My 1973 TVR 2500M : Renew and Restomod

   Sorry... more Daimler SP250 trivia.  When it came out, nobody expected much from it.  It was an EP car in 1960, and a Duncan Black (son of the creator of Black & Decker) took it to a class championship. In typical SCCA knee-jerk fashion they re-classified it to CP where it struggled, yet won another championship in 1963!  Trying to find info about American TVR racing success is much harder, as I heard that the big boys made sure that TVR wasn't classed as a production car due to its somewhat limited production numbers. 

In reply to Stu Lasswell :

Funny you'd say that - Mark Donahue says he bought the Daimler because he saw Duncan Black doing so well with one!

Back to the TVR, that chassis is going to be so much better than new!

dherr (Forum Supporter) said:

Back to the TVR, that chassis is going to be so much better than new!

That's the plan!  I'm just excited to be talking about chassis paint.  Long road.

Hello from another TVR owner. I'm eager to read this thread. Mine has also been a long road. Not finished. 

Best regards, 

Bernard

In reply to Slow_M :

Very nice, Bernard. Is it a real Griffith? I see fuel injection, and the headers don't look like the original layout. Hey, not being critical, just curious, as I haven't had the chance to see one in person (at least not in 30 years or so). It looks well along the way to being a serious runner again!

Thanks Stu. It's an M with a 5.0 Ford bored and stroked to 331ci w/ all forged internals, dry sump and AFR heads, Supra Diff, custom axles, RX7 front brakes, 240SX rear brakes, Tremec TR3550 five speed, Tilton floor mounted pedals, Aldan shocks, and most imporantly, musical horns. Other stuff has me sidetracked. Race car I picked up for too little money, and a custom cafe racer. 

If you need any info, I'll be happy to help. I've been around Ms, mine and others, since they were new. 

B

In reply to Slow_M :

There are TVRs all over this board now!  They're the new Miata!

Thanks for sharing yours - looks like you've been deep into that project for a while.  What's going on there on the passengner's side - where the heater box and fan would normally go?

Got some more welding done today.  I really want to get this finished up and tidied so that I can get a bit of room back in my shop.

Had this little mess to fix on the rear shock mount.  Former rusty spot:

Fitting the reenforcement plate:

And all finished:

Then it was on to the jack points.  First were the base plates themselves.  Got all four of them welded in:

Then added in the centering ring:

I got most of the way thru the second one, AAAAAAND, I ran out of argon.  Ugh.  Packed the bottle in the truck, toodled over to Airgas, only to find they're now closing at 3:00.  It was 3:20.  Double Ugh.

So, I'll get more Argon tomorrow and get back at it then.

Full diameter welds for a jack locating ring is a costly use of argon for sure. 

Not to say I've never overkilled something. The frame is looking great! 

Right.  I hope you never want to remove those rings.  Really nice looking welds.

JoeTR6 (Forum Supporter) said:

Right.  I hope you never want to remove those rings.  Really nice looking welds.

I have ground off my own welds before.  It's a miserable experience.

TVR Scott (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to Slow_M :

There are TVRs all over this board now!  They're the new Miata!

Thanks for sharing yours - looks like you've been deep into that project for a while.  What's going on there on the passengner's side - where the heater box and fan would normally go?

Several gallons of hot oil, with which to threaten the passenger with cooked feet. It’s a dry sump tank, with an integral Oberg style mesh filter, in the lid. One corner is a bit close to exhaust primary tubing. Will throw plenty of foil and wrap at that area. 

(The heater core once blew up, and showered a friend’s legs and feet in hot coolant, so not much difference.)

In reply to Slow_M :

Dry sump.  Fancy.  You just need the extra height?  What's your goal with the build?  Track car or some other purpose?

In reply to Slow_M :

"Several gallons of hot oil". Wow, I didn't know that a dry sump needed that much, I just thought they relocated the sump, with the usual amount. 

Stu Lasswell said:

In reply to Slow_M :

"Several gallons of hot oil". Wow, I didn't know that a dry sump needed that much, I just thought they relocated the sump, with the usual amount. 

They take an amazing amount of oil. My Cayman has a "semi-dry sump" system and takes 8.1 quarts of oil. Full on dry sumps can take 12 or so.

Holy crap.  I think I'm done with frame welding.

Refilled my argon this morning and then finished the jack points.  I'm very happy how they turned out.

Moving on to the bent and smashed roll-bar mounts.  I did a bit of bending and smashing of my own, and then added support plates to the outsides:

I really hope the access isn't too bad on the inside, and I don't regret doing the plates on the outside.  I'm planning to do a nut-plate for the inside fastener, which should make things straightforward.

Then I briefly removed the front rotisserie mount and reinstalled the intercooler.  The little mounting tabs on the bottom needed to be buzzed in.

Reinstalled the rotisserie mount and did the finish welding:

I'm winging the whole front end / cooling arrangement a bit, but I feel good that it'll come together.

Lastly, PAINT!!

Lowes even had it on close-out for $14 a gallon!  I guess they don't sell it much, so they're discontinuing it.  Bargain for me!  I picked the darkest shade on the card.

Happy day!

Trying to wash that stuff out of a brush is like trying to empty a swimming pool with a teaspoon. Id reccomend disposable brushes,  not expensive stuff. 

Also, if you need to clean up a drip, acetone seemed like the best solvent. 

In reply to Dusterbd13-michael (Forum Supporter) :

I wondered about that before buying the nice brush.  In the past, I've had reasonable luck cleaning Rust-Oleum out of brushes.

   While that paint is still tacky gasoline takes it off pretty well. I did some painting on my frame in shorts and flip-flops and had a skin cancer check-up the next day... I had missed a lot of splatter and had to tell the doctor to ignore the black spots, they weren't melanoma! They went away eventually.

Holy @#^*ing E36 M3! I feel as though I've read to the end of the interwebs! 41 pages of this is like The Epic of TVR Gilgamesh!  

To be honest, I feel guilty, toward both of you, Stu and Scott, for not discovering your two threads earlier. I feel I would have been able to save you some time.  

Scott, I think I can show you where you can add tubes and tabs to the greatest effect, to add maximum chassis stiffness, for the minimum weight penalty.  I know, you thought you were done. Bill Jongbloed, who also made lightweight racing wheels, used to do a "chassis stiffening kit," or service, or some such thing. Stu, sorry, yours is in paint. 

Part One: Two tubes on each side, ahead of the middle outrigger, to triangulate the open box from each bottom corner to the kink in the upper frame rail. 

Part Deux: The bottom of the transmission tunnel is an open trapezoid. Weld in some tabs, and bolt a sheet of Al, or steel, or CF in there. I have a paper that shows the difference in a later (Cerbera) chassis.  Happy to send it to you. Nm/deg jumps from 1,182 to 2,508.  I know they're not the same, but damn close. 

Shocks: I have the Aldans, but they seem massive. If I had a do-over, I'd inquire about the weights, and try to lower unsprung/overall mass. 

Springs: Talk to me, I have a database of some stuff. 

More another time. Meanwhile, my build thread:  https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&f=34&t=1080028&i=0 

Later, 

B

TVR Scott (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to Slow_M :

Dry sump.  Fancy.  You just need the extra height?  What's your goal with the build?  Track car or some other purpose?

Insurance. The working limit, for a N/A short deck Windsor small block, from all of my research, is 550hp. This one is set to max out just below that, at 525 (500-550), so I picked up a main cap/stud girdle and the dry sump set up. 

Stu Lasswell said:

In reply to Slow_M :

"Several gallons of hot oil". Wow, I didn't know that a dry sump needed that much, I just thought they relocated the sump, with the usual amount. 

Part of what a properly designed dry sump system is supposed to do, is to de-aerate the oil. The pick-up is at the tank’s bottom, and the tank is filled with baffles. The more volume of oil there is, the more it can de-aerate, before it’s distributed through the engine. 

Another advantage is that along with oil, the pump scavenges air and gasses from the crankcase. That frees up hp, because the crank doesn’t hit all of the little droplets of oil, that are normally flying around in there, it doesn’t have to encounter aerodynamic losses, and the pistons don’t have to push a heavy column of air on the down-stroke. 

Slow_M said:

Part One: Two tubes on each side, ahead of the middle outrigger, to triangulate the open box from each bottom corner to the kink in the upper frame rail. 

Part Deux: The bottom of the transmission tunnel is an open trapezoid. Weld in some tabs, and bolt a sheet of Al, or steel, or CF in there. I have a paper that shows the difference in a later (Cerbera) chassis.  Happy to send it to you. Nm/deg jumps from 1,182 to 2,508.  I know they're not the same, but damn close. 

Shocks: I have the Aldans, but they seem massive. If I had a do-over, I'd inquire about the weights, and try to lower unsprung/overall mass. 

Springs: Talk to me, I have a database of some stuff.

Definitely would like your input on frame stiffeners.  Could you please draw in on this picture specifically where to add cross-bracing?

I know the exhaust partly intrudes into the PS area there, so a big 1/8" aluminum sheer plate might be the way to go for me.

I like the idea of a metal heat shield there anyway, so this sheer plate can probably do double duty.

Likewise, I'm going to have to do some trimming around exhaust and transmission, but the big sheet across the open trans tunnel sounds perfect.

Send me a PM with spring and shock info, please!

In reply to TVR Scott (Forum Supporter) :