Did our high-tech parts allow us to mate our vintage engine and transmission? | Project Elva sports racer

Update by Tim Suddard to the Elva Mk VI project car
Oct 6, 2022 | Elva, Elva Mk VI, Pegasus Auto Racing Supplies

Photography by Tim Suddard

When we first started our Elva Mk VI sports racer project, we were missing some critical parts. On a more common car, that might not be such a big deal.

But since Elva only built 30 copies of our model, this was going to prove to be quite an obstacle.

Fortunately, we ran into a reader who had the missing parts. While he wasn’t willing to give or sell them to us, he did agree to loan them to us so that we could duplicate them. (And yes, if you are thinking this sure is the hard way to build a race car, you are right.)

But we forged ahead with Tom Suddard and Steve Eckerich, who were willing and able to duplicate those parts using high-tech CAD software and 3D printing combined with old-fashioned machine work.

[A crash course in 3D printing | Making Stuff: Part 2]

We had now reached our big test: Would we finally be able to correctly mate the engine and transaxle together?

We first fitted the adapter and bellhousing spacer to the transaxle. Then we fit it to the engine.

Everything seemed to line up.

Next, with the flywheel and clutch accounted for, we would mate together the whole assembly.

While we have figured out how to mount a slave cylinder and have ordered parts from Pegasus Auto Racing Supplies, we will have to come back later and make this portion of the show operational.

So, after much anticipation, we have successfully mated our engine to our transaxle with the parts that we manufactured.