VitesseEFI

Uh huh….. And there was I getting all excited 🙂

There’s a kit that fits an R200 in a small chassis Triumph?! 🤔

Usual classy work on the instruments. Came out nicely. Not sure I’ve fully understood the technology of the replacement speedo. Obviously I do understand the speed calibration part but how have you gone about calibrating the odo?

Nice pile of clean parts you have there! The chassis pic of the rear wishbone mount looks a bit like it’s had a minor shunt at some point and the wheel’s been hit with the force passed back to dent the chassis. Fairly typical Triumph injury but yours is a very light example. Double skinned at that point a some anti-crush structure. I have a much worse example in my carport that came with my GT6. Had 15mm of shims which was using all the bolt. Decided not to use that one! shifter mod looks decent. Interested to see how you mount it in the car. I struggled with the body on!

Yeah….. looks odd on those wheels too. In answer to your propshaft question…. I don’t think there’s much to be gained buying an MX5 propshaft. I’ve got 1 1/2 here because they came free with very cheap gearboxes and the half does actually slip snugly over a random Triumph section I had kicking around. I even though about welding them together myself….. until I considered how close it runs to my arse!

For both of ours we had new propshafts made from new parts. The mainly because the factory MX5 units have staked joints making re-using the yoke problematic.

Original S6 rather nicer in all respects and only a bit heavier! Height would be a problem. Not light either and no obvious RWD gearbox solution. Suspect the Jag V6 and RWD box as occasionally fitted to MX5s will be just too big. Although I have seen a couple with RV8s squeezed in.

Yeah….. have given this some thought. Was always a great admirer of Alex’s Viva. These engines were never plentiful here though. Ford Probe was maybe the most common and they are mostly gone. No natural-fit RWD gearbox and needing to make the inlet and 2x exhaust manifolds makes this a serious effort!

Well yeah…. It’s based on and developed from the late 50s Herald. Only somewhat developed mind! The main surprise is that they are as good as they are. this is a rather more extreme development (just in case you’ve not already come across it (random episode I’m afraid) )

The whole project was a howling bastard. Took months. By about half way through I was just being stubborn. I don’t remember the rod being especially awkward, but it had plenty of serious competition. The final kick in the nuts was that the howlingest bastard of the lot was the gearbox I fitted, which whines vigorously in all indirect gears. Louder than the Triumph box that came out in fact. 1 -3 I don’t mind that much. It sounds “authentic”. 5th though - that’s just annoying. I do have another box and all the special parts will swap over, though interestingly enough the Mazda box in my sons Spitfire (mated to a Ford Sigma 1.6) is noisy in exactly the same way so maybe we just need to develop a better sound proofing approach. I shall follow this with great interest as my GT6 engine isn’t the healthiest. Not sure I can stand loosing the 6 cylinder noise though.

They are, from most angles. And really small. I spent the 2 plus years of my restoration wondering whether I’d be able to drive it (I’m 6’3” and son’s Spitfire was a very tight fit). But it’s fine. Though getting out with dignity is a challenge. Key is to use the Triumph seats. MX5 seats only work for shortarses….. It’s a nice drive too; completely different from the near-mechanically-identical Vitesse and also the Spitfire.

Couldn’t find a place to comment so I made one….. Nice looking little car in the first pic…. Like the wheels (14”?) been looking for a set for years! My GT6 build thread is here https://sideways-technologies.co.uk/forums/index.php?/topic/7535-nick-chriss-gt6-mk-3/#comments might have something useful. Also my MX5 gearbox conversion here https://sideways-technologies.co.uk/forums/index.php?/topic/8925-mazda-gearboxes-some-bstard-told-me-it-was-impossible-so-i-had-to-do-it/ Obviously you’re not trying to fit it to the Triumph six but chopping the box tail housing down, mountings, speedo drive and moving the gearshift position are also covered. I wouldn’t recommend repeating my gearshift mods, although it works ok it was a lot of effort and I think it would have been smarter to accept the position of the shortest of the “easy” mods (look for the links in my thread), mod the tunnel cover and perhaps move the handbrake back 60 - 80mm which is alleged to be easy…. Keep up the good work 🙂

Best me to it. Looks quite promising. Reckon it’ll do way better than that. Suzuki trans stuff is usually very tough. Maybe not 200 bhp though. Ah, yeah. That’s what I thought. At the time I was doing conversion kits (approx 2006 to 2016), Volvo 340s and R100s were plentiful in scrapyards and parts cheap. Now they are almost all gone and scrapyards just frag any they get as no one buys bits off them. As the Volvo 340 CVs are unique to them they haven’t been available new for years. So the joke is on me as the Triumph parts are now easier to find…. Even if they are all aftermarket and rather crappy.

As always, it depends. It is of course possible to cut and shut the axle bars to shorten or mix and match ends. Requires fairly specialised skills to do it reliably though. I’ve always taken the parts-book Lego approach to mix and match OE components that happen to fit together. The challenge is finding them as most parts books only specify the spline/flange/whatever that interfaces with the car, not the ones that interface with shaft bar. My secret weapons were a parts book thst did have this information in most cases (now woefully dated and replaced by a much less useful online version) and guy in the propshaft/driveshaft trade who kept the information in his head. He’s retired now. There are definitely other possibilities out there. I’ve got most of a solution that involves Ford Fiesta (Euro) parts it’s painful as the right parts are used on very specific models and year. There’s a fella on the Sideways forum who says he’s found another, though he hasn’t said what yet an it might be for the R160 diff anyway as he like them.

https://www.jamespaddock.co.uk/driveshaft-pair-rotoflex-cv-conversion214623cv These (other suppliers are available, I think they are actually made by Classic Driving Developments) plus a Blackline would be a nuts and bolts solution.