Matthew Reidy Remap for Freelander 1 L series ?

Nodge68 · Jun 9, 2016

Joe_H said:
Hi Nodge, I didn't realise the C27a was not an earlier version of the KV6 - interesting.
I believe that (supposedly) the Pond Vitesse was fitted with modified struts only - HOWEVER - the local traffic cops and also the armed response units (who were mates of mine) used a manual box special version of the vitesse 2.7 around that time. It was definitely modified from the 'public' version - it was certainly lighter (A hell of a lot of trim and weight was removed) and reportedly (by the cops) had been fairly well 'breathed on' in most departments - engine - suspension - brakes etc.
So, quite possibly Tony's car was 'production' but not 'public' production
Ref the tr6 and 200 Brake - amazing - it was actually incredible what sort of power outputs were being produced in the 70's and 80's. We had an A series demo at 'mini sport' - 1400 cc mini with 100 at the wheels - and still driveable - more or less. My Chevette had to be changed to single cam with the modded road rally regs in the early 80's that banned twin cams and more than 2 choke inlets. the Vauxhall 2.3 lump with Blydenstein head and cam - and twin 2" SU carbs produced 180 at the wheels - again still driveable. Coupled to a getrag box and G4 axle with LSD it was a total best.
As for sunbeams which i think (in lotus body trim) are one of the best looking cars made - when the regs banned twin cams we fitted the 2 ltr talbot engine with suitable head and cam, standard mods like flywheel skimming etc - on either split dcoes (using one choke from each carb to avoid flow biasing to the inner cylinders) they were incredibly quick and handled beautifully. There is something magical about rear wheel drive on road or stage, not exceptionally quick by modern standards but totally memorising to watch. You can't beat the smell of Castrol R and burning rubber along with the deafening noise of the cr&p hitting the sump guard and underbody...

I think I might have a few years on you (11 if the 68 is birth date lol) I stopped the paid mechanical work in 1982 and continued to do it as a hobby whilst I still had the rally cars.
I have been to the IOM twice only and both times on business for the health service. Due to limited flights and short meetings we had more or less the whole day(s) to ourselves. The local health service gave us a pool car to use and my partner was well into the TT stuff and went every year - so I got full tours of the circuits - excellent stuff. Not really into bikes, but would have loved to have been at the Manx rallies in the days of Pond, Jimmy McRae and Russel Brooks etc. All I managed was copies of the videos and in car suff...

The 88-89 800 Vitesse was fitted with a Honda engine, a good one at that. I'm also confident that the Pond Vitesse was modified to some degree. The exhaust wasn't standard, it's far to raspy, something that the production exhaust wasn't.
I can believe that lots of excess weight was removed as the trim was heavy stuff. The rear seats weight a ton too, so those would have been missing.
What is interesting is the revs achieved by the engine. It spends lots of time over 6500 Rpm, jumping over 7000 Rpm as the wheels lift on humps. Something is amiss here, as the engine ECU limited engine speed to about 6600 iirc. So the tachometer was just as optimistic as the speedometer, or the ECU rev limiter had been tweeked. Interesting run to see again though.
Back when I was building modified cars, improving performance wasn't as easy as it is today. It was always tricky to optimise the carbs and ignition to the engine's requirements. With today's electronic controls, these important functions can now be spot on for the entire rev range, regardless of load or throttle position.
I have a 72 Hillman Avenger GT in my garage which I plan to restore, one day. The engine hasn't run for 20 years but is still free turning and rust free internally. That engine is running 1700cc with PowerMax pistons and a modified Tiger head. The inlets flow almost 100 ft per minute which gave a not to shabby 145 Bhp running twin 45s and big exhaust. I remember it took ages of dyno time to get it running acceptably through all conditions. When I get her running again, I plan on using a modern injection system. I'm sure it will make more power and be more tractable than carbs and a dizzy setup.
Yes I was born in 68. Nodge is my nickname

LUKBENPHI · Jun 9, 2016

Joe_H said:
e Pond Vitesse was fitted with modified struts only - HOWEVER - the local traffic cops and also the armed response units (who were mates of mine) used a manual box special version of the vitesse 2.7 around that time. It was definitely modified from the 'public' version - it was certainly lighter (A hell of a lot of trim and weight was removed) and reportedly (by the cops) had been fairly well 'breathed on' in most departments - engine - suspension - brakes etc.
So, quite possibly Tony's car was 'production' but not 'public' production

Some say that Tony's car spent longer in the factory than others

Nice to know that a british car was the first to do 100mph lap off the TT course

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct..._ND21B-yZtZq-o7bPu7foA&bvm=bv.124088155,d.bGs

Joe_H · Jun 9, 2016

Nodge68 said:
The 88-89 800 Vitesse was fitted with a Honda engine, a good one at that. I'm also confident that the Pond Vitesse was modified to some degree. The exhaust wasn't standard, it's far to raspy, something that the production exhaust wasn't.
I can believe that lots of excess weight was removed as the trim was heavy stuff. The rear seats weight a ton too, so those would have been missing.
What is interesting is the revs achieved by the engine. It spends lots of time over 6500 Rpm, jumping over 7000 Rpm as the wheels lift on humps. Something is amiss here, as the engine ECU limited engine speed to about 6600 iirc. So the tachometer was just as optimistic as the speedometer, or the ECU rev limiter had been tweeked. Interesting run to see again though.
Back when I was building modified cars, improving performance wasn't as easy as it is today. It was always tricky to optimise the carbs and ignition to the engine's requirements. With today's electronic controls, these important functions can now be spot on for the entire rev range, regardless of load or throttle position.
I have a 72 Hillman Avenger GT in my garage which I plan to restore, one day. The engine hasn't run for 20 years but is still free turning and rust free internally. That engine is running 1700cc with PowerMax pistons and a modified Tiger head. The inlets flow almost 100 ft per minute which gave a not to shabby 145 Bhp running twin 45s and big exhaust. I remember it took ages of dyno time to get it running acceptably through all conditions. When I get her running again, I plan on using a modern injection system. I'm sure it will make more power and be more tractable than carbs and a dizzy setup.
Yes I was born in 68. Nodge is my nickname

- I feel old now

I actually have a lot of time with setting up DCOE carbs on rolling roads - I worked with them for about 2 years if I can be of any help ? - mind you, that was 79 - 82 and I doubt the parts are as easily available now - we had boxes and boxes of main jets, air correctors, pump jets, emulsion tubes (mind you we mostly stuck to F11 tubes on ALL vehicles).. idle jets etc etc, we even carries solder around - we used the lead / tin thick solder wire to block progression holes around the butterfly valves when needed. - also carried loads of chokes and a lot of very small venturi chokes so we could turn them out on a lathe if needed for a specific size. I suppose without a shedload of the parts at hand it would be a total waste of time.. I forget that is 36 years ago - YIKES !!!

GULP !!!
Only time we ever really really struggles was a formula Atlantic conversion to a 4AGE Toyota 1600 from an MR2 - this was converted to twin 40's with a Ford Kent vacuum -less Dizzy and lumenition. I remember you saying you used to do flow bench stuff - you would have loved this ! - eventually the head needed the ports REDUCING in size as we could not get suitable atomisation due to the 8 port 16V design !!. (toyota originally used a system called TVIS with the injection - basically a butterfly set closing off 4 of the inlet tracts until about 2000 rpm was reached - we could not reuse that though - It did eventually go like stink lol. Shows that heads designed for EFI are not always the best when used with carbs... I believe the early vauxhall 16v units WITH the efi were also improved by a slight port reduction - I never used a flow bench myself though - I know we had many issues with matching the inlet flow to exhaust escape ability though - the header lengths of the exhaust manifolds were a work of art to get an extractor effect going well. We had a guy - John Mangoletsi - doing inlet manifolds at the time - great work.. anyway - I digress

-

Ref injection - I had a TVR 350i Wedge which I sold to a mate about 12 years ago when I retired and went sailing (a hard life I know lol) - It had the Buick design / Vitesse 3.5 lump in from the factory. He now runs a 4.5 Ltr twin plenum open intake system with a 'Megasquirt' ecu that he built himself and setup. It uses a cool closed loop Lamda and can - within reason - self tune. Final work was done on a Rolling road.
He reckons it is absolutely great to work on and there is stacks and stacks of info and forums out there. That would be good to use for a home setup injection and good value also !.

Loads of info on google on Megasquirt !.

Joe (feeling old

)

Joe_H · Jun 9, 2016

OT but hey ....
Here is one of my very very favourite Tony Pond clips in a Sunbeam - I am 100% convinced he was slightly 'stoned'

- which was not unusual at the time lol

- a lot of the time the smell of Castrol R was mixed in with a hint of weed...... (from both spectators AND drivers / navs.)

I love the sarcasm and wit - Ian Grindrod has a wicked sense of humour too ! - the guy was a regular visitor at the Clitheroe motor club in the 'old days.
Very funny guy.

Heres a quote from Ian - (Jimmy McCrae was the driver

)

Grindrod remembers one incident, from the 1982 Welsh Rally, particularly well.

They were carrying too much speed into a left-hand bend on the notorious Epynt Military Ranges and having dropped a wheel on to the grass their Opel Ascona 400 rolled into a ditch, then went end-over-end twice, finishing up sliding along the ditch on its roof.
As Grindrod recalls: “My full-face crash helmet seemed to scoop up half of south Wales in its aperture!
“When we finally came to a stop, still upside down, I managed to scramble out of my door and was crawling around on the grass.
“I could hear Jim shouting to the quickly gathering spectators, ‘I’ve blinded him, I’ve blinded him!’. And to all those gathered around, that’s just what it must have seemed, with me scrabbling about on the grass with the front of my helmet full of bits of scenery.
“‘It’s OK,’ I shouted back. ‘I’m looking for my fags; they must be out here somewhere!’.
“He never forgave me for that!”

Nodge68 · Jun 9, 2016

I'd love to get the old Avenger running on electronics. I know it would be more tractable for it. The problem with the big port head was the slow port velocity at partial valve lifts. This literally allows the fuel to drop out of the air and run along the port bottom. I seem to remember that the engine was really sensitive to air correctors on setup. Even when it was perfect at WOT, it would suffer half throttle enrichment. I remember it took about 3 tanks of 4☆ to get it to a state of tune where I could drive it on the road. I think I would be better reducing the port diameter to increase velocity. Using injection should then improve fuel mixture quality and it's torque output. Ignition timing will also improve as I can set the spark to a timing figure that is needed, without having to use simple bob weights on the dizzy to do a haphazard timing job.
All this is academic as the car has been on blocks since 91!!

Joe_H · Jun 9, 2016

Nodge68 said:
I'd love to get the old Avenger running on electronics. I know it would be more tractable for it. The problem with the big port head was the slow port velocity at partial valve lifts. This literally allows the fuel to drop out of the air and run along the port bottom. I seem to remember that the engine was really sensitive to air correctors on setup. Even when it was perfect at WOT, it would suffer half throttle enrichment. I remember it took about 3 tanks of 4☆ to get it to a state of tune where I could drive it on the road. I think I would be better reducing the port diameter to increase velocity. Using injection should then improve fuel mixture quality and it's torque output. Ignition timing will also improve as I can set the spark to a timing figure that is needed, without having to use simple bob weights on the dizzy to do a haphazard timing job.
All this is academic as the car has been on blocks since 91!!

Hi Nodge, we usually found that reducing the diameter of the chokes helped that problem - I have seen it many times. 45 DCOE's are a tad large for 1700 cc - but still should be ok with small chokes (Venturi(s) in - unfortunately around 28mm is the minimum on 45's - however, you can go down to 24mm on 40 DCOE carbs. The smaller chokes hardly ever altered WOT power at all until you went over 2 ltrs with crazy lifts etc. If you are unable to cure the half throttle issues, then 40's would have been better. Anyways - no worries

- Get a megasquirt on it !

BTW, what was the 1725 Hillman that was fitted with twin 40's out of the factory ? (I am sure it was a hillman>?) was it a Holbay modded one ?

I remember getting DCOEs from them in the scrappies - they were a bit of a bugger though as they had extra progression holes in which had to be blocked.

Nodge68 · Jun 9, 2016

Joe_H said:
Hi Nodge, we usually found that reducing the diameter of the chokes helped that problem - I have seen it many times. 45 DCOE's are a tad large for 1700 cc - but still should be ok with small chokes (Venturi(s) in - unfortunately around 28mm is the minimum on 45's - however, you can go down to 24mm on 40 DCOE carbs. The smaller chokes hardly ever altered WOT power at all until you went over 2 ltrs with crazy lifts etc. If you are unable to cure the half throttle issues, then 40's would have been better. Anyways - no worries - Get a megasquirt on it !

BTW, what was the 1725 Hillman that was fitted with twin 40's out of the factory ? (I am sure it was a hillman>?) was it a Holbay modded one ?

I remember getting DCOEs from them in the scrappies - they were a bit of a bugger though as they had extra progression holes in which had to be blocked.

I think that 45s were to large for the 1700 engine which was probably the problem. The 300° cam was also a bit much for road use too.
I will look at the Megasquirt and a couple of other after market ECUs too.
The Holbay Hunter did have 40s out the factory for a while, so did the Avenger Tiger and Sunbeam TI. The latter two made a solid 100 Bhp from factory, which sounds kinda pathetic these days doesn't it.

Joe_H · Jun 9, 2016

lol, yes Nodge, 100 sounds pathetic, but, it was amazing at the time..

(Also, I completely forgot about the Sunbeam TI !! doh !.
Re ecu's for aftermarket - I think the Megasquirt is the one to go with.
Joe

Matthew Reidy Remap for Freelander 1 L series ?

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