Engine and Transmission Tech

In Vol. 2, issue 1, Kurt Schley provides engine numbers. I have two examples of the Olds 215 and was hoping to identify their model year. One I got from an engine-builder friend who had had it a long time; it came out of a boat. The one in my '72 TR6 I pulled from a '62 Buick Special at Rohner's junkyard in Willmar, MN (obviously itself an engine swap).

Kurt says the 185 horsepower engines feature prefix SG before a string of numbers on the right cylinder head. Both of my sets of heads have only S, which his chart indicates corresponds to a 155 horse engine. Both of my engines are 4-bbl versions, however, with stock Rochester 4GC carbs and intake manifolds. Odds that both engines had a manifold and carb swap to an original 2bbl configuration seem very low, as do the odds of the reverse--two engine owners swapping 2-bbl heads onto a factory 4-bbl, 185-horse mill.

Does anyone have more info. on the Olds engine? Because Olds varies compression ratio with combustion chamber size (smaller on the higher-compression 185-horse version), I'd like to know if my heads are, in fact, 155-horse versions. I'd also like to know if I can verify engine year from the engine number.

If anyone wants to see my '72 TR6, I have several posts about it on my blog. I don't want to violate this site's policies on links, so I will say "manually" that it is the Motormouth Blog at the Minneapolis Star Tribune. I have info there on radiators, fan spacing, and shortening the TR8 gearbox shifter "remote" so the lever emerges in the proper spot.

Thanks for any responses. Great website. Love Triumphs and MGs and the 215 V8.

Kris Palmer (Motormouth)
Minneapolis

Hi Kris!

I don't know the answer to your question. Perhaps someone else will come along...

However, I definitely want to see your 215-powered 72 TR6!!!

Please consider contributing a "How It Was Done" article to run in the December issue of our Newsletter. We're extremely flexible in terms of the content of these articles... but they're a fifteen year tradition. Information and a convenient template for presenting an "executive overview" of features and specs can be found here: [www.britishv8.org] Remember... we're happy to display as many high-quality DETAILED photos as we can get. They're worth a lot of words, you know!

I'd be happy to contrribute but the car isn't done. It starts, runs, drives, but there's no interior except driver's seat, windows aren't in, top not on, back bumper off....

Winter will soon be upon us here in MN, so it won't get finished before spring. If you do pieces on builds-in-progress I could put something together.

Kris (Motormouth)

Sounds perfect already in fightin trim! LOL.

Is your 5-speed a T5?

No, I've got the TR8 5-speed. Had to shorten the "remote"--the linkage section with the shifter--but that went well. Now it emerges in exactly the right spot.

Got some pics and the story of that mod here: [www.startribune.com]
Kris

Quote:

I've got the TR8 5-speed.

That's actually a Rover "LT77", isn't it?

In the article, I didn't understand the comments about wanting to go backwards to a Muncie 4-speed and Hurst shifter, especially now that the 5-speed is dialed in. I'd have thought that a more typical "upgrade" would be to go to the (reportedly) somewhat stouter, smoother-shifting, later-model Rover 5-speed... the "R380". Another thing to prefer about the R380 might be its shift pattern, with "reverse" down and to the right.

Quote from Curtis: "In the article, I didn't understand the comments about wanting to go backwards to a Muncie 4-speed and Hurst shifter, especially now that the 5-speed is dialed in."

You're right about backwards, but it's an emotional-philosophical idea, not a logical one. :)

I grew up loving muscle cars and all their surrounding parts lore and the names of the day: Hooker, Holley, Hurst, Muncie.... I also have a corrupt notion of originality at work with this car. Part of me did not want to hack up a perfectly operational TR6. My engine ran like a top, used no oil--I even like the straight-6 growl. But something hypnotized me as a youth when I heard about British cars with V8 muscle--the Cobra, Tiger, Aston Martins.

While I was on vacation in England visiting a transplanted friend, he gave me a 1993 copy of Performance Car magazine that contained a tribute to the 215 V8. The piece tracked the motor's history from GM through to all the British sports cars it has powered. I was captivated--lighter, more powerful, the V8 sound, and this familial link to all these other great British cars. Here was a mod I could do to give my '6 extra oomph, while staying true to a line of performance enhancement older than my car. Putting a 215 in the TR suddenly felt pure--true to a tradition. I even convinced myself that Triumph probably got the idea of using this motor in the TR line well before they got round to the TR8.

So that's the vision driving my engine swap: it's a mod, but a classic mod. With the exception of my alternator, mini-starter, electric choke, gearbox and the plate for relocating my oil filter, everything in my car is a genuine classic piece and would have been available to TR6 engineers or factory-team car builders in 1972.

And I love the crispness of my Hurst shifter. It's so direct, solid. Wonderful feel. My TR8 box is smooth and very nice, but I love that high-performance bang-out-a-fast-quarter-mile feel of the Hurst. Give me some driving gloves and cool sunglasses and line up my V8-TR next to Michael Sarrazin in his Cobra and Raul Julia in his Daytona. "Gumball."

Curtis quote: "That's actually a Rover "LT77", isn't it? "
I'm not sure. I bought it off the net from a guy who said it was a TR8 'box. It's the same as the TR7 5-speed as I understand it, so either it's that, and he had a V8 bellhousing, or it's a genuine TR8 'box. This guy raced V8 TR7s and TR8s and sold me a mini starter, lightened flywheel and TR8 u-joint steering section too. I've read there's a TR8 heavyduty gearbox too. Couldn't tell you if that's what I have--unless you know a number and where I'd look for it.

Kris



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/04/2007 11:52PM by motormouth.

I may be able to help you as I have a 1961 2bbl engine from a running car bought about 30 years ago and a 4bbl 1963 original Olds engine. When these engines were new Edelbrock did a very good study as they and Isky were in the early stages of developing and manufacturing speed equipment. I think it was written up in a Hot Rod magazine which I have somewhere. Lance Reventlow and crew did some work on them as well for the Scarab formula car project. There was a 3rd 215 Olds F85 engine with a turbo, too - I am not sure about the heads ID on it.

Kris, can you post a shot of the combustion chamber?

Jim