The Triumph Dolomite Club - Discussion Forum

I am heading slowly towards completing my sprint engine build. (It will be mated to a sprint box)
I am hoping to retain my 1850 subframe, and use jag engine mounts
as they are available as OE, and are excellent (I borrowed the idea from Caterham, and used them in my spitfire) Helpfully, the mounting centres are the same as dolomite. A simple adaptor onto sprint or 1850 engine mounting brackets should be very simple.

Is there anything I need to watch out for? I guess clearances to rack, bonnet etc are all quite tight? My usuiual approach is to chock the engine in place with blocks, use card to design any brackets, make in steel and tack weld those the original engine brackets in situ. Take off and weld properly.

Follow up question. Where does the engine stabaliser fit? struggling to find a decent pic or description, and I have one that has lost one half.

It doesn't feel right to use these. I think you will have a lot of vibration and does the Jaguar engine has 4 of these on an engine?

The angle of the Sprint engine is different as the 1850 so make sure it's correctly otherwise the gearbox won't fit properly and the exhaust won't fit.

When you have to make brackets, why not make the ones to weld on the subframe and using the original sprint type engine mounts?

Jeroen

Stabiliser fits on the front of the exhaust manifold to chassis rail, see pic.




Hope this helps,
Peter.

I have 'lost' the original CAD files, but I do have a readable scan of the drawing I prepared of the brackets to convert an 1850 subframe into a Sprint one and where they need to be relocated:



The engine steady bar clamps to the exhaust manifold via a couple of brackets and to the nearside front subframe bolt via another bracket; I can probably find all the bits for you.

It's a 2 page PDF of which only the first page is showing for some reason...and after having sent it to John Stevenson in NZ he pointed out I've mixed up offside and nearside on the title! John's son was going to re-draw it for him, but I haven't yet heard what success they had

PM me an e-mail address and I'll send it to you.

If there's enough interest, we could get some of the plates laser cut and folded/fabricated with the gusset

soe8m wrote: ↑Wed May 24, 2023 10:17 am It doesn't feel right to use these. I think you will have a lot of vibration and does the Jaguar engine has 4 of these on an engine?

The angle of the Sprint engine is different as the 1850 so make sure it's correctly otherwise the gearbox won't fit properly and the exhaust won't fit.

When you have to make brackets, why not make the ones to weld on the subframe and using the original sprint type engine mounts?

Jeroen

I used them when I fitted te TR7 engine in my Toledo, and worked absolutely fine. On my spitfire (ST170 engine) they have covered 35,000 miles now, again no issues at all. So I am confident in their quality/petformance. And as mentioned, they are available as OEM (at 3x the price of the cheapies, but worth paying the extra)

Slowmo wrote: ↑Wed May 24, 2023 10:26 am Stabiliser fits on the front of the exhaust manifold to chassis rail, see pic.




Hope this helps,
Peter.

Yes, very helpful. I have some of that (the bracket on teh engine) just the threaded section had been chopped off, so missing the bracket on the chassis rail. Unless it is in a box somewhere?

cliftyhanger wrote: ↑Wed May 24, 2023 1:36 pm

Slowmo wrote: ↑Wed May 24, 2023 10:26 am Stabiliser fits on the front of the exhaust manifold to chassis rail, see pic.




Hope this helps,
Peter.

Yes, very helpful. I have some of that (the bracket on teh engine) just the threaded section had been chopped off, so missing the bracket on the chassis rail. Unless it is in a box somewhere?

The body side of the stabiliser bracket is under the subframe mount bolt, so usually gets left behind on the donor car!

Personally, I can see the advantage of fabbing engine mount brackets to take angled mounts. ANYTHING you can come up with has to be better than original design horizontal Sprint mounts!

Heres another tip from my mount fabbing experience, when you get the engine just where you want it, jack it up a further 1/4" or thereabouts before making your CAD pattern mounts. Then when the rubber mounts bed in, you won't have to resort to spacers as I invariably seem to have to. But if you DO need spacers later, Spitfire front camber shims are easily and cheaply available and work a treat!

Steve