The Triumph Dolomite Club - Discussion Forum

I am considering standing the engine up by 5 or so deg to give a little exhaust clearance, Does anyone have any experience with doing this and if it's likely to cause me any problems.
Cheers Neil

thermostat housing & oil cap will foul bonnet

should of mentioned I am dropping it 3/4" at the same time, will check those bits out though.

Gear stick ?

No experience of it; but, the first thing that springs to mind (now that the bonnet clearance issue has been answered) is the carbs.... SU's and Webers will need to be level; or, at least the floats will !

It does not matter. I have this for many years, having my sump protected by the subframe. When having Su's check the floatlevel. Webers can sit on any angle because the fuel pick up is exact in the middle of the floatchamber. This is also with stromberg en Su HIF.

Jeroen

jeroensprint wrote:It does not matter.

I'll bow to your experience, Jeroen. Something new I've learned today.

The gear lever I don't think will be a problem and can all ways tweak the lever if required.
The carbs also won't be an issue as I will be going injection , I may also make the inlet manifold aswell, shall see how much energy I have left by the time I get there
All good points though and much appreciated.
Cheers Neil

I have the engine roughly mocked up in position now and the only thing that is still bothering me is the angle of the sump pick-up for the overdrive. Does anyone have any experience of running them at an increased angle?
Cheers neil

I can't think it'll be a problem - it's not quite level in the 1850 I have and it seems to work fine...

That's more or less what I said when I looked under it earlier, it's at about the same angle as in the 1850 though possibly in the other direction.

Neil907 - When we do this on an HS Chevette (going from 45 to 35 degrees from vertical) we usually wish to keep the box level too, so we have a 35 degree bell housing made then the box (and if using OD in case of Sprint) are unaffected. Also, the inlet manifolds tend to be shortened and made to 35 degrees, together with a special sump pan. I guess this will allow you to use extractors quite easily. On the slant four Chevette (which already uses extractors in competition form), the extra 10 degrees makes for a few HP power gain - about 8 to 10 BHP. You may also find that if you use stiffened engine mounts chassis mounted(as I assume you will be fabricating these for 35 degree too), then you are reducing the torsional rotation of the slant four by ten degrees, which should help block stresses. Strapped mains and a ladder are probably still wise if you are going for high rpm. Assuming you are trying to get to the limits of the Dolly engine's BHP, it would be wise to go straight prop to your Atlas too, although I can't remember if there are tunnel issues if you do - there certainly are serious mods on equivalent Chevette with either Atlas or 4HA (which the TR7 V8's used too of course). On the sump, it may be worth going dry sump, which you can do using a period or later spec PACE or equivalent pump mounted low on the left hand side of the engine - you should still have room presuming the battery is going to behind passenger or driver seat (which is better for balance usually than boot). Using the dry sump will give afew more BHP - probably 10 to 15 if tuned correctly with the injection. Dry sump was used in period on the Dolly engine in the TR7's. You will probably be able to adapt a Chevette/Sunbeam or Escort drive pully for the pump belt. Again, on the Chevette the alternator bracket is brought up higher with the dry sump set up for access/space etc. When Blydenstein/DTV experimented with injection/48's/300cc capacity increase, they had a fair bit of success, so if you are going to the trouble you seem to be, why not go the whole hog?! Hope this helps and forgive the mention of Chevettes on here, but they are my other passion hence my handle on here! Hope this helps. Good luck.