I'm not sure how similar a 2500M is to a TR6 for wiring, but later TR6s ran a full 12 volts to the coil while cranking and switched to using a ballast resistor to drop the voltage while running. My previous TR6 ran a Lucas Sport coil which needed 12 volts all the time, so I bypassed the ballast resistor. So you may want to check the requirements of the coil you have and voltage at the coil.
Thanks Joe! I think the TVR ignition wiring was identical to TR6. My car does utilize a ballast resistor as you describe. I know I mentioned it in my previous post but for simplicity sake I did not bother getting it for this start attempt. When I bought by replacement coil Rock Auto had two Bosch units for the TR6- one for use with resistor and one for use without. I got the Bosch P/N 9220081083 (https://www.rockauto.com/en/moreinfo.php?pk=291690&jsn=3) which I was pretty sure the one to use with a resistor, but can't find the spec for it now.
Happy new year! We made engine noises today!
I'm the one with the starter fluid. After this clip we did the full 20 minute break in. I just liked this footage better. Came away with a few new leaks to fix, and and it definitely requires more carb and dizzy tuning, but we're on the right track!
Way to go man! Awesome to hear some car sounds.
Awesome milestone to reach!!!
Congratulations on your progress.
Something else to report on in the meantime. I had my new headers from Rich Good on the car for this start up. In the first 2 - 3 minutes (literally this quickly, I recorded the entire day) of running about 2,000-2,500 RPM the coating began flaking in a very even circular pattern. It was about 40 degrees out and I was running the engine at about 40 or almost 50 degrees of timing advance (not intentionally), so I don't think the headers would've gotten very hot in that short amount of time. I emailed Rich about it that night and he replied saying that he'd seen heads start to glow red hot within the first few minutes. He didn't specify if they were TR6 headers he was talking about. He did say that the coating is rated to 1800 so they shouldn't flake basically no matter what. He's reaching out to the coating company and he expects they'll offer to re-coat them. But then I have to decide if I want to pull everything off the car, send them back etc. Probably at my expense.
Bit of a TBD here, but somewhat disappointed currently.
Shout out to Stu specifically, you may want to think about trying to cure your headers in an oven a bit before using them to start your car. I don't know that my break in procedure affected this. It may have happened anyway.
I haven't seen many coatings hold up on headers. The only ones I have seen are available only to shops and not sold retail to individuals.
Awesome progress though. I can't imagine the excitement of the first start up after such a long project. Good work.
That is disappointing! I even went with the glossy "chrome look" finish, which I believe has a 300 degree lower heat tolerance. Sorry yours didn't hold up, but I hope that's the exception rather than the rule. And I hope either
Richard or the coating company will resolve the issue tp your satisfaction. I'm not really sure how soon I'll be doing a start-up, but it's certainly not imminent!
That is disappointing. I have the same headers with 1500 miles on them and the only issue is a slightly pebbled finish on the bends of the end tubes. There's no flaking and the finish is smooth on the inner header tubes.
Well I have good news to report on the header front. Richard is sending me a replacement and return shipping label at no charge to me. He discussed the issue with the coater and they ( the coaters) only talked about the cause being too much heat too quickly. The header is supposed to be cured at operating temperature for a total of an hour, no more than 700*. Richard and I are both skeptical thats the roof cause since I have flaking all they way down on the flange to the downstream exhaust and it's hard to imagine it getting that hot down there, but not much we can do at this point.
A little more fun yesterday. After the last start I did a fair amount of leak chasing, replacing parts & lines, etc. We're in a better place now. I've gotten the timing set closer to where it should be. Still needs carb fiddling, as it only really runs on the choke right now. But we're going to wait for warmer weather with more realistic temps to get those dialed in. I guess it's back to the boring work of refinishing more rusty parts.
Looks and sounds great!
Did you have your body shell blasted, or are you just really hard-working with a sander? I wish mine was that bare.
TVR Scott said:Did you have your body shell blasted, or are you just really hard-working with a sander? I wish mine was that bare.
Mine was a combination of tactics to see what worked best. In the end a DA with aggressive grits (60-120) worked the best on the large areas. I used both 6" and 3" pads where appropriate. I just had to be careful not to stay to long in one spot, especially along edges. I soda blasted the tighter areas that wouldn't accept the DA, and that seemed to work fairly well but was slower. I've made some progress since the last pictures of the body I posted, but the body isn't 100% bare of paint. I've gotten as much as I'm going to get, the body shop will take it from here.
Just a little bit of an update here. It's been warm enough to start spending regular time in the garage without having to setup the torpedo heater, so that's always more conducive to getting work done. I've been focusing on different areas of the car depending on what I feel like that day.
Carb tuning was going slowly at first but I feel it's turned a corner recently. I had been having issue getting it to run consistently. It would start ok, but after ~15 seconds of idling would sputter out and I would be unable to restart it. After some consultation I decided it was most likely the carbs flooding. The float valves are new and I'd already cleaned each one multiple times with no change in operation so that leaves the pump to consider. I'd been using a mechanical fuel pump (a nice one from TRF at that) so I assumed the pressures would be in the proper range. But then I read some forum posts about even the modern mechanical pumps putting out too much psi for our Strombergs/SU's and the like.
I didn't like any of the pressure regulators that were in the realm of what I wanted to spend, and Pegasus Racing is local to me so I ran over and grabbed a Facet cube style electric pump designed to output up to 25 gph and have a max pressure of 4 psi. I also bought a fuel pressure gauge that I plumbed in line. After getting everything set up it now runs at a steady 1.5-2.5 psi range. If I let the pump run without the engine going it seems to max out at 3 psi or a just little more. Now it starts and idles much better, and I've been able to sync the carbs and set the warm idle. I also got the fuel mixture adjusted much closer to the appropriate range and in general things are much happier. I just need to get the choke adjusted a little more when I get the chance.
I'm redoing the throttle linkage a bit as well. I don't like the factory setup. It's different from what TR6's use and either poorly designed or mine had excessive wear. Mine was both binding and not opening the throttles fully so I'm simplifying with a mix of different universal/Triumph parts. Once I get it completed I'll most more detail.
I've also started working on refinishing the wheels. I used some pretty gnarly airplane stripper (the now illegal stuff) and made a good first pass at removing the old paint. I need to remove a bit more and then whatever is left I'll pronounce good enough to paint over. It'll all be on the back/inside of the wheel anyway so it should be fine. I'm a little disappointed in that there's more corrosion than I wouldn't preferred. It comes off fine but leaves a pitted surface. I don't intend to paint the wheels (other than the areas which were painted black previously) which means I won't be using filler either. I like the look of the aluminum after being wire wheeled with my die grinder. It shines it up nicely but leaves it so you can still tell it's metal, not paint. Similar to how they were a machined finish from the factory. These are probably going to end up being nice from about 5 feet and I'm going to be ok with that. Given the trajectory of the supply of 14" tires I don't want to stick a bunch of money into them. At some point I'll probably spring for 15" or 16" wheels just to be able to get rubber for the car.
I finished working on the carb linkage over the weekend. Here are pictures of the OEM setup, from someone else's car.
Front (Carb side):
Back (engine side):
The front side is not unlike a TR6 setup. But the back is very different in that it uses a cable all the way to the U-shaped bracket which locates the assembly between the two carbs. As I understand it, on TR6's the throttle pedal actuates a rod which runs parallel to the firewall to the right side of the engine. That rod pulls fore/after on another rod which replaces the cable used on the TVR's. On the TVR the cable is secured to that square bar on the back side of the lower linkage and the bar just rides on a post. The problem I was having with mine is there was so much play between the cable bar and its post that it would pull off center and bind up on the U-shaped bracket.
I was also not a fan of the upper portion of the linkage. It's made up of multiple pieces and designed to have a certain amount of play between them, meaning there would be a certain amount of pedal travel before the carb butterflies were actually activated. It's tough to see below but the throttle cable would pull down the threaded rod which rotates the flat bar to which it's mounted. There's a slot in the bar which pushes down on the tab which is what actually turns the butterflies, and there's a gap between the flat bar and the tab, meaning there's 30* give or take of pedal travel before the carbs are actually doing anything. There must be a reason why it's designed this way, as I believe this is the same as on a TR6, but I would rather have a direct connection from the pedal to the carbs. Because race car.
My solution is to use a piece from the TR4 linkage for SU carbs. One solid piece and all I have to do is shorten the bar ends appropriately. I got this one from Moss.
Back to the cable end of the linkage, I source some universal linkage parts from Pegasus Racing. They will perform the same function as TVR's bar, but since it utilizes a ball stud and barrel like the front side of the linkage it will be much more positively located relative to the rest of the assembly. I cut off/ground flat the original post and drilled a hole fo the new ball stud in the same location to mount them.
And voilà! One renewed and improved TVR throttle linkage assembly
Now all that's left is to get some paint on the bracket and the lower pivoting plate.
Nicely fabricobbled!
In reply to TurboFource :
That's a great word, I'm stealing it!
The play in the throttle linkage is adjusted out when properly set up. It is there so the choke can open the throttle for fast idle without having to fight the linkage to the pedal. This is far more needed on a hard linkage set up like Triumph, the cable in the TVR already supplies some.
In reply to TurnerX19 :
That's good to know. I'm used to the motorcycle world, where the play in the throttle is limited to a few mm of rotation and like you said adjusted via cable tension. Glad to hear I should have a similar experience with the TVR throttle cable. I did keep the original upper linkage in case I run into issues. I'll pay particular attention to the choke now
In reply to ViperT4 :
Looking carefully at the original TVR bits the adjustments were only temporary when new, your parts will surely be better when you have finished.
Not much to update currently. But I did get the wheels just about finished. My original plans didn't work out like I thought they would, but I'm happy with them now. The silver areas are a "chrome finish" spray paint so they catch the sun in a really interesting way. It's a shame it's so hard to get 14" tires, especially sporting ones, but I would prefer to run these on the car. But tire availability will likely drive me to purchase a set of wheels a couple inches larger in the future.
In reply to ViperT4 :
Those wheels turned out great!
For a summer tire, you can't beat the Falken Azenis RT660. A 200tw tire that's the darling of the autocross set, and comes in a 195/60/14. True, it's a fair bit shorter than the original tire, but a very grippy tire that lasts fairly well on a light car!. Not for use at or below freezing, however.... but that's true of most all "sporty" tires!
Wheels look really good. I feel your pain on the lack of 14" tires.
I liked your comments on that recent BaT auction. That guy's video showed off some super sketchy driving. I hate it when people are like that.
I thought it interesting that you opted to paint the wheels silver. They do look very nice, and will probably stay looking nice, vs. constantly trying to keep up with polishing the bare alloy! Not the shine of polished alloy, but better than most that you see in use. As to the video mentioned, I thought the guy's driving was sketchy too, as well as the general vibe I got from the guy in the walk-around video. A pretty car, but I have to wonder about a build with a built V-8 and a stock Triumph differential. Pulled some decent money, though!
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