TR6 Turbo

[sixtynine]

69,

When did you procure your blower? Last year I had decided to go for it but Moss head zero stock.

 

Steve

 

Been almost a year

[Stanpartmanpartwolf]

The mention of the F-4 Phantom jogged my memory; a customer of Chestnut House Sport Cars bought that entire turbo engine, complete with all its ancillaries, sometime around 1990.

He had a rather nice, unbadged, lightened TR6 built there & I installed the whole kit & kaboodle, no small task.

The inlet tract ended up some 6' long, which didn't look too promising, but space was so limited that parts simply had to go in where there was room for them. I recall the turbo being on the generous side of large, probably a KKK IIRC.

Anyway, the car was duly completed & commissioned- it went like stink up to 2000rpm, then basically "brick-walled" & refused to pull properly, though it could be forced to around 4000rpm with all the performance of a sick Herald.

The amount of heat emanating from the engine bay was staggering, which should have been a clue.

Anyway, after Chris Carter & I had torn every hair from our scalps trying in vain to remedy the problems, it was decided to let the local Bosch agent have a prod round the Jetronic to look for clues.....

Some two days later, we received a rather excited phone call from him, asking for a Lucas distributor, and quick.

I grabbed a TR6 unit, which was duly jury-rigged into position.

The transformation in performance was frankly staggering; from a three-legged donkey to a racehorse best describes it.

It would get through first gear before full boost had appeared & then just belt up the road in near-silence, and would accelerate hard from a ton without effort.

Amazingly, the devastating heat issues had all vanished too. What a car, now sadly no more.

 

It had originally been fitted with a nice Marelli distributor from an Alfa GTV6, & they rotate.......CLOCKWISE!

[Peter Cobbold]

The mention of the F-4 Phantom jogged my memory; a customer of Chestnut House Sport Cars bought that entire turbo engine, complete with all its ancillaries, sometime around 1990.

He had a rather nice, unbadged, lightened TR6 built there & I installed the whole kit & kaboodle, no small task.

The inlet tract ended up some 6' long, which didn't look too promising, but space was so limited that parts simply had to go in where there was room for them. I recall the turbo being on the generous side of large, probably a KKK IIRC.

Anyway, the car was duly completed & commissioned- it went like stink up to 2000rpm, then basically "brick-walled" & refused to pull properly, though it could be forced to around 4000rpm with all the performance of a sick Herald.

The amount of heat emanating from the engine bay was staggering, which should have been a clue.

Anyway, after Chris Carter & I had torn every hair from our scalps trying in vain to remedy the problems, it was decided to let the local Bosch agent have a prod round the Jetronic to look for clues.....

Some two days later, we received a rather excited phone call from him, asking for a Lucas distributor, and quick.

I grabbed a TR6 unit, which was duly jury-rigged into position.

The transformation in performance was frankly staggering; from a three-legged donkey to a racehorse best describes it.

It would get through first gear before full boost had appeared & then just belt up the road in near-silence, and would accelerate hard from a ton without effort.

Amazingly, the devastating heat issues had all vanished too. What a car, now sadly no more.

 

It had originally been fitted with a nice Marelli distributor from an Alfa GTV6, & they rotate.......CLOCKWISE!

So no centrifugal advance, static timing only. That would kill all risk of knock !!

Any photos ?

[Ragtag]

Not that I am considering it but If I were, I'd look at the way SAAB did the 900 Turbo for a good example of packaging the installation in a tight space. Good source for parts and fuel management too.

[Stanpartmanpartwolf]

Peter-

Actually, it was worse than that....bobweights don't care which direction the shaft rotates, and so, from the static advance position (you guessed it), the bloody thing was retarding the spark as the revs rose.

There was an awful lot of combustion going on in the exhaust manifold & turbo, leading to those insane temperatures.

Bit like Bronze Age anti-lag, I suppose!

JW

[Rob Briggs]

Hello Peter,

Will you have to use some intercooling with 10psi of boost? Space was always a problem in the TR6 engine bay and as previously noted, that was overcome by the use of the Phantom F4 item. That has long gone but I did experiment with an air/water cooler that seemed to work reasonably well and took up less space than a standar air/air item. If that sounds interesting to you, contact me via email (rob.briggs@blueyonder.co.uk) and I can send pictures and more details. I have the equipment in my attic still and I'd be happy to donate it to the project if you wish.

Rob.

[Rob Briggs]

Rob, . Reminds me of teflon strips inserted along the length of blower rotors to help sealing...also good for a mile or so.

I find my best ideas also dont look so good a few weeks later. But I'm a sucker for an experiment, after I've nailed the theory ( or think I have). So I'm going for 10 psi boost on a 9.5:1 compression head, with water injection to kill knock. And cheapo pistons as I'm not certain it will work. The water injection is DIY, based on WW2 data. I have three holed pistons from a previous 'good' idea...who'd have thought linking two float chambers to the same SU jet could kill pistons in a few seconds.

Peter

Hello Peter,

Will you have to use intercooling with 10psi of boost? Space in theTR6 engine bay was always an issue in my turbocharging saga. It was overcome as noted earlier by using the F4 Phantom surplus intercooler. That has long gone but I did try out an air/water cooler which was easier to find space for and seemed to work fairly well. If that is of interest to you, you could contact me by email (rob.briggs@blueyonder.co.uk) and I can send a picture of the tackle. I still have the cooler in my attic and I'd be happy to donate it to the project if you like.

Rob.

[Rob Briggs]

The mention of the F-4 Phantom jogged my memory; a customer of Chestnut House Sport Cars bought that entire turbo engine, complete with all its ancillaries, sometime around 1990.

He had a rather nice, unbadged, lightened TR6 built there & I installed the whole kit & kaboodle, no small task.

The inlet tract ended up some 6' long, which didn't look too promising, but space was so limited that parts simply had to go in where there was room for them. I recall the turbo being on the generous side of large, probably a KKK IIRC.

Anyway, the car was duly completed & commissioned- it went like stink up to 2000rpm, then basically "brick-walled" & refused to pull properly, though it could be forced to around 4000rpm with all the performance of a sick Herald.

The amount of heat emanating from the engine bay was staggering, which should have been a clue.

Anyway, after Chris Carter & I had torn every hair from our scalps trying in vain to remedy the problems, it was decided to let the local Bosch agent have a prod round the Jetronic to look for clues.....

Some two days later, we received a rather excited phone call from him, asking for a Lucas distributor, and quick.

I grabbed a TR6 unit, which was duly jury-rigged into position.

The transformation in performance was frankly staggering; from a three-legged donkey to a racehorse best describes it.

It would get through first gear before full boost had appeared & then just belt up the road in near-silence, and would accelerate hard from a ton without effort.

Amazingly, the devastating heat issues had all vanished too. What a car, now sadly no more.

 

It had originally been fitted with a nice Marelli distributor from an Alfa GTV6, & they rotate.......CLOCKWISE!

Yes, that would have been my engine. I never heard back from the new owner but I'm surprised to hear of the problems. The final performance described is how it was last running in my car. I can only surmise that there were problems with the various electronic gizmos which had all been disconnected for the dismantling process. Ah well, those are the joys of non-standard tackle.

Rob

[Peter Cobbold]

Hello Peter,

Will you have to use intercooling with 10psi of boost? Space in theTR6 engine bay was always an issue in my turbocharging saga. It was overcome as noted earlier by using the F4 Phantom surplus intercooler. That has long gone but I did try out an air/water cooler which was easier to find space for and seemed to work fairly well. If that is of interest to you, you could contact me by email (rob.briggs@blueyonder.co.uk) and I can send a picture of the tackle. I still have the cooler in my attic and I'd be happy to donate it to the project if you like.

Rob.

Hi Rob, I wish I could use an intercooler. But I kept the design simple with a single 2" SU feeding the blower. Intercooling a 'wet' blower is universally regarded as wrong. If an intake backfire lights up compressed mixture in the intercooler it is apparently like a grenade going off, with the intercooler turning into shrapnel. And an underbonnet blaze until the engine can be stopped. So I must decline your generous offer, it could be an experiment too far.

I plan to use water injection to deter knock. It wont cool the intake charge much, but it adds a lot of octane (see blog posts).

Peter

[Rob Briggs]

Peter,

I see that I didn't read your description properly. One of my iterations in desperation after the initial fiasco was a suck-through from a 2" SU. The problem that I encountered was that even in weather that was not particularly cold, I experienced icing which held the carburettor open - which was quite exciting. I couldn't get the carburettor mounted near enough to the turbo to warm up. On reflection I see that a combustible mixture flowing through a turbo that can glow red-hot isn't a smart idea.

All this reliving of past disasters makes me grateful that, for the past 25 years I've had a non-Triumph, almost of the shelf, engine fitted which can give me all the performance I could wish for without the heartache.

I'd really like to see your project when it's finished. Of course, if you work as slowly as I do - I make glaciers look lively - I could have passed on by then.

Rob.

[Peter Cobbold]

Peter,

I see that I didn't read your description properly. One of my iterations in desperation after the initial fiasco was a suck-through from a 2" SU. The problem that I encountered was that even in weather that was not particularly cold, I experienced icing which held the carburettor open - which was quite exciting. I couldn't get the carburettor mounted near enough to the turbo to warm up. On reflection I see that a combustible mixture flowing through a turbo that can glow red-hot isn't a smart idea.

All this reliving of past disasters makes me grateful that, for the past 25 years I've had a non-Triumph, almost of the shelf, engine fitted which can give me all the performance I could wish for without the heartache.

I'd really like to see your project when it's finished. Of course, if you work as slowly as I do - I make glaciers look lively - I could have passed on by then.

Rob.

Rob,

Luckily I saw the icing problem coming. The machinist who made the blower manifolds warned me. He worked on a dragster bike that would ice up its SU before the 1/4mile was up, on methanol. So my SU mounts on a 1" thick aluminium plate drilled to pass all the water flow to the cockpit heater.

I've had the blower on the car for 20 years, working OK but not fully correct. Power-wise its a shade up on stock PI but a lot smoother with much more low rpm torque. The plan now is for more power combined with better fuel consumption. If I were doing it again I'd fit the Moss-Eaton kit....its much better blower than the old Wade. I've just two months before IWE so am going to blitz it, now the garage is getting above 10C.

 

What engine do you have ?

Peter

[john.r.davies]

From Jalopy, February 1994

TURBODGING

Inspired by the Blue Peter spirit of adventure,

R. A. Franklin added boost to his Triumph GT6, and lived to tell the tale…..

Why do people like me become bodgers? I’ve just accepted it. Perhaps it’s be-cause I knew from the moment I started bending the pieces of my Meccano set that it was my destiny. Sellotape and cardboard often found their way into my childhood creations. It was as if I was in a frenzy to get the thing to work, and anything would do so long as it sewed the immediate purpose. Not only that, there was the satisfaction of making the kit do more than it was intended for.

Strangely enough, I ended up as a Chartered Engineer, specializing in control systems. The Bodger is still there though, lurking in the background, waiting to be unleashed at weekends. Any bodging exercise of mine has the following rules:

1) It must be safe

2) It must work

3) It doesn’t have to look good

4) It must be the most cost-effective method of achieving the goal

Take rust, for example. What causes rust? Oxygen, comes the deafening reply. So what’s the best way of stopping a car rusting? Yes, immerse it in a bath of sticky oil. Or better still; don’t make it out of steel. Either is preferable to the ghastly and futile process followed by the wash-your-car on Sunday brigade. You know, AAAAARGGGHH, I’VE GOT A BUBBLE ON MY WING, dare I burst it, per¬haps it hasn’t gone all the way through. Oh no, I knew this would happen, I should have had it steam cleaned like it said in the local paper. Should I bite the bullet and burst it? That means I’ll have to chip the lovely paint off, the lovely paint that I have lavished all these Sun¬day mornings on. There must be at least fifty thou of Turtle Wax on this paint, do I really have to? And then what? Rust eater? Horrid black patches followed by disgusting touch-up paint. But I’m definitely not going to look inside the wing. What if there’s more rust? Perhaps I’ll get the hose though, and give it a really good clean. .Then I’ll feel better, at least. Perhaps if I just use a hypodermic and inject some Jenolyte it’ll get better by itself? Perhaps.

No, my friend, it will not get better. It will get much, much worse. Your car has cancer. Terminal, malignant and abso-btoody-lutely incurable. You have not been a Good Owner. You have given it Turtle Wax when you should have given it Waxoyl, but you’ll still be out there every Sunday, hopelessly sloshing more detergent-loaded water into its cavities, supplementing the corrosive mixture lurking in the mud plastered into all the little places that your Hydro-Turbo-BlastoMatic plastic nozzle that you bought down the local market from a chap who said it converted mains pressure to 2000 millibar, can’t dislodge. Sorry.

My old Triumph GT6 was a trifle rusty when I got it. It was also a trifle rusty when I sold it six years later. But that car was not rusting when I sold it, just rusty. Waxoyl, see?

But O, what bodgery I did enjoy with that car. The original 2-litre straight six put out a careful 95bhp. Hardly Boys Own stuff. So, I thought, why not turbo-charge it? I managed to secure a turbo of approximately the right dimensions (oh, all right, a bit on the big side...) but it was a turbo, and all I had to do was fit it! Right, Sleeves rolled up. Cut three inch exhaust stubs off that old tubular manifold. Weld them to a two-inch square tube collector, bugger the gas-flowed corner, we’ll have a dead end after the turbo flange and the gas can find its own path.

Next: compression ratio. Easy. One eighth-inch plate spacer, with metal gasket each side - 6.5 to 1, or thereabouts. Oil feed: straight from the main oil galley. Can’t bodge this, turbos need about half a gallon a minute, at l0psi. That means a specially built pressure regulator capable of handling hot oil, and a drain to the sump, downhill all the way.

Ignition needs an extra spring, on the other side of the vacuum advance diaphragm, to back off the timing under boost. 8psi of boost will need about 6-8 degrees of retardation. If you know the boost and the size of the diaphragm, you can figure out the force supplied by the diaphragm. Knowing the movement of the diaphragm required to achieve the retardation you’re after, and knowing Hookes Law as all bodgers should... I’m sure you can work out the rest (We’re way ahead of you. Ed)

Boost control: no problem. Radiator cap and neck with extra exhaust ports as a blow-off valve, brazed to the air cleaner body. A trifle noisy on the overrun, but real safe. No possibility of over-revving the turbo, which is not recommended. The blade tip velocity at full boost is around 1000 ft/sec-ond, a bit faster than the bullet from a Browning 9mm automatic. You definitely want those blades to stay in that snail-shaped thing.

Fuel: tricky. Blow-through carburettors. Pressurised float chambers.

Blown seals on throttle spindles. Many, many different needles. You need to add boost pressure to the lower side of the diaphragm of the fuel pump (see diagram), and add an air seal to the diaphragm rod. Very tricky. But it was all worth it for that one ride when the right amount of fuel went in at the right ignition timing for l0 psi of boost, leaving the gum-chewing, earring-wearing Capri 3-Litre crea¬ture in a black rage, bouncing up and down in his seat, making a dent in his firewall where the throttle pedal goes.

I did try suck-through carburation. Briefly. After all, no true bodger would be put off by the prospect of a leak in a pressurised system full of petrol/air mixture at stoichiometric ratios or thereabouts, would he? Naaah. Or by the prospect of having to install another (completely leak proof) but-terfly valve downstream of the turbo in order not to sub¬ject the turbo oil seals to full engine vacuum? Er, naah. No, what put me off was the way that the fuel puddles merrily in the bottom of the compressor casing on idle, and virtually puts the fire out when it is eventually whisked into the engine in a huge gush when you open the throttle. Not to mention the dense clouds of black smoke enveloping the poor bloke behind you. Or the supernovae from the rear of the car as the blow-off valve (now vented to the exhaust pipe, well downstream but still hot enough to ignite the mixture) lifted on gear changes and overrun.

But as you all know, you quickly get used to increased performance. Like, the following day. So when the TR6 engine complete with fuel-injection was spotted, it was duly acquired and slotted in. Now the turbocharger was the right size. And fuelling was a matter of playing with springs and fuel-enrichment devices and rolling roads. Boost was up to 20psi. This was war. I had declared war on the car. It pinked. I added water injection. This was pure joy. A plastic water container (stiffish) pressurized by boost air through a one-way (yes, screen wash) valve. Squirting a jet of water through a 0.050 jet straight at the eye of the turbo impeller. It stopped pinking.

It then blew head gaskets. I added 0-rings to the head and took away the head gaskets. We saw flash readings of 270bhp at the back wheels.

It munched differential pinions. I bought an XJ6 back axle, and was about to fit that, when the noise in my left ear became intolerable. I sold it. She stopped.

But the bodging goes on. Now with a Scimitar (not an SS1, a proper one). The body does what it should, that is, keep wind and rain out. The paint, which is non-functional on this car, does what all paint wants to do, íe change colour and fall off I don’t mind, I won’t have to Turtle Wax it. The chassis has been completely fixed; all the bits that were too thin (from lack of Iron) have been replaced with new bits. And yes, it has been smothered in Waxoyl, inside and out. The Ford V6 engine and auto box was treated as it should have been, ie. removed, hammered into manageable pieces and given to a passing traveller.

Bodging was halted whilst the suspension bushes were replaced as a matter of course whilst they were get-attable. And the brakes were Properly Done, including replacing the pitted and scored discs, sorely tempted though I was to reface them with a big abrasive wheel. You have to arrive at the T-junction at the bottom of a steep hill just the one time with smoke billowing from the wheel arches, both feet on the brake pedal and the steering wheel bent nearly double, to appreciate the full horror of brake fade... that’s after having the fillings rattled out of your head from the vibration due to thin, heat-distorted discs.

Never again. Oh God, never again...

Oh yes, and a Rover V8 was slipped in. Kind of. But that’s another story.

[Peter Cobbold]

Thanks John. Good to know the TR6 engine will stand up to serious bodging. But 20psi does look close to infringing rule 2. Maybe he only wanted it to work for a few seconds.

Peter

[Rob Briggs]

Rob,

Luckily I saw the icing problem coming. The machinist who made the blower manifolds warned me. He worked on a dragster bike that would ice up its SU before the 1/4mile was up, on methanol. So my SU mounts on a 1" thick aluminium plate drilled to pass all the water flow to the cockpit heater.

I've had the blower on the car for 20 years, working OK but not fully correct. Power-wise its a shade up on stock PI but a lot smoother with much more low rpm torque. The plan now is for more power combined with better fuel consumption. If I were doing it again I'd fit the Moss-Eaton kit....its much better blower than the old Wade. I've just two months before IWE so am going to blitz it, now the garage is getting above 10C.

 

What engine do you have ?

Peter

Peter,

Don't tell anyone in case I'm blackballed from the register but it's a Sierra Cosworth engine.

If I were to be starting out today on what the talent shows call "my journey" I would have preferred the mechanical supercharger route.

Rob.

[Peter Cobbold]

Peter,

Don't tell anyone in case I'm blackballed from the register but it's a Sierra Cosworth engine.

If I were to be starting out today on what the talent shows call "my journey" I would have preferred the mechanical supercharger route.

Rob.

Rob,

Interesting...how does the drive train stand up to over 200bhp?

Blackballing.........we could set up our own TR group, the excommunicants.

Peter

[Rob Briggs]

Rob,

Interesting...how does the drive train stand up to over 200bhp?

Blackballing.........we could set up our own TR group, the excommunicants.

Peter

Peter,

The Borg Warner T5 gearbox was kept since that seems to do OK in the original Sierra Cosworth. Uprated drive shafts (I'm not sure but I think they were from Racetorations). Rear Hubs from Goode Parts and a Quaife differential in the original TR casing. The TR prop-shaft was cut down to fit. I went through the usual route of fitting bigger front brake tackle. Originally I used ventilated AP discs and AP calipers which worked fine but gave a very long pedal throw and were even heavier than the TR setup. I subsequently changed to the much lighter, and just as effective, PRI kit with a Racetorations dual cylinder setup to balance front to back. Since the Ford engine is considerably lighter than the TR, the front springs had to be sorted out. I spent some time running about with the nose in the air.

A disadvantage of the Ford engine is that I have to get specialist help in setting it up. Tweaking performance is straightforwards but involves reprogramming the ECU. On the up-side, when I had an engine problem, my guru was able to email changes to me to have blown onto the chip at work. In the 1990s that was very novel and exciting.

Rob.

[TRTOM2498PI]

On 4/30/2016 at 11:26 AM, Peter Cobbold said:

Rob,

Interesting...how does the drive train stand up to over 200bhp?

Blackballing.........we could set up our own TR group, the excommunicants.

Peter

Hi Peter,

I now on this car.  I purchased it in December 2020..

Rob had it on the RR for its first and only ever power run.  It produced 297.9bhp @ 6236RPM.  I will post a picture of the print out.

Cheers.

[TRTOM2498PI]

[DRD]

Crikey - I don't think I'd be happy going at 178mph in a TR6

[Peter Cobbold]

The benefits of Ford's miilions spent on turbo matching, a smoothe delivery, no lag. I wonder what the Arkay turbo kit for the 6-pot delivered in comparison....

Peter

[TRTOM2498PI]

7 minutes ago, Peter Cobbold said:

The benefits of Ford's miilions spent on turbo matching, a smoothe delivery, no lag. I wonder what the Arkay turbo kit for the 6-pot delivered in comparison....

Peter

Hi Peter,

There is no lag at all. The car is on GRP panels, with a 4:1CWP.  It is VERY lively. Will have it at the TR weekend this year, all being well ?

 

Cheers.

[Hamish]

Never mind the hp ( which is impressive)

check out that torque figure.  

[ntc]

Will be interesting to see what track times it will do 

[stuart]

12 hours ago, ntc said:

Will be interesting to see what track times it will do 

And whether the brakes and suspension can cope.

Stuart.

[TRTOM2498PI]

1 hour ago, stuart said:

And whether the brakes and suspension can cope.

Stuart.

Hi Stuart,

Time will tell, but it has Wilwood 4 pots up front, with a RCT dual Brake Bias M/cyl, with competition rear brake shoes. I must admit, the brakes are very effective.  It has RTR rear rear damper conversion with their springs and Avo dampers, nylon bushes and RCT roller bearing trailing arms.  It is a little too firm to be honest, probably better suited to a track.  This will be reviewed in due course.

The acceleration is nothing short of staggering, in fact, I am still struggling to keep an eye on the tacho, speedo and other gauges, when you floor the throttle.  It is quite unpredictable.  I have not had chance to drive it in the dry yet, so fingers crossed we have some good weather soon.

 

Cheers.