Triumph Sports Cars

Hi all, here are a few pictures of my 73 TR6. It has a LS3 engine, T56 transmission and a 2010 Camaro rear end. Completely redesigned suspension based on a C4 corvette front knuckles and power steering rack. The rear is a custom upper and lower wishbone suspension. Still have interior to complete.

Hello and welcome.

Quite a shoehorn job under the bonnet. Even found room for the battery!

Extensive rework under the skin, but the bodywork looking stock, incl the bumpers, I like that.
Normally I don't like low-profile tyres on the TR6, but with the (unusual) silver paint it seems to work for me.

How does the ride/suspension performance compare to stock?

Ivor



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/30/2020 04:24AM by 88v8.

The car handles well with no bump steer and balanced cornering. The spring rates used give a similar ride quality as stock, but I am able to adjust the dampening to stiffen it up if I want. It has front and rear stabilizer bars that limits body roll. The body of the car was significantly modified, but hopefully in a way that it did not change the original appearance significantly. All finder flares were increased approximately an inch, and the overall body width was progressively widened from 0 to 3.5 inches starting from front to back. The overall width of the car at the rear wheels increased 5.5 inches. This was needed to give space to properly design the new upper and lower wishbone rear suspension.

Dave welcome to the forum.
You have done a real nice job.
You have done a "Chip Foose" thing on your car and if you did not show those photos of the work in process it would have been hard to tell what was done.
Please post more photos of the car from other angles so we can see your workmanship.

Cheers
Byron

Looks great Dave. Like others, I'd love to see more pics. Do you have a build thread somewhere?

Nicely done Dave. You should consider doing a project journal on this site. There is plenty of space available for both text and photos.

Jim

Nice take on a fender flare I had not seen before.

Congrats!

Appreciate the comments. I do not have a project journal, but will start working on one for this site. It might take some time though. I have attached a few more pictures and a list of what is not standard on the car for more details.

Dave

Great info, thanks for sharing it. Especially the spreadsheet info.

Car mostly finished now, been driving an enjoying. 0 - 60mph in 3.5 seconds, not bad.

Very Nice!! Lots of creativity and great craftsmanship. Enjoy driving it!

Dave,

First of all, WOW! What a fantastic job you have done. Very much what I intend to do, or have wanted to do for some time now.

The body work is supreme. Looks as if it is factory. Just brilliant!

I have several questions about your build and am hoping you might be willing to give some advice.
I would guess you might be an engineer or a custom car builder like the guy from Texas Metal with these skills, but regardless you have been there, done that and can really help those looking to do something similar.

So here are a few questions.

1) The frame looks amazing. Did you design and build it?
2) What size wheels and tires are on it?
3) From one of your posts, am I to understand you didn’t really alter the front of the car (maybe with exception to the fender flares), but the rear wings were cut along the joint line going from zero at the door jam and widening1.75” at the back?
4) How much flare was added to the fenders (wings) at the wheel well?

Thank you for sharing your build with us and being an inspiration to me.

Regards,
Anthony Medina
BLOKEMOTO

Hi Anthony,

Thank you for the compliments. Yes, I am a mechanical engineer but have been tinkering and rebuilding cars since I was 15 years old. One of my first cars to totally rebuilt was a 1973 MGB back in the 1980's. So, skill level has been built up slowly over the years. Because of my job I spent a lot of time traveling and would spend many nights in the hotels studying automotive design and testing out different designs using 3D modeling software. I purchased this Triumph in 2000 with the intention all along to do a V8 Conversion. But raising kids and work did not let me really get started until about 2015. In the meantime, I kept designing and thinking about how I could pack as much modern automotive design technology into this Triumph. This site was a valuable source of information for me and gave me many ideas on how to proceed with my build. So, to pay back as much as I can, I will be more than happy to answer your questions.


1) The frame looks amazing. Did you design and build it? I stripped the original frame down to the base box beams by removing all attachments and designed from there. All the suspension is custom designed for the geometry and weight distribution of this build. Most of the modifications were designed around the donor parts I used; 2010 Camaro differential and axle, 4th generation Corvette steering rack and steering knuckles, etc. But the biggest design element was to make the center transmission tunnel part of the frame structure which significantly added strength to the frame.

2) What size wheels and tires are on it? The wheels are replicas of the 4th generation Corvette ZR1. Fronts are 17" X 8.5" wide with 245-45 tires. Rear are 17" X 9.5" wide with 275-40 tires. Unfortunately, the 8.5" wide wheels are no longer available.

3) From one of your posts, am I to understand you didn’t really alter the front of the car (maybe with exception to the fender flares), but the rear wings were cut along the joint line going from zero at the door jam and widening1.75” at the back? The zero point of the cut and fill to widen the body started just behind the front headlight and continued all along the length of the car through the front fenders, door pillars, doors, rocker panels, and final the rear fender. It was a lot of work, and I did not know if I would ever finish. But I finally did, smoothed out the body and painted the car. Up until then I did not spend a lot of money on the car, only a large amount of my time. But once I got it to this point, it looked pretty good, see below picture, that is what convinced me to go forward with the remaining build (and sink a lot more money into the build).

4) How much flare was added to the fenders (wings) at the wheel well? I extended all the flares equally at the front and back 1 inch. Similar to how I widen the car, I cut along the edge of the flare, pulled it out 1", and then filled the gap.

Feel free to ask any more questions.

David

Caramba, that's almost a new car. Over here in the UK, the licensing people would have a hissy fit and make you jump through all sorts of hoops before you could put it on the road.

Looks as if you managed to use the standard screen.
However, I guess among the smaller jobs was a custom soft top and widening of the folding frame.

A really remarkable job.

Ivor

Dave, I share other posters' admiration for your engineering solutions and craftsmanship in executing them. Great job, and personally I think making the TR6 wider by 5.5'' in the back and tucking up the exhaust pipes is a fantastic visual improvement.

I am working on a similar transformation of my TR6 and have a few detailed questions, if you don't mind. They revolve mostly around the center tunnel to improve torsional stiffness, a concept I am pursuing as well.

Just for illustration purposes I am taking the liberty of re-posting a picture that you had posted in another thread. I hope that's ok.
There is a lot going on in this picture. My questions are:
- I see you constructed a front bulkhead that the center tunnel connects to. The vertical rectangular piece of the bulkhead that's visible for the driver's side (and I assume it's similar for the passenger side) connects to the factory outer rail at the bottom. Checking this on my car, it appears that this might reduce available footwell space. Can you confirm that? If yes, by approximately how much from factory?
- You decided to position the engine fairly far forward, so much so that the battery shelf could be left untouched it seems. What were the factors driving you towards this? Just trying to understand, not criticizing at all. I just noticed that others who did a similar project located the engine further back and re-located the battery. I could imagine that this could reduce available footwell space even more, but not sure.
- The tie rod that connects the front bulkhead to the large round tube (which in turn braces the front suspension to the frame) is interesting. Did you choose this solution for better access to exhaust and perhaps other components over a solid welded (and non-removable) connection?
- I see another tie rod dangling from a bracket just forward of the shifter. What is that one for? Bracing the dash to the tunnel?

Thank you very much!



[attachment 23133 IMG_1567-2.JPG]




Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 01/14/2024 07:47PM by Bremer.

Hi Bremer,

Sorry for the delayed response to your queries. Below are answers to the question point by point. Feel free to ask additional questions. I will try to check the forum more frequently.

Yes, the reason I did the bulkhead is to connect the front of the transmission tunnel to the frame. It's not an elegant solution but one that provided space for the wider V8 and its exhaust. I maintained the stock foot well space. The bulkhead is about a 6mm in front of the stock firewall. One benefit of this design is that it provides additional heat shielding from the exhaust and the interior of the car stays relatively cool. I took a 5-hour drive in the Deep South US in the middle of the summer, and with the top up and the AC on, it stayed very comfortable. I have 12mm jute insulation under the carpet.

I calculated the center of gravity of the car with 49.2% of the weight in front and 50.2% in the rear. This is based on actual measured weights of most of the components and estimate on the rest. Keep in mind on my build that the all-aluminum LS3 engine fully dressed weighs almost the same as the original engine (and I think is shorter), the T56 transmission is heavier than the original transmission and in my case the amount of structural work in the rear frame added weight above the original frame. I pushed the engine as far back as I could, but going any further was not necessary from a weight distribution reason and allowed me to keep the stock configuration.

Not sure why I use the tie rods, but in the end, I am glad I did. Yes, the tie rods take up less space and are adjustable. Once I finished all the welding on the frame, I found out that it was slightly twisted. The adjustable tie-rods allowed me to get it straight.

The purpose of the tie-rods is to get the forces from the front top of the suspension to flow more directly to the center of the transmission tunnel and eventually to the top of the rear suspension. See below more pictures of this set-up without the body. I made brackets that connect the bulkhead to the two different tie-rods. The bracket on the driver side also is used as the accelerator pedal mount. The LS3 accelerator sensor would not fit so I had to modify it and connect it to the accelerator pedal with a tie-rod.

Dave, thank you very much for your post and the photos, very informative and illustrative.
Part of my prior confusion stemmed from the notion that the engine should be positioned such that the block is entirely behind the front cross-member. I have realized (with your help) that this is impractical and not necessary. Also, I noticed that the original inline six-cylinder engine sits partially over top of that cross-member as well.
May I ask a few more questions:
- What is the pulley spacing of your frontend accessory drive? Is it the tight spacing used in the Corvette?
- Would you be able to post a photo of the front of the engine, showing accessory locations and belt routing? I have not seen the alternator placed high on the passenger side before, it looks very well done.
- Did you have to modify the inner fenders at all to clear the alternator/AC pump/PS pump?
- What are the motor mounts that you used?

Thanks again.

The accessory brackets and motor mount were fabricated to fit the engine position and not modify the inner fender. See pictures. Sorry but did not have a good picture of the engine mounts. I had a 3D drawing of the accessory brackets, but at some point, I inadvertently deleted it:( Also, the idler and tensioner pulley used are listed in the above spreadsheet. Hope this helps.

Thank you Dave, appreciate the photos.
There is an AC compressor listed in your table of major components (along with a Vintage Air system). Your pictures don't seem to show an AC compressor. Did you end up deciding against AC?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/09/2024 04:55PM by Bremer.