but sure. Try to get something done everyday ... but best laid plans and all that. Had hoped to have the car up and running by Christmas, but ...

Still, it's good theraphy to go into the garage and play a couple of nights a week.

Paul Roberts
Perth
Western Australia





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[DavePoth]

That's a rather nice tubular manifold you have there Paul. Do you know of a supplier?

Car looks really classy in silver. I can't wait to see it finished.

[Mad Mart]

How have you managed to get that zorst manifold squeezed in?

[Dollyboy]

that car is gona look fabulous, wanted to see one in silver for a while, i think my toledo has a good chance of being done silver, with satin black boot panel, satin black or vinyl roof and maybe a nice satin black wide stripe that goes down the bonnet and middle of the front...

manifold looks good, I'd have one of those too if you fancied making another one, in fact i'd have 2!

[richard4040]

that looks fookin amazing. so cool. im toying with the idea of something unusual for when i spray my sprint.
not sure though.

[AdamF]

That looks lovely mate!

Silver is a very flattering colour for a dolly

[Lee Flintoft]

Yep, like it, but i think i'd have rolled engine and gearbox/zorst in on the subframe from underneath, would have been petrified on ruining the paint job, but what do i know!!!

[Neil907]

That manifold does look nice. I would also be interested in two if we could get some made.

[Paul Roberts]

Thanks for all your comments - it does look nice doesn't it!! I did another silver one about 18 years ago. There was a picture of a white Sprint in one of the promotional brochures that almost looked silver which I always thought looked really special. When I decided to restore my car, it seemed an ideal time to change the colour. That silver car was my daily driver, but I also did a fair bit of club competition work with it. Then came the fateful day I decided to go racing and basically turned a fantastic road car into a slow race car. I have attached a picture.


Had a lot of fun over a couple of seasons (early 90s), but never had the funds to do it properly. Unfortunately, I hadn't heard of the Sprintparts guys in Australia at the time, didn't have any contacts and thought all the technology to make the cars go well was in the UK!! Anyway, to cut a long story short, marriage, mortgage, kids ... the racing budget was gone (although I did get to race a very fast TR8 a couple of times in the mid 90's thanks to the generousity of a friend).

The race car sat in the garage and gathered dust for about 10 years until I decided about 2 years ago the look for a good shell to make another car. The idea behind Silver Mark II is to make a nice example of a Dolomite Sprint (ie the best of everything I have goes on the car), but utilising some of the go faster bits off the race car so I can do some competition stuff and have some fun. Ideal scenario (in my dreams!) is to go up to the race track, run some laps and then have the same car to go to a meeting the next day!!

Re the manifold - had this made up by a good exhaust specialist when we were racing. As you can see from the pictures, it takes some cutting and shutting of the suspension turret and a little bit of work on the gearbox cover, but installed it looks "very factory".

Engine is in mild tune - balanced, lightened flywheel, fast road cam. Would have mounted it up onto sub-frame and droped body on top as Lee suggested, but when I was ready to put the car back onto four wheels, the engine wasn't ready.

Few more pics attached from the extensive file of pics!!






I'll keep you posted on progress.

Thanks
Paul Roberts
Perth Western Australia

[Mad Mart]

That looks great! The mod to the Turret looks fairly straight forward, what did you have to do to the g/box tunnel?

So the question is...Can you still get the manifolds made & how much would they cost? (that was 2 questions).

[Lee Flintoft]

Love the racing pic, the wheels suit too!

[KWM338R]

That racing shot looks like a good candidate for "what happened next?"

Cheers
Mark

[Lee Flintoft]

I agree, hope he beat the mini

[Judge Mental]

Looks like a really nice project. I have some experience of turning a fast road car into a comparitively slow race car so I know where you are coming from on that one!

Scott

[Hans ten Broeke]

Very nice pictures indeed, the racing picture right out of that time, sometime you wish classic racing was still like that, but it isn't.

I hope it will show it is not necessary to alter the turret / chassis rail, although, Bunkus (The very fast German racing Sprint owner) did even make a rather large hole in there.

A few questions: are you willing to give some sises from the length diameter and so one.
Did this specialist make some calculations, or just by experience.
Are there some dyno figures against the original manifold with the same cam.
What cam was used, one of the original ST types.
What about the only 5 fitting points in the head, and eventual leaking.

As told before, one of the project waiting to be done is to design such a manifold, what is coming more near, I collect today the reworked and new bushed con rods for the spare, test engine, most of the other parts are done already. The rest of that part can be seen on my site under test chassis.

On the other hand, the standard manifold is quite effective, connecting 1 to4 and 2 to 3 and this all in a very small place.
lots of other cast manifolds do look rather bad in comparison.

Moving the starter motor and cutting / welding the alu ring between the engine and GB give quite some extra space.
changing to a center clutch cylinder takes the heat away generated here, and give some extra space.

Any input in this is highly appreciated

Hans