GT Developments KVA Drawings

[StuartB]

The drawings that GT Developments had to make the suspension frames for early KVA chassis.
Does anyone know where they are now? Or do you have a KVA with the GT Developments mods fitted?
Myself and a few others would realy apreciate a look at these.
Thanks,
Stuart.

 

[Ian Clark]

Hi Stuart, Very interesting homepage, tell me what kind of transaxle are you putting in your KVA?

Regarding drawings, the last set I saw was on Kens' drawing table in his garage in Swansea about the spring of 1992. This was about six months before he sold the company to a group out of Jupiter Florida that became known as Integrity Coach Works. So the drawings probably went there.

What happened to Integrity Coach works you say? Well they didn't have much "integrity" that's for sure. Besides reniging on the agreement KVA and I had for building the cars in North America, they were also in trouble with the IRS (Internal Revenue Service) who shut them down and seized all assets. So then what happened?

The assets were purchased from the IRS by John Donnelly who set up Sabre to build GT40 replicas. John may have the drawings. He spent a fortune in time and money to fix the ham fisted modifications that Intergrity had done to the KVA, resulting in a very good car. Haven't spoken to John in years, real decent guy.

In any event, the drawing I saw were for the Type "C" chassis which was actually a very good design. If your chassis is a type "C" you don't need the GTD drawings and updates. The KVA was good enough for Ray Mallock to build his GT40 reproduction on.

Ray of course was between race campaigns as Ford decided to wrap up the Aston Martin Group "C" program which Ray was managing, whilst keeping the Jaguar Group "C" program going. So Ray decided to build his ultimate road car on the KVA type C chassis. Lessons learned from the RML GT40 were benificial to the Ray Mallock engineered Saleen S7, so a little KVA goes a long way.

Back to the drawings, if you could find some they would only apply to the earlier chassis and not be that good an upgrade anyways. Why not look up Ray at RML, he's had the UK GT40 club over to his facility and would probably be glad to help you out.

Once Ray had the KVA sorted out it was wickedly fast and very easy to drive compared to the other GT40 replicas of the day. In fact I suspect an RML GT40 would be the measure of any GT40 repro built today if they met at the racetrack. You can tell that to Ray from me if you see him!

 

[StuartB]

Ian, thanks for the reply,
I`ll be putting an Audi box into my KVA, it seems to be the best `bang per buck` box out there, and as I`m not using a Ford engine and have to make my own adapter, I had all the options my pocket would allow me.

By the way, if anyone needs Audi bellhousing drawings to make there own adapter plates up, email me, as I have a set.

The chassis drawings I`m after, are for the early KVA chassis mods that were made by GT Developments in Manchester. They were weld on subframes for front and rear and upgaded the early chassis to a similar design to the `C` chassis, or some would say better, Roger Attaway was running GT Developments at the time, (does anyone know where he is now?).
I think any early GTD drawings would give me the dimentions needed to get the suspension far more sorted then the Cortina `K` frame front and Granada rear is. But in saying that, it would be dificult to make it much worse realy /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

Stuart

It looks like you are sold on modifying the chassis you have.

As well as working with Ray Christopher, much of Roger Attaway's development work on the front/rear subframes of the first KVAs was done in conjunction with shock absorber firm Spax. If Ray Christopher can't help, then it's just feasible that Spax may have some drawings (OK, it's a long shot as nearly 20 years have passed, but stranger things have happened). Spax are now in Oxford on 01869 240536.

Alternatively, I imagine there will still be a few early cars out there you could measure up. I also have some images of the early GTD/KVA front sub frame, but no measurements.

Good luck!

Rob

 

[Brian Magee]

I doubt if Spax can help. They sold out a few years ago and have new management and I would think anything that old would have been lost in the move.

Brian.

 

[StuartB]

Thanks for the help and ideas guys, If you had an early KVA chassis you`d be set on modifing it too /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crazy.gif
I`ll make a call to Spax in the week and see what I can find out.
Anyone got any idea how I could contact Ray?
Please keep the info coming everyone, the more the merrier, it`s what this is all about.
Cheers.