Chassis surgery

[Malcolm]

Having watched Glenn's Southern GT grow to completion and then seeing its excellent performance, being of racing mentality, I decided he can't have a quicker car than me!

One thing I have always wanted to do but never had the nerve to do it myself was to lower the engine. I have seen Roy Smart and Mike Inglis undertake this work themselves but that was not a route for me. Then I began to hear about Mick at Southern GT working on other makes of car and in particular chopping GTDs and putting on the Southern GT rear end. I think 5 others have done this now including Simon Winter, Martin Weigold and Brett McCall. So after some discussions I pulled my engine and gearbox out and delivered the car to Mick. That was yesterday and today I got a call to pop in and check on progress.

The chassis is fully rebuilt already and tomorrow the replacement panelling gets done before I collect the car on Thursday to refit the engine and box over the Easter week.

The benefits of my doing this will be a lower engine and box (by 2 inches) to lower CoG, plus also to level it out as the standard GTD setup is tilted down at the front, and revised rear suspension geometry. Bang for buck is simply awesome!

Below are pictures of the bit of sacrificed chassis and the car as it looks tonight. Also I took a picture of his next batch of solid link gear change assemblies (something Mick put on my car late last year) which may be of interest to some.

The aim is to test the car at Silverstone on May 14th prior to two days at Spa in June.

 

[Garry]

Malcolm,
Very sweet upgrade. Keep posting your rebuild please. That shifter looks fantastic. Does Southern GT make that available for RHD and RH shift?
Garryrockonsmile

 

[Malcolm]

Hi Garry

I don't know your particular set up but my car is RHD RH shift. It is a copy of the ZF shifter (with some production alterations I suspect?) and whilst Mick builds Southern GTs, my car is a GTD and it was made to fit that simply enough. The back end of the set up is where we have more work to do but along with the chassis lowering excerise I am insisting on some different gear box mount designs to nail the sucker in place better than before. We shall see what happens. We over ambitiously rushed the install for Brighton Speed Trials last year and paid a heavy price (rubbish 1/4 mile times) so now with time not so critical we will get it right.

My intention is complete this write up on the GTD club site with a link from here as predominantly this is a GTD specific chassis chop although knowing Mick it most likley could be adapted to other marques of replica if really required.

 

[Randy V]

Looks great! And that shifter - WOW - it's a work of art!!!

 

[Malcolm]

Work and stuff gest in the way but latest progress shots taken today show we are on the put it all back together stage.

 

[Malcolm]

And then jut because we had the bits to hand and temptation was too great to resist we did a trial fudge up of some new exhausts.

 

[Garry]

Malcolm,
You guys are doing a great job. Keep us posted...
Garry

 

[Malcolm]

Still a lot of little jobs to be done but I am very pleased with the project and am really looking forward to driving the end result to compare handling. The gearbox is very tightly nailed down now to the extent that if you remove one mount completely, the box doesn't move at all. Hopefully that will help the gear selection issues due to engine and box movement under load.

Also using the time to replace lots of little things that have niggled me for years! Having on the spot welding and fabricating wizards really speeds that kind of work up.

 

[Martin]

I recognize those pipes...:laugh:

 

[glen]

i knew those megaphones would go on........eventually!!!

 

[Malcolm]

Just a couple more pictures to show just how well Mick and team got the engine and box in line with the chassis rails. One of my criteria was to definitively stay at or above the chassis rails so that the sump is protected in case of severe grounding. Which if you go to a race track and spin off is a possibility!

I am now very close to taking the car out for a drive, maybe within the next week. The ARB is ready for collection and then I need to do a full suspension set up. Toeing out visibly at present! Lots of little jobs have been completed recently including clutch bite point adjustment, wiring and carb work. Just found a cracked union on an oil pipe so that is another job for the list. It goes on and on......

 

[Phil]

Malcolm
Looking really good. Interesting looking mufflers you have there, and is that another chassis I see against the wall in your shop?.
I would bet those megaphones sound great.
Cheers
Phil

 

[Malcolm]

The silencers in the latter pictures are GTD silencers (now about 15 years old) and as they reliably get through the 105 dB noise tests to get out on track I see no reason to change them. They have however been reworked a bit to give better sealing where the primaries go into the collectors and to allow for the lower engine I got talked into slightly bigger tail pipes. I guess I will get used to the larger tail pipes soon enough!!!!!!! The rusty plates on top are repacking covers so that the 105 dB limit doesn't get away from me as if you rev the engine a lot as I tend to do, it does blow out wadding.

The picture with a chassis in the background shows a Southern GT chassis in construction when my car was in their factory. I've told Mick that when I win the lottery he can build me a balls out race car!