V6 essex tuning

[buitonni]

Hi everybody,

I baught a TVR Taimar last autumn, with salisbury diff and 4 speed gearbox (no OD).

a very good car, with a very good restoration.




I would like to upgrade my engine for a fast road use (not track).

I can invest £2000 for the parts (I can tune the engine myself).
I would like around 180bhp and around 220 lb ft torque with a great torque curve between 2000rpm and 5000rpm.

what parts do you recommend ?


and what good brake setup you recommend ?


thank you,
Simon.

Edited by buitonni on Friday 20th April 17:54

[GAjon]

This link may be of some use, don't know or use these people myself, but looks OK.


http://www.essexengines.com/tuning%20the%20essex%2...

[whitewolf]

Jon its a good site. never bought from them but did get a quote for doing unleaded valves and was quoted £160.


Arnetts in doncaster (well known up here) quoted £600...

:-/ but anyway they have decent advice

[heightswitch]

They also build very good engines from road to full race.
N.

[sarbec]

I have a pair of big valve heads, camshaft , alloy timing gear & a few other bits from my old race engine all in great condition if your interested ?

[DavidY]

Don't go mad with the specification, as the limiting factor are the very restrictive exhaust manifolds, up to 180/190bhp should be fine, but if you want more then you will need a bunch of bananas exhaust!

[Moto]

Simon,

I had a 3000S (std Essex engine) many years ago. I got Adrian Venn to convert it to a Turbo. All standard TVR /Broadspeed system. Probably more power and more drivable than tuning. Not sure whether all the necessary parts are still around and if so how many £'s, but maybe worth a thought. I certainly never regretted it, it was (and still is I believe as it's a well known car in the TVR Club) superb and totally reliable in my ownership.

Moto

[buitonni]

Hi,

thank you for your answers.

I don't want a turbo, otherwise I would have bought the Taimar turbo from AC Rooney.


so, I need a new camshaft, a new ignition system... ?

my cooling system is in good condition.

[TVR_owner]

I assume it's an Essex V6?

Compression up a little, decent pistons, fast road cam, bigger valves, good ignition - Aldon will do fine, stay away from ECU type units. Take a little weight out of the flywheel, balance (dynamic), 40 DFI carb is a nice to have, but the DGAS with some mods should be sufficient (my pref would be the GP1 40 DFI). 185-190 bhp and 215-220 ft/lbs should be achievable. Some will cry overkill, but I would ring the block for reliability.

Engine builders are getting 275 BHP out of single carb race V6 Essex engines, some nice bits avaialble - probably better than ever supply.

[DavidY]

I did as TVR_owner suggests on a Taimar, I would have estimated that my engine produced about 185bhp, I never knew the true figure as we had a few issues with fuel starvation on the rollers, later sorted. I had the 40DFI, although this is better than the DGAS at the top end, it does like a drink!!! When I put the bunch of bananas exhaust on, power definitely went up and the car would out accelerate my Impreza Turbo between 30-100mph (verified on a private test track with my wife!!), but say 200bhp in 1000kgs against 235bhp in 1250kgs, so it should.

I would suggest that TVR_owner's list of mods is very sensible.

[GAjon]

As you are doing the work yourself, there are little things you can do, which cost to have an engine builder do, but are only time for yourself.

Because the Essex is a 'one size fits all' concept you can get little gains by matching ports, opening the carb inlet on the inlet manifold to match the carb, polishing the flow ways etc.
In themselves these give little, but when you get bigger valve heads, wilder cam profiles and higher flow fuel and air they all add up and enhance the benifit of the more substantial modifications.

As David has written, don't forget the exhuast manifold!

[buitonni]

ok, great, tank you very much.


the most important for me is to find a good balance between power and torque.


I ride mostly between 2500rpm and 4500rpm, so the torque is essential.

Edited by buitonni on Saturday 21st April 12:12

[Kickstart]

Having raced an Essex engine in a Marcos for the last 5 years I can recommend Ric Wood without reservation

[TVR_owner]

Kickstart said:

Having raced an Essex engine in a Marcos for the last 5 years I can recommend Ric Wood without reservation

The gentleman said he had only 2K for parts...

[bluezeeland]

I've asked myself this question, and reseasched most routes as described above, to arrive at the point that it is very expensive to do all of this, one thing leads to another (inlet manifold/twin/triple carbs, BV heads, fast cams, flywheel, and then...what about brakes ?)My engine has less than 50K so defenitly a good candidate for tuning and decided against, what i have done is put on a KN, repacked and cleaned the DGAS and put on an electric fuel pump and an ignitor, Aldon. having said this would like a 5 speed gear box, but the current one is good, smooth changes, so I don'tchange (or won't in the foreseeable future).
That brings me to the essencial question, 'do you really need the engine to be tuned?'
Performance as is, is good, if any more is required, why not get an S (or a Grif) ?

[TVR_owner]

bluezeeland said:

I've asked myself this question, and reseasched most routes as described above, to arrive at the point that it is very expensive to do all of this, one thing leads to another (inlet manifold/twin/triple carbs, BV heads, fast cams, flywheel, and then...what about brakes ?)My engine has less than 50K so defenitly a good candidate for tuning and decided against, what i have done is put on a KN, repacked and cleaned the DGAS and put on an electric fuel pump and an ignitor, Aldon. having said this would like a 5 speed gear box, but the current one is good, smooth changes, so I don'tchange (or won't in the foreseeable future).
That brings me to the essencial question, 'do you really need the engine to be tuned?'
Performance as is, is good, if any more is required, why not get an S (or a Grif) ?

Q1.
Do you need more power?

Q2.
What do you do with your car?

Q2.
Do you want more power? Every owner will answer differently but back to Q2.

TVRs Turbo range had more power and same basic chassis, supension, brakes and drive train downstream of the clutch as what was fitted or optional on a n/a car. OP wants IRO of 180 BHP and good torque. The rest of the M/Taimar is more than capable of handling this level of additional power.

Do you realy want an S - I assume you were describing the imitation S

[bluezeeland]

See your point re the Turbo', but, what i meant to say is that you cannot change something and forget about the rest. And...again the performance as is is adequate (IMHO) so why pay a lot of money (and spanner about alot) just for the fun of a change. Basically men in sheds have build our cars, and everyone should be allowed to tinker about and change for the better, but it remains a classic TVR and if more(power) is required, consider if you are better of getting a more recent model. The foregoing is my opinion, obviously anyone is entitled to have another view...........(all with the best of intentions)

[TVR_owner]

bluezeeland said:

See your point re the Turbo', but, what i meant to say is that you cannot change something and forget about the rest. And...again the performance as is is adequate (IMHO) so why pay a lot of money (and spanner about alot) just for the fun of a change. Basically men in sheds have build our cars, and everyone should be allowed to tinker about and change for the better, but it remains a classic TVR and if more(power) is required, consider if you are better of getting a more recent model. The foregoing is my opinion, obviously anyone is entitled to have another view...........(all with the best of intentions)

my point was, all with the best of intentions, you can change the engine and forget the rest.

[buitonni]

Hi,

more power, more power... yes, I think this car must have around 180bhp and 220 lb/ft to be a very great car.
but I'm ok to say that the car is actually great too.

my last cars was a TVR S1 and a Chimaera 400hc.

If I change the engine, it would be for a rover V8... but it's a big job and the car is not as the original spec.

I think to buy a second V6 essex and tune it

Edited by buitonni on Monday 23 April 08:32

[GAjon]

Here's one ready to go - £4000.00.

Probably cost you more for the parts.


http://www.racecarsdirect.com/listing/42422/rally_...