calling early 500's

[Guillotine]

following from a different thread...

my 94 500 (a/c) gets very hot at the inner wing seams. this is due to the close proximity of the exhaust manifolds... 1/2 inch or so.

this has caused the fibreglass to char in places and causes an acrid smell in the cabin if the roof and blower is on (cabin mainly,r/h footwell blower not so much) over a long period.
its not particularly bad...i just don't like it.
airflow is further reduced by an a/c condenser in front of the radiator.

i've put stainless steel heat shields along the manifolds and added more reflector tape to the inner wings and run a small front No plate, but the problems still persists. so... more ducting will be added this winter along with a splitter to "catch" more cool air.

any one else had similar problems?

My cars is running fine. timings ok. doesn't run hot coolant (75 - 80 degrees)norm sounds and feels great. I think its just the inner wing design which was changed (scalloped) in later cars.

replies appreciated...

[2 sheds]

Hi guillotine.
Yes had the same thing with my 92 4.0L the reflective material on the inner wing was burnt, the smell was horrible, i replaced the reflective material ( which is a glass blanket with silver foil on one side) and problem solved..
Tim

[tvr4ever]

Same problem here, my heatshield was damaged too. After replacing it with a new one, the smell was gone. I used heat resistant silicone to stick the new heatshield to the car.

Fred

[Graham B]

My old 92 400 had this problem, I believe the later 500's (mines 97 and does) have a reshaped inner wing in the exhaust area to allow more of a gap between the manifold and the bodywork.

Steve at Thames Valley Racetech reshaped the inner wings on my 400 slightly to allow more clearance and refitted the heatsheild. Mine was so bad the carpet backing had charred from the heat.

Graham

>> Edited by Graham B on Tuesday 7th January 10:51

[simon.b]

Mines an early 97 and has no obvious scalloping and yes I too had a smelly burning problem. I folded up aluminium foil to make local heat shields for the inner wings which were stuck in place with silicon sealant, this has worked fine for a few years now though the foil is torn in a few places and could do to be replaced.

I run a splitter (though its missing at the moment) and makes a real difference once your moving, it brings a hot engine temperature down without the fans. Once the system leaks are sorted she runs fine usually straight up to 70 then if pootling along or in traffic further on up to 90 but never any higher. I also use a Fan Override switch when I’m stuck in traffic which brings it back down to 70 though I usually switch off at 80.

Cheers,

Simon.

[shpub]

Sorry if I have confused people with the earlier thread but the scalopped wings are only on the 4.x cars that had GRP surgery to increase the gaps. These are few and far between as well. I have never seen them on a 500.

Steve

[shpub]

The 500s have a reshaped internal wing design but it is not the "scalloped" mod that the 4.x cars had earlier.

In summary:

Early 4.x cars should have had a modded wing (scalloping) surgery to stop the heat problem by moving the GRP away from the manifold. Later cars (including the 500s) have an improved design that increased that gap anyway and the problem was solved (providing the heat shielding was OK it seems).

[Graham B]

Yep, sorry Steve, read the other thread and understand now. I presumed the factory had scalloped the 500's rather than widening the bay.

Cheers,
Graham

[Guillotine]

cheers for the replies, i'm having the shielding replaced next week whilst its in the shop.
we'll see how it does!

steve, i imagine my inner wings are of the 4.x design, as they have a lip seam at the front which is very close to the manifolds. I'd covered these with reflective tape a couple of years ago, which seemed to cure the problem. however it's returned now...so i'll replace it properly.

cheers

ps...didn't realise that there was a difference between the scalloped cars i've seen, and the later shaped inner wing

cheers again

[shpub]

I'll have a look on my photo data base ( 7000 photos catalogued over Christmas...) and see if I can see anything.
I'll have a look at the shopping trolley as well.

[shpub]

The shopping trolley has a 20 mm gap at the narrowest point between the seam and the manifold and this is consistent on all the 500s I have piccies of. On the 4.x cars all but 1 had had the seam scalloped to increase the gap. The one that didn't did looked as if the heat protection had been replaced as it was clean and sparkly. The picture did date back from 1996 though!

Just to make sure we are in TVR land, one car looked as if the body was mounted to one side as the gap was wildly different from side to side. Whether the body was slightly misaligned or something I don't know.

Steve

[2 sheds]

So i must have one of the 4.X cars that weren't modified. Whilst the heads are off i think i'll do the modification, maybe with enough space to get a better exhaust exit from the head.
Tim