My 1973 TVR 2500M : Renew and Restomod

Another picture.

It's like working in a cave, sitting under the body.

The fun part of the project, that frame will look amazing once it is all cleaned up and painted. I have done rustoleum is well as used some of the epoxy paints. The more expensive solutions are stronger, but truth be told, my TR4A's frame was painted in rustoleum and still looks great 15 years later. So don't sweat it too much, just get it clean and it should be fine. I sand blasted mine and that may be why the paint has held up so well.

I assume you are doing the full R200, Richard Good kit with the CV axles, hubs? It is a TVR suspension, with TR6 diff, but did it use standard TR6 axles? 

Great project!

In reply to dherr :

Yeah, I threw the whole wallet at the rear end.  I've got the Good Parts CV axles and hubs waiting to go in.  Richard Good said he'd had people put his parts on TVR's before.  The axles are a little longer than the TR6 units.  Stampie did score me a cheap R200, so that helped with the budget a little.  Exciting to have shiny new parts!

I'm pretty well planning on throwing another wallet at Good Parts and getting their Wilwood front discs and rear disc conversion.  I know I want this car to be a strong autocrosser, so why mess with stock parts?  And I've found sometimes the stock TR6 parts are surprisingly expensive.

Is it too early to bring up coil-overs?  These seem to be different than TR6 parts.  Not sure what one calls a coil-over with a bushing on each end.  Universal??

TVRs of your era used standard sized race car coilovers. They had rubber eye bushings, as did many 1960s race cars. Universal is a reasonable term. At one time the Koni catalog had listings for TVR, but probably no longer.

TurnerX19 said:

TVRs of your era used standard sized race car coilovers. They had rubber eye bushings, as did many 1960s race cars. Universal is a reasonable term. At one time the Koni catalog had listings for TVR, but probably no longer.

You put me on the right track.  As always, thanks for your good advice.

I must have been looking in the wrong area on the Koni site.  Looks like they have a variety of race shocks that would work.  One example:

There's the 8212 version as well that has an aluminum body.  These are listed on Summit as "drag shocks" but I think they're fibbing about that.

Ridetech has a Spring Rate calculator based on various suspension measurements and corner weights.  I'm going to take some measurements, make a few guesses on what my weights will be, and see what numbers that returns.

Anyone have experience with Ridetech HQ coilovers?

Been doing some more thinking and measuring on the suspension.  That is between the marathon sessions of binge eating and drinking.

Here's the front suspension:

And the rear:

The coil-overs measure about 15" in this mounting configuration.  The fronts have the engine weight on them, but the rears are mostly unloaded by now.

Playing around with the Ridetech calculator is giving some interesting results.  I estimated a corner weight of 500 lb and 100 lb of unsprung weight. 

The geometry is pretty different front to back.  You can see how the front spring perch is about 2/3 of the way out, while the rear perch is actually several inches farther outboard than the a-arm pivot.  So the rear gets a bit of mechanical advantage.

They suggested 250 lb springs for the fronts - for autocross use - and about 150 for the rears.  Less than I would have thought.  Tip of the iceberg ponderings here, so I'm ready to hear discussion or suggestions.  Certainly not ready go ordering anything yet!

Would there be any advantage to an inboard setup out back?  Ease of access? Reduce unsprung weight? Room for wider rubber?  Looks freaking cool.  And it would look really cool.  I keep thinking the TVR rear lid opens, but there is no rear lid, right?

Did I mention how it would look?  Great project.  Thanks for the content.

I'm impressed by the (lack of) tread on that front tire.  

QA1 seems to have come on strong in recent years as a source for coilover shocks, rod ends and other components.  They seem to cater more to the restomod muscle car crowd, but I think they have universal parts as well.  If nothing else, they make their products here in Minnesota.

In reply to BrianC72gt :

There's quite a bit of room for wider wheels & tires, I think.  I'm looking at 16 x 7 or 16 x 8 Panasports for autocross rubber.  Will probably keep these 14" stock rims for "regular" use.

I've not seen anyone relocate the spring on the back end, thought I have seen people put in a secondary shock on the other side of the A-Arm.  At this point I'm plannning a relatively stock rebuild of the suspension.

And no, there is no back hatch.  You have to get the Taimer model for that.  Those were 1976, I think.

stuart in mn said:

I'm impressed by the (lack of) tread on that front tire.  

QA1 seems to have come on strong in recent years as a source for coilover shocks, rod ends and other components.  They seem to cater more to the restomod muscle car crowd, but I think they have universal parts as well.  If nothing else, they make their products here in Minnesota.

My daughter asked the other day if we would need to get new tires.  I responded that it was a miracle these ones were actually supporting the weight of the car!

They actually do hold air - at least for a while - though I'll admit I'm always afraid one will explode any time I fill them up.

Panasports will look great on it.  I patched up some wiring gremlins for a friend Dave who had a Ford Cosworth motor in his 1972 (ish?)  TVR.  It was his problem child.   Bad Ground wires.  Always bad ground wires.  Mind that.  But, wow, that thing ripped and was a beautiful, untamed, snarling little beastie. His other children were a Ferrari 308 GTS and a pristine Jaguar E-Type convertible.  The stock wheel on that E-Type was a huge delicate Oreo cookie of wood-metal-wood.  It would flex in your hands while you hustle it through some winding roads.  Perfect car for a Summer cruise around eastern Long Island. Back roads, canopy of trees, and the light flickering in.  But mostly it lived in a carcoon.  He sold his children and bought another Ferrari, a 348, I think.  I'm eating leftovers sending mine to college.  Where did I go wrong? 

Thanks for sharing your build, I'm living vicariously through it until time and resources allow me to return the favor.  

Okay, first time I've had in a while to work on the car.  Had gum graft surgery on Tuesday and that has been unpleasantly occupying.  But today I got down to work. 

Exhausting work:

I started this part of the exhaust in the spring, at the same time as I finished the down-pipe.  This basically follows the stock exhaust route, and to....

CH...CH...CH...CH...CHERRY BOMB!

No idea how it's going to sound, but the 80s/90s high-school kid in my couldn't resist!

Worst case they were cheap and I can swap in something different.  I did get the pipes nested in nice and tight to the frame.

Still need to add hangers, but all in due time.

Here's a top view.  Hard to photograph from the top.

And the ground-eye view of the whole system from the down-pipe back.

Probably will do the finish welding soon, just because I'm enjoying doing some TIG welding at the moment!

In reply to TVR Scott :

I absolutely love the sound of cherry bombs! Modern exhaust systems sound great, to be sure, but I love the “bad attitude” sound of a set of glass packs...

Finish welding is done.  Had a few blow outs but nothing impossible to fill.

Count me in to the "cherry bomb all the things!" camp. My rallyx car is an e30 w/ a late 90's bmw dohc 2.8 inline six. The exhaust is the cheapest Ebay headers and universal cat I could get my hands on, feeding a single cherry bomb, and that's it. It has absolutely no business sounding as good as it does. It's racecar loud, but not in an obnoxious way.

I think w/ a turbo as the main muffler, you're going to be real happy with the sound!

TVR Scott said:

In reply to BrianC72gt :

There's quite a bit of room for wider wheels & tires, I think.  I'm looking at 16 x 7 or 16 x 8 Panasports for autocross rubber.  Will probably keep these 14" stock rims for "regular" use.

I've not seen anyone relocate the spring on the back end, thought I have seen people put in a secondary shock on the other side of the A-Arm.  At this point I'm plannning a relatively stock rebuild of the suspension.

And no, there is no back hatch.  You have to get the Taimer model for that.  Those were 1976, I think.

 

stuart in mn said:

I'm impressed by the (lack of) tread on that front tire.  

QA1 seems to have come on strong in recent years as a source for coilover shocks, rod ends and other components.  They seem to cater more to the restomod muscle car crowd, but I think they have universal parts as well.  If nothing else, they make their products here in Minnesota.

My daughter asked the other day if we would need to get new tires.  I responded that it was a miracle these ones were actually supporting the weight of the car!

They actually do hold air - at least for a while - though I'll admit I'm always afraid one will explode any time I fill them up.

16 is a dying or dead size.  I would suggest 15 or 17s.  15s have a lot of good tires.  I think it's mostly due to autocross and cheap endurance racing.  You can get 245 40 15s in pretty good rubber.

In reply to wvumtnbkr :

Hmmm.  I appreciate the input here, because I've not been sure what direction to go.  It's not always clear to me which sizes are dying and which are readily available.

First off in the tire discussion, 14's seem pretty hard to find in anything approaching performance rubber.  Unless I'm missing something.  The size on there now is a 215/60-14, and as far as I can tell stock was maybe around 185/70-14.  That's what the spare is, and any info from history is vague on size.

In the 215 size, I could get a BFG Radial T/A which would probably be a reasonably pleasant street tire.  Beyond that, a 10 second search doesn't turn up much.

A brief discussion of Autocross class for this little monster.  Looks to me like it'll be SSM.  Does that look right?  Is there a lesser street-tire class I can run?  Doesn't look like it.  At this point I don't really want this to be a full-lunatic race car.  I want it to be fun and street-able too.  As far as I can tell, SSM can run full-slick Hoosiers, right?

Looking into 15" tires, the options open up.  225/50-15 seems pretty common for both 200 TW and full slicks.  235/50-15's are available in an R888R.  Looks to be a weird size.  Maybe I could run a Spec Miata tire, though it's getting a little small in diameter.  Maybe that doesn't matter?

In 225/45-16 there are a few options in 200 TW tire.  Yeah, not too much there.

I'm doing a lot of babbling on here, and you guys tend to know more about what's available and what works.  I'm still a novice on the autocross front.  So please, let me know your recommendations.

I don't know anything about the chassis limitations. Are you really limited to 7" wide wheels? If that's the case and a shorter tires don't create any ground clearance or gearing issues, I'd probably go 15s for cheap and readily available tires and not worry about the overall diameter too much. If you really are limited to 7" wide wheels and can't take shorter tires then 16s do have a reasonable amount of tire choices, but if you ever want to go wider you'd be pretty much screwed. On that note, if you can go wider than 7" I would step up to 17s to have access to a bigger variety of sizes and brands.

I prefer 15s for less wheel and tire weight. 

Stampie said:

I prefer 15s for less wheel and tire weight. 

Yeah for sure.  Also, I think 17's would look weird on a car from the 70's.

In reply to TVR Scott :

I feel like 16s are dying out, but they're certainly not gone... While I sort of kicked myself for optioning our '16 Mini with 16s as a compromise between stock 15s looking anemic and 17s creating a worry about harshness for the household appliance, I had no problem getting RE71Rs in that fitment. That said, if new wheels are in the works, 15 or 17 seem safer.

I went 15 on the MGB GT, but could see a future iteration running 17s; I think it can certainly look weird on an older car, but I've also seen enough examples of old cars looking really good on modern fitments that I think it's a matter of getting the overall treatment to work together. Not to get too hung up on aesthetics, but it certainly is one of the things to enjoy about a TVR (or MG). I think really low profile tires are less forgiving of not-low-enough ride heights as far as looks are concerned. They really draw attention to a wheelwell gap.

A taller sidewall is probably a little more forgiving of archaic suspension geometry.

Oh! And your decision of course may be influenced by what wheels you can find to fit this car! I ended up with Enkeis intended for a more modern car (with more offset) and custom spacers. Their shallower outer dishes don't exactly look funny, but on a car like this a bit more dish would probably look better. Depending on budget, an expensive but not catastrophic in relative terms for a custom forged wheel option is something like the Keizer Kosmo, for which they quoted me $400/wheel for 15x7s in a 30mm offset. https://keizerwheels.com/product_cat/formula-sports-car-racing-wheels/ Reasonable for forged 3pc, but still quadruple what the Enkeis cost, IIRC  

In reply to Ransom :

Yeah, definitely shopping for wheels.  Seems like Datsun wheels offer more options than looking for Triumph.  I found 15 x 7 Panasports, or 16 x 7.

Wheel shopping should be by dimension only. The 4X4.5 pattern on the TVR is super common, and don't forget to shop it in metric as well, 4X114.3. Hub centricity is un-necessary too. Wheel sellers that only list by application don't deserve our business. As for Ransom's comment about suspension geometry, it does not apply to the TVR, no live axles here!

TVR Scott said:

Stampie said:

I prefer 15s for less wheel and tire weight. 

Yeah for sure.  Also, I think 17's would look weird on a car from the 70's.

i respectfully disagree. It depends on wheel design, fitment, and tire size. But a 17 absolutely looks right on 70s cars.

In reply to Dusterbd13-michael :

Exception duly noted!

Dusterbd13-michael said:

i respectfully disagree. It depends on wheel design, fitment, and tire size. But a 17 absolutely looks right on 70s cars.

Your car looks good, but I'd clarify that to say they work on some but not necessarily all 70s cars.