I'm also going to post on the Triumph forums but thought I'll also ask here. I've just bought a TR7 for vintage/historic racing. The car was always a race car and has been restored for this purpose.
I'm looking at two options instead of the 2.0 TR7 8 valve engine. The obvious one is a Rover V8 conversion into a TR8 as I've already got two extra engines laying around. The other is the 2.0 16 valve Dolomite Sprint engine that was used in about a 100 or so TR7's that were sold only in the U.K. It uses the same block as the 8 valve and is a doable conversion with a bit of effort.
The 16 valve heads and components are readily availble fairly cheaply in the U.K. but its the cost of shipping them over here that that's the big expense. I'm also finding it difficult to get race tuning information on the 16 valve.
Is there anybody on our side of the pond that has involvement with these engines?
Your best bet is to find someone that could package up a lot of them and send via slow boat freight. Maybe the Roadster Factory would let you have some space in one of their containers.
BTW the TR7 w/Sprint head was not imported partially because it was too much of a threat to the TR8, which you probably already knew.
Head over to retro-rides.org and participate in the forum. It is a UK based forum and there are quite a few Dolemite/1300/1500/toledo enthusiasts on there. These folks are keen to help and love to share info.
The best place to start at RR is the modus operandi
http://retrorides.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=45829
Follow those rules and you will be welcomed with open arms.
Then post questions in the tech forum. You might even find the bits you need in the classifieds.
I just can't bear the thought of disabling a sprint for a TR8 though. I think dolemites are my favorite small 70's sedan.
I would take a toledo over a dolomite
I had a highly modded sprint engine in a TR7 track car about 15 years ago. It had high compression pistons, cam, header, and twin Weber DCOEs. It revved like crazy and went really good as long as you kept the revs up above 3K all the time. Biggest issue was the lower end. Every oil change required rolling in new bearings. I got so tired of dealing with it that I sold the whole thing to a TR7 ITB and Vintage racer guy in Atlanta. Dropped a mildly modified 3.5 into the car and never regretted it. 10 TR8s and 3 SCCA ITS TR8 race cars later, I'll tell you there is no substitute for the V8. Don't waste your time with anything TR7.
