The Triumph Dolomite Club - Discussion Forum

tony g wrote:I may be wrong Phil, but some people remove the rear one for better handling it seems... If no help on dimensions I'll measure up for you on the weekend

Tony

Hi Tony. I have read a few things about that but it seems like mostly track day cars. At the moment my rear passengers end up on the opposite side of the car after a corner unless I crawl round it. Also as all the rear end weight goes to one side it can get a bit twitchy, especially on poorly maintained roads in the south east where the top layer of tarmac is coming off. You want the weight on all the wheels as even as you can get it. I've had a look for dimensions but can't find them anywhere yet.

Recently I've noticed that in warmer weather the engine runs warmer so I've been trying to think of a way to allow some of the hot air out of the engine bay without cutting holes in things. So today an idea popped into my head. I removed the seal from the front edge of the interia fan compartment, then used some of the kids play doh to measure the gap when the bonnets shut. The play doh was20mm thick. That meant there is a 20mm gap along the width of the bonnet to let the hot air out and allow more cool air to enter the engine bay. I took it for a nice drive down country lanes, duel carraige ways and towns where there was traffic and just by removing that one seal the engine runs cooler and doesn't smell like it's got hot. Such a simple thing that's taken me ages to think of!!

Blobs of play doh after closing bonnet

Any chance of a picture of your engine bay Phil? As the owner of a Dolly and an MX5 I am very interested in how your conversion looks.

Edit: That's weird I just looked at earlier updates and I swear I never saw any pics in the thread before now.

The seal is there to stop hot oily smoke getting into the car via the heater.

Steve

Carledo wrote:The seal is there to stop hot oily smoke getting into the car via the heater.

Steve

Normally yes but its a jap engine so oily smoke wasnt an option

Tony

Karlos wrote:Any chance of a picture of your engine bay Phil? As the owner of a Dolly and an MX5 I am very interested in how your conversion looks.

Edit: That's weird I just looked at earlier updates and I swear I never saw any pics in the thread before now.

There are pics of the engine bay on page 4. It sits very well in the engine bay with just enough room to get your arm down either side.

tony g wrote:

Carledo wrote:The seal is there to stop hot oily smoke getting into the car via the heater.

Steve

Normally yes but its a jap engine so oily smoke wasnt an option

Tony

I've also been told today about a coolant flow mod. When the engine was originally in the Mazda 323 before they turned it 90 degrees the outlet pipe was on the back of the engine so all 4 cylinders got an even flow. When Mazda put it in the mx5 the moved the outlet to the front so number 4 cylinder runs a lot hotter than number 1. You can get a kit that moves the thermostat and out let to the back so it cures the problem.

Good point on the relocate. I have a diagram of that somewhere

Tony

Before I did the conversion I did some panel repairs on the front wing and today I finally decided to make it the same colour as the rest of the car. Looks a bit smarter now. Here are some pics of the work I did.

I've been getting fed up of pumping the tyres up every other day due to the alloys loosing there paint and lacker so today I dug out the set of steel rims that came with the car. I'm going to clean and paint the steel rims to tidy them up then put the tyres on them and use them while I sort the alloys out. Luckily a set if nuts and hub caps came with the car aswel.

TR7 Steelies look good on our cars, are cheap, a bit wider than stock rims, fit the PCD and hubs and go under the arches nicely.

You are not the first to discover that old Sprint alloys are not good at keeping air in!

Steve

Struggling to up load pics at the moment due to amount of pixels. To get a good pic need to be close then once I've cropped it enough to upload you can't tell what it is. Is there any way to get round this? Never used to have this problem.
Anyway don't want to buy more wheels as they are only going to be temporary. This number is stamped into them. Rkc0318. Don't know if that corresponds to what car they came off. Today I got the rubbing compound and polish out and did a test on the bonnet. Managed to remove the dull layer of paint after a lot of elbow grease and once I put the polish on it improved it so much. Might have to get an electric mop to do the rest of the car.

Found an app for my tablet so picture problem sorted for now.

Just found some pics of the headake I mean wiring.