Manifold for the dolly!

oops, despite bein totaly skint i couldnt help myself buying this! a nice weber manifold for he sprint, i may or may not use it, im currently looking at getting a hot engien for the sprint also so might go EFI, if i dont get the engine ill keep it for the time being or sell it on again!

new bits!!

Well the 1st major bits for the new engine started coming through last week thanks to james S.

got a piper rally cam 300deg 46-78





some new followers



some lovly double springs



and finaly some special 1 piece steel valves



they are all obviosuly for the spit, only cost me under £150 in total so rather pleased! need to get back to work though before i go spending much more!! but certainly putting it into reality though mind and not just an idea which is nice!

on the dolly iv had a few pieces through the post today, some speakers


not anthing fancy or expensive, but aslong as they give half decent sound when you wack the volume up ill be happy, just need 2 more now and to fit them!

and also had a central locking kit through today!


thats it for now! ned to get fitting things up!

New Dolly Pt2

ok so had the dolly now for a couple of weeks and 1st imprssions are great! why? well i saw it for sale for not much more than the 1500 and i always had it in the back of my mind that i wanted a sprint + it had a few of the extras i wanted!

well as you can see from the pics below the body work is solid, it just has a few dents in it where its rolled off the ramps in the garage and needs the bonnet and boot spraying the same colour and it'll looks ace! although makes it even funnier when you burn off those boy racers!!! ahahaha speaking of which, it certainly goes some! and there is nothing better than seeing the looks on peoples faces as you fly infront of there chavved up pile of plastic! and fly off into the distence :D

It handles nicely aswell as its polybushed all round near enough (one less job to do!) and is nicer on the longer journeys as it has overdrive! although has a shake that i wanna get sorted, either wheels need balencing or prop.

so far iv got it back from cambridge, been up to north yorkshire and back and then took my bro down to swansea and back so its certainly had some use! and has never really missed a beat!

plans really for it arnt too much as i need to concentrate on the spit, but i want to get some decent speakers fitted, get the outside looking presentable, work out a few bugs/leaks etc and maybe get some trumpets or something if some come by at stonleigh next month

unfortuantly no more progress on the spitfire really, still waiting for room so i can start on moving the engine back! really want to get it in asap while im off work so have lotas of time! but we shall see, meanwhile im still researching on what to do on this new engine, looking at the option of making it a 2.3........ :D

New Dolly

good news and fun news :D

well after not really believeing my GP about the whole hernia thing, rang up my consultant at the hospital and made an appointment to go see him asap, turns out its not a hernia! WOOHOO! but dunno what it is heheso MRI scan here i come.

and 2ndly been off driving some rather nice cars this morning :D Lamborgini Gallardo, Ferrari 550, Porsche 997, Aston Martin DB9 V8 Vantage and a Jag XK8. needless to say, it was awsome! and id love to get my hands on a lambo or ferrari and be let loose for a day round donnington :D

photos are at
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=16215&l=10546&id=508569408

PAIN IN THE....

.......stomach............

had abit of a blow this week, only gone and pulled a hernia havent i! :( feeling pretty peed off as i had planned to do some mods on the spitfire today but cant really risk making it worse! gotta go see the surgeon at some point so thats me off work over winter! owell at least i can stay in the nice warm and cosey house rather than out in the freezing cold! saying that as soon as im up to it ill be working on the spit :D

as i said i cant really risk making it worse this weekend, mainly for one reason, next weekend im going over to prestwold hall to do whats called the euro challenge :D which involves drivin a lambo, ferrari, jag, aston, porsche and a imprezza round the track for a few hours :D should be awsome, so more updates and pics after that!

as i said i was planning on doing some mods on the spit today, this was mainly to get the back end lowered more by drilling new holes in the uprights where the springs bolts on, will still do this but will just be delayed slightly, and still hoping over the winter months i can get the engine moved back and a new mad straight 6 in there too!

and a quick congratulations to Karl at KD Triumph who has recently become a daddy again with his baby boy Jack!

The Jolly Dolly!

few months back now but yup, i now have my 3rd triumph, and green dolomite 1500, the spit hasnt made way for it though this time, its to be used while the spit goes off the road soon for the modifications iv got planned!

bought it and got it through the mot with a new upper and lower ball joint, sorted! since then its just been a new wheel bearing and while changing that i saw the brake disc was cracked, so stuck on 2 new discs and pads while i was at it! bodys in Good nik bar the rear wings which is normal, nothing major, and paints abit naff but will come up better with a polish. but when its a daily who cares?

since iv got a feel for the car now i have to say dolly are great little cars! handle really well (suprisingly !) and are great fun, just need a bit more power.......roll on sprint ;)

anyway heres a couple of kak pics!

lots happened recently!

well 1st off iv stuck a rear lowering block in at the rear, bit of a pig of a job, not helped by the block not quite fitting right! nothing that abit of filing didnt sort! courtesy of mr dave pearson of canleys, on the sunday after the HCR while i got my VL aswell after they broke (see below!) back ends gone down quite nicely, still have room to go lower but as ill soon have my 14" revolutions back on didnt want to go too far! (fitted a 1/2" block)
Before

After

also iv changed the whole front suspension! fitted some nice AVO's and some 600lb springs, WOW! what a difference! its actualy smoother over the bumps etc than before (spax and 330's) maybe its just how the shox are set up? but sooooooo much better round the corners and under braking! as approved by GT! certainly cant wait to get it back on track and really test it out! but that wont be till next year now!
front as is now
and the car as a whole



speaking of GT hes been over in ENgland for the past week or 2 helping out various people inc. mr jason chinn with the PI systems and also popped along to mr davies with the silver back with a driveshaft? or something, been here there and everywhere! anyway he got me a new metering unit asap after realising just how rich it was! made his eyes water :D hehe and so he came over yesterday and fitted it, well what can i say! its goes soooooo much better now! so much smoother and lot more economical! wow! on a small initial test comeing back from work fuel consumption was probably 1/4 if not halved! without the use of OD as it packed up on me! bah stupid wire came loose again! (thats you GT running over that bump ;) how dare you ;))
just going to change to some colder plugs and should be done with that for now!

had the MOT too! flew through! ALMOST! hehe silly me A. hadnt adjusted one of the rear drums for the handbrake properly doh! and B. i noticed my passenger side steering rack gaitor was abit holey so got a replacement (thanks phil!) and went about changing it, only to find it wouldnt fit! (THANKS PHIL!!!) so after it failed mot as i had not way of securing it down i went to my local spares shop for some and checked them before i paid, only to find they wernt the same...........hold on..........DOH! checked spare gaitor in the boot and was the right shape! oops! theres the idiot coming out in me! haha so went back today and went through fine.........

meanwhile iv decided to build up a new 6 pot! plans are still abit sketchy but looks like iv found an engine just up the road from me! and will have a sideways special head! rally cam and followers, bore out to 2137?ish or so, so bigger pistons aswell, still yet to decide which, GT may have some late autumn for me. just generaly gunna be a mnetal flying banana!! muwahahaha hopefully get it built up and finished by winter then transplant the 2 engine when dave has some spare time and work out any bugs ready for the spring/summer track days! but it will take time to get doen as im still recovering (financialy!) from being off work for so long! so get the cooling sorted then its all engine! (and some for booze and lasses i guess ;)) at least by fuel bills wont be so much!

i think thats about it!........for now......;)

ok ok! ill update the blog!

had a few people saying iv not updated for ages so here! although tbh i have quite abit to catch up on! and no i still dont have those pics for the last post.........haha:P so where do i start?

well 1st off i nipped down to see karl (www.kdtriumph.com) one saterday and we decided to do a few bits on the car and started on the wheel bearings as they were fooked, stripped everything off cleaned the hubs up and stuck the running ring? that the bearing runs on, only to find that the hubs were mega fooked aswell! the runner just spun round easy peasy! bum! (no wonder i was getting vibration on the motorway!) and we had no thers there! but wait! there was the vitesse he svaed only the other day! perfect! (i still agreed with jason that we should have just wipped off the whole front suspension of karls knakered vitesse ;) hehe) so hadda cuppa and set to work on stripping the vitesses hubs down, and luckily enough they were fine! took up the whole day though! nevermind! Plus just to top the day off i had quite a big oil leak on the way back out my oil cooler! pulled off the m42 and put me breaks on and suddenly swerved over the left as my right brake was just covered in oil! parked up at tesco's to fill up and on my way out from paying i noticed quite a large pool of oil underneath! oops! got it home tried to sort it but no luck so wipped it off!

then only on saterday (5th of may) on the way home from loughborough, i go round a roundabout and hear a clunk! had my music on so didnt quite make out what it was, still drove and not far from home so i thought id carry on steadily, pulled up at some traffic lights on the M1 roundabout, lights went green set off and CLUNK! nearside dropped to the ground! then.........

SHIT! luckily nothing was behind me and just checked nothing was coming by the side before i could jump out! Couldnt have parked it better! blocking the northbound exit! haha then CRAP i hadent got the breakdown number! lukily enough i rang James shackford and he had it, rang them up 'well be with you in about an hour' AN HOUR! your kidding me! then the blooming highway 'stand there like your doing something' police, and said they were going to have to drag it! drag it my ARSE! then just to show they had no clue at all they said 'does it not have a towing eye?' err NO! so they went and hooked it up their own way so i thought i best go check.......
well........my little godson could do better! they only went and hooked it up to the front suspension didnt they?!?! 'HOW THE HELL YOU GUNNA TOW IT LIKE THAT! THATS THE BLOODY BROKEN BIT YOU TIT!' i think my words were, or something along those lines........lol and as i had said no that ment they had to get the police out to get permission....... so waiting around for them, ringin up brekdown people telling them to get here quick! 'should be about 40mins sir' BALLS! then to make things worse i see the cop car turn up.............YES! the tow truck was behind it! woohoo! and he certainly knew what he was doing! got on the back of the truck with hardly an extra scratch on it! top marks for the footman james free breakdown cover! part from rubbish woman in the office........ got it home and confirmed my suspicions that it was the vertical link that had snapped.

and while i was waiting for the tow truck to arrive i thought id add some 'pimp' suspension :D

Plus it just so happened i was off to canleys that afternoon with james to take part in the HCR (more to follow later) so managed to get all the bits i needed to get it back on the road, and also found out hes bringing out trunnionless ones that come off a caterham set up, which then also allows you if you wish to fits the alloy hubs which have HUGE wheel bearings, wider range of 4 pot lightwieght calipers and roudn better braking system. so i know what im buying in a month when they are ready!

so next morning after the HCR got the bits from Dave and set off home (HCR being a night rally for you that dont know) and had about 30mins sleep in total i reckon. and so Phil (top man!) encouraged me to get it done sunday and he came over and offered a hand! well it all came apart ok untill w got to the stub axel removal from the V link. well heres how it ended up...........

heated, cooled, angle grinded, hammered and chiseled and even then it still put up a fight!

and while we were at it we went about sticking superflex bushes (thanks to KD for suppling them!) and my my how bad were my old one at the front! i will have pics i promise! the worst ones as usual were the bottom 2 of the suspension, i just have the diff and anti roll bars to do now and im done! and they were easy peasy to fit!

got it all done and dropped it down so it could sit on all 4 tyres again and checked and tightened everything up and took it for a spin round the block, cor blimey! feels LOADS sturdier now! and just to show how knackard my old bushes were, the front of the car has now raised up! madness! and so that evening i had dinner and iv never felt so dead in my life! (well probably tonight aswell!) lay down in bed at about 9 and just took a pic before i fell asleep.......

you know youv had enough when your eyes are as red as your cheeks!

future plans to be done asap:

still awaiting my AVO's shox from jigsaw as the suppliers are being a right pain in the arse! argh! and will then be sticking 600lb springs in aswell, luuuuuuurvly and get the back lowerd aswell and then im ready for a suspension alignment and can then stick my revs back on!

2ndly i need to sort out my cooling, overheated like a biatch last year so after speaking to Mike in coventry im going to follow his set up wich uses a mk2 golf rad and get my header tank and EWP fitted aswell, he used this last summer and was fine so i know it works! and will be cheaper and take up abit less space AND be lighter than having my current one recored.

lessons learnt from donnington

Well after suffering fuel surge problems at donno park, i had to set about sorting that out as a priority for mallory park (especialy as they have the longest right hander in british motorsport)

so i bought a swirl pot of ebay to set up stage 1 of my fuel system in the boot. this was purly to make abit more space and make sure it worked for mallory. im currently drawing up the final stage of it to do at a later date which includes small pump, bigger filter and fuel pump relocation.

but heres how it looks at present:

This shows the fuel tank exit going into the swirl pot via a cut off valve (a must have if you ask me!) going itno the bottom of the 2 top side holes. the 1 at the very top allows cought air to be pushed back up into the fuel tank so eliminating any air bubbles and fuel surge problems. the fuel then comes out the bottom through the filter and to the lucas pump which is located on the passeger side wing.
Next job will be making a cooling coil out of box tubing, which will wrap around the lucas pump and use the access fuel from the PRV will pass through this helping to keep the lucas pump cool and will then feed back into the swirl pot helping to keep this full. i may also move the pump to underneath the boot flor within a duct to A aid cooling and B increase fuel pressue getting to the pump, and will free up some boot space!

i also need to drain the tank and replace the fuel pipe between the tank and pot as this is too thin.

*EDIT* pictures to follow tomorow as i must have had too many to drink and all the pics are blurred hehe.


Lesson number 2: Make sure you have better brakes!!

to try and improve my brakes i replaced the discs and pads as these were getting past it/not able to cope. so i just fitted standard discs and some Mintex 1144 pads ( pt no. MGB633) these fit fine of thetype 16 caliper although if you have the ealier type you may have to drill new locating holes, for me this wasnt the case.

1st Track day at donno park!

well today was my 1st ever track day not only in the trump but full stop, and well what to say? it was awsome!! had a few issues to sort out for next time, like fit a swirl pot in the fuel system so then i can go round with less than a quarter of a tank :D, tune the dizzy abit more, up the advance curve and maybe advance the timig abit, there more to come im sure. but will do just fine for now :) handled nice but needs lowering 3/4 inch and stiffening up but overall great day and no major incidents, just a LOUD tr7 v8 and a spitty with a weak baldder hahaha
heres a few pics and will try to upload some vids, more to come though!

Well.......ITS GONE!! :(

yesterday when going into the hairdressers to make an app. for my head shave *gulps* and said can you come back in an hour! yikes!! so off i trotted and she made a very strange job.......she took half of it off and made a big spikey mahican at the back........


and so here is the pile it left! i showed it to someone and they thought it was a dog :D lol anyone need a wig ;)


and here is the before and after! needless to say that when i came outside it was bloomin cold!! i think i need to get a nice wooly hat lol owell of to the cape verde islands soon :D:D





after family (of which half still dont know its been done) the 1st lot to see was everyone at the nottongham tssc/ct meet last night (by the way great to make it to a meting claire finaly! youve done a great job there and i won some beer and a mocrowave heat pack thingy :D top banana!) and claire was gobsmacked and a few didnt even reconise me for a minuite :D lol

and a final note to say it was in aid of charity and partly down to im bonkers......was in aid of the NACC which if you read my profile you will now why i pick them :)

a few things that have happened since buying...

Accidents.
well 1st off only a couple of weeks after buying it and they day before my 1st show at Notts. my sisters friend decided to smash into it with her clio! she apperantly didnt see a bright yellow car and didnt hear the roaring straight 6.........I've told my sister to buy her some parking sensors for her birthday....... :D

and then just the other day coming out of the doctors one of our local councilers decided to reverse into vitrualy the same spot..........bummer! he he

Other things.

Well a few days after i returned from cornwall it was my birthday and my mum very kindly made a cake with my car on (although you can tell its been a few years since shes done this inda thing :D) but still think it looks great.
and as mention in the accidents bit i had my 1st show at the notts classic car and bike show. great day and thank you to Claire, Nigal and everyone else who made me feel very welcome :)
i even managed to take an arty farty picture.......
and on the 7th Jan 07 it was the Notts area new year run which again was a great day out, weather stayed ok for most of the day, lovly meal in the middle and my car got utterly filthy, great stuff :D i do have a pic of me going through the ford but unfortunately they just missed the big splash (i think i went a tad fast through it :D) but you can see how ripped up the water is behind me :D

Things iv done on the car to a date....

for the 1st few months i didnt really touch it, just ran it how it was, aprt from playing with timing etc. but had a little spurt recently. 1st off it was installing a new '123 ignition system', since fitting it iv noticed a dramatic change in the engines running and im sure it will give better proformance once I've changed the advance curve, i thoroughly recomend them! i dont think it will be long before these replace the original dizzys, wear is minimal and bosch rotor arms and dizzy caps are the replacements so no trouble with rubbish reproduced rubbish!

2nd off i had some custom mx5 seats made up. i think they have turned out great! no matter what any one said about the colours :D they include 2 5" speakers in each head rest yet to be connected though.

and JUST the other day i picked up a set of 5 14" 5 SPOKE REVOLUTIONS!!! 1 of only 2 sets known to exist, and they just happened to be 2 junction up the M1 and yellow..... and they look great on the car. only a test fit as it has some tyres on i saving for a tack day coming up so looks about high thanks to the old wheel tuck under when jacked up.

Lets start at who i am! well, my names Jon Ellis or Jony as people call me. im 18 and i have a inca yellow spit6 PI

This is my 2nd triumph which i bought easter 2006 as a birthday present to myself :D travelled 300 miles down to cornwall to fetch it and was worth it!! It has GT6 running gear with a calaforian body tub on it, and a lucas PI system fitted to the engine. i was told after i purchased that it has a stage 3 engine but wether that is true or not is another matter and what he means by 'stage 3' could be anything. im yet to explore the car over to see what has actualy been done. It is my daily driver and certainly makes going to work fun :D and will overtake a line of cars in a flash! great stuff.

My 1st car was a 1300 mk4 spitfire which i owned from december to march ish, after hearing a 6 pot roar past on the way to stoneliegh i just said to myself 'I have to get me onea those!!' and so i did :D

So, where do i start? well.....
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hmmmmmmmmm
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i dunno ;)

why not?

well while rying to comment of dave pearsons blog i needed to make an account, which includes a blog! so why not?

here ill keep my progress and my past of my 2nd car and 2nd triumph, my spitfire 6 PI, gitfire, git6, call it what you will, one thing you can call it is fast :D