Thread: Project $ 3 K Is Underway

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Ah......you guys are pikers! Check this out;
Untitled Document

If you click the back link at the page bottom you'll find photo links to more modified Sprites with rotaries, various other transplants.

Originally Posted by Bob Parmenter

Ah......you guys are pikers! Check this out;
Untitled Document

If you click the back link at the page bottom you'll find photo links to more modified Sprites with rotaries, various other transplants.

Thanks for the link, Uncle Bob.... Everything IS better with a Hemi, isn't it????

I thought I had an MGA bought here a couple years ago... Unfortunately the seller was some sort of purist and got wind of what I was wanting to do to the car and killed the sale!!!! Bummer..... and it was even a friend of mine who told him!!! So, I'm still looking....

Originally Posted by Dave Severson

Thanks for the link, Uncle Bob.... Everything IS better with a Hemi, isn't it????

I thought I had an MGA bought here a couple years ago... Unfortunately the seller was some sort of purist and got wind of what I was wanting to do to the car and killed the sale!!!! Bummer..... and it was even a friend of mine who told him!!! So, I'm still looking....

NO I DON'T THINK SO !

Originally Posted by Bob Parmenter

Ah......you guys are pikers! Check this out;
Untitled Document

If you click the back link at the page bottom you'll find photo links to more modified Sprites with rotaries, various other transplants.

I have to admire someone with a deep enough passion to drop a fortune in time and money into that little car. But not for my taste. I like a little room in the engine compartment to keep the nuckle blistering down, and my wife happy. Doing that to any number of cars that are bigger would be more of a pleasure. I guess we all have our passions. When I was a kid my Dad imported Lancias, Alfa's, Feraris, Maseratis, and other exotic used cars from Italy into the US where he sold them. Since my brothers and I were all between our High School years, he'd get us to work on them. I hated taking the radiators out of the Lancias because there was no room for anything under the hood. They were a pain to get under as well! Butttttt... they were a blast to drive and very quick in the low gears!
I remeber test driving one after a little work on a Friday night with my friends, yelling how fast are we going, everything was in metric, and the guages were in Italian, so I'm squinting down looking at the dim speedo guage reading 160 kph when I see a pair of red lights ahead rapidly aproaching(tail lights of a car in front of me) I had to down shift to avoid rearending the guy in front of me, blew a hole in the muffler! Told my oldest brother when I got home, so we did a high school muffler patch, i.e. aluminum foil, wrapped with an aluminum soda can, clamped with bale wire. My Dad never noticed or said anything when we returned the car to his house the following week. Steve.
The car was a 1967 Lancia Zagato. Very cool car.
Sorta like this one but just red.

Awesome, Bob. I'm sure that Sprite is a blast to drive, at least in a straight line. I, too, wonder how they managed to get that Hemi and Corvette suspension under that tiny body. Also I wonder about foot room. Those Hemis are wide and the Sprite cockpit is small even with the original engine. Goes to prove you can swap anything into anything if you have a big enough torch or hammer.
Somehow, however, I think the essence of the "British Sports Car" would be lost in the process. The light, easy and responsive handling of these cars is what distinguishes them from other forms of drivers. In terms of ultimate cornering speed many modern cars can far surpass these models.....it is the balance and feel that I love and want to maintain.
Different strokes.

Just a little update on what we have been up to lately. I've kind of mothballed my '39 Dodge because I want to spend as much time helping Dan get his '29 running as I can. Don and I have started to go through his T bucket again and correct all the little things that needed attention.

We pretty much parked it and threw a cover over it after the broken steering arm fiasco, and he has a new girlfriend, so his interests have shifted slightly. But this week we began working on it again. The car has never been quite right, I think in our hurry to build it in 88 days we simply rushed some things too much and were also mentally and physically burned out and just missed some things.

We think the motor problem is behind us. The new head work seems to be holding fine, so now we just have to put some miles on it and dial it in. The suspension is another matter. The car just didn't handle right, and had a very bad hop in the rear that was getting worse. I took all four of his tires to a friends shop so he could balance them on his super duper balancing machine. He found out one of our brand new wheels was made crooked at the factory. I called Coker and they are issuing a pickup for it and will send us a brand new one. I put the wheels on the car the other night and ran the engine while it was up on jackstands, and one wheel really wobbles.

We also wanted to make sure the whole car was "square" to the frame, so we ran a line down the dead center of the car and started measuring kingpin locations. We found the front axle was out of square about 1/8 of an inch, but we found out the wheelbase on the drivers side was shorter by 9/16ths of an inch from the passenger side. So he and I removed all the radius rods and redid everything and now the wheelbase is exactly the same on both sides and the axles are square to the frame.

We also reset his caster down to 6 degrees. It was too high at about 9. Another thing we did was buy a new set of forged Speedway spindles to replace the modified Chevy ones he had on it. I miked the bearing surfaces, and the outer wheel bearing was 6 thousandths too loose on the spindle, so there was some wiggle in it. I also adjusted the play in his steering box as it was way too loose.

Finally, we modified a stock Corvair forged steering arm and got that painted today. Monday night we plan on reinstalling all the front brakes and maybe taking it for a test spin. I feel pretty confident that we have corrected a lot of sins in the car, and it should handle much better now. I guess that is what we get for rushing to get the car done for Daytona.

Don

Yesterday I did a little more work on Don's T. We are scrapping the entire front brake setup, spindles and all, and are going with some Wilwood front brakes. The GM setup seems to have a little too much weight, so we kind of think by going with a lighter setup we will lose some unsprung weight on each wheel and the car should maybe handle better.

I installed the new spindles and new steering arm and got everything lined up much better than we had done it originally. I also took some of the play out of his steering box, it was pretty sloppy although brand new. I'm not totally sold on these Flaming River boxes yet. For the price they charge and the reputation they have, it just seems like there are some areas that always need adjusting or fiddling with.

While I was doing all of that, Dan was working on his '29. He is now making the rear crossmembers, and the first one he is doing is the one that supports the shocks. He needed to position that one so he can position his panhard bar and remaining crossmembers. He doesn't like the look of the plain round tube crossmember (surprise, surprise ) so he has decided to punch all 3 of them full of holes and sleeve them with 1.25 inch tubing. At least it will give him a chance to play with the Tig and gain some experience with it.

Here are some pictures of how the first crossmember came out.

Don

Originally Posted by Itoldyouso

Just a little update on what we have been up to lately. I've kind of mothballed my '39 Dodge because I want to spend as much time helping Dan get his '29 running as I can. Don and I have started to go through his T bucket again and correct all the little things that needed attention.

We pretty much parked it and threw a cover over it after the broken steering arm fiasco, and he has a new girlfriend, so his interests have shifted slightly. But this week we began working on it again. The car has never been quite right, I think in our hurry to build it in 88 days we simply rushed some things too much and were also mentally and physically burned out and just missed some things.

We think the motor problem is behind us. The new head work seems to be holding fine, so now we just have to put some miles on it and dial it in. The suspension is another matter. The car just didn't handle right, and had a very bad hop in the rear that was getting worse. I took all four of his tires to a friends shop so he could balance them on his super duper balancing machine. He found out one of our brand new wheels was made crooked at the factory. I called Coker and they are issuing a pickup for it and will send us a brand new one. I put the wheels on the car the other night and ran the engine while it was up on jackstands, and one wheel really wobbles.

We also wanted to make sure the whole car was "square" to the frame, so we ran a line down the dead center of the car and started measuring kingpin locations. We found the front axle was out of square about 1/8 of an inch, but we found out the wheelbase on the drivers side was shorter by 9/16ths of an inch from the passenger side. So he and I removed all the radius rods and redid everything and now the wheelbase is exactly the same on both sides and the axles are square to the frame.

We also reset his caster down to 6 degrees. It was too high at about 9. Another thing we did was buy a new set of forged Speedway spindles to replace the modified Chevy ones he had on it. I miked the bearing surfaces, and the outer wheel bearing was 6 thousandths too loose on the spindle, so there was some wiggle in it. I also adjusted the play in his steering box as it was way too loose.

Finally, we modified a stock Corvair forged steering arm and got that painted today. Monday night we plan on reinstalling all the front brakes and maybe taking it for a test spin. I feel pretty confident that we have corrected a lot of sins in the car, and it should handle much better now. I guess that is what we get for rushing to get the car done for Daytona.

Don

Don---Am I missing something here? Is coker selling wheels now, or was it a tire with tread shift that they are replacing?---Brian