Update by Tim Suddard to the
Sunbeam Tiger project car
Jul 10, 2012
Our Tiger is officially complete, but are projects ever really complete?
We cured our driveline vibration by properly balancing the engine with this flywheel weight.
Between work sessions on our Mercedes sedan, Triumph TR3 and Shelby Mustang, we spent time on our Sunbeam Tiger again. The car is finished—are they ever really finished?—we weren’t happy with the steering and a driveline vibration. Rebuiding the steering rack again and shimming the weight of the rack with less pressure has helped that problem dramatically.
As for the vibration, we had made a stupid mistake and hadn’t realized the engine in our Tiger was not zero balanced. We needed external weight on the flywheel. We learned that one the hard way: It is tough to be an expert on all cars all the time, and we’re only human. We make a few mistakes along the way too.
Old Ford small-block engines are balanced externally with what is called a #28 weight on the flywheel. New Ford engines are internally balanced. The experts at Centerforce and Cobra Automotive quickly helped us solve the problem; we should have the Tiger back up and running soon.
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