1995 Ginetta G27 4.5 V8

[Darkspeed]

Some work took place on the G27 project this weekend



Whist messing around with the B type V8 on another thread. Not a great deal - granted - but progress was made and buttons were pressed to order up some Gaz Gold coil overs to enable the final brackets to be designed.



These all Black anodised ones look very cool but I have no idea what will arrive colour wise but its been a while since any significant spending was done on this. Also been looking at tyres for this one as well - projects costs this year are looking to escalate - feck.

Hmmmm need to raise some funds



But I did find loads of cool stuff in all the boxes for this car - that made me smile.

[Darkspeed]

Shocks have arrived and I can now measure the mounting eyes and get on with the CAD work for the brackets.





Quite happy with the quality but the proof or the pudding is in the eating and it will be a good while before any tasting gets done - each pair comes with a dyno sheet - used AVO Spax and Protech in the past and never had any issues with them apart from corrosion on the steel bodied ones but that's just housekeeping.

[Darkspeed]

Quick CAD job this morning whilst watching storm Ciara try and rip all the covers off of the cars and do its best to defoliate the evergreens.

Drawing for the shocker brackets - 4 off required - also need to order up some reducer bushes so that's another job on the list for today



If the roof looks like it will stay on the garage I may well venture out and manufacture the brackets later.

[Darkspeed]

V8 - this could well get me in trouble if playing in my head on a summer evening in the G27 - One of those tunes that would have me melting the rubber from the tyres.

[Darkspeed]

In the garage today making brackets - after a bit of a tidy up - within the first few tracks of the random on the phone we had one of my favourite garage tracks.




Material - 40mm x 3mm Bright mild steel



A bit of marking out later.



And shortly after some time with hacksaw, pillar drill and files we have.





Which fitted to the cross tube diameter thus



And we keep on going



Until we have all four completed

[Darkspeed]

So with teaboy dusting his 911 thread off and showing that he's been looking at shiny engine parts I was spurred into redoubling my efforts this weekend to make progress on my projects and specifically the G27 engine.

The RV8 has been just sitting there for far too long waiting for me to sort out the windage tray so after a few little G32 and G15 jobs this morning I took the top end off the engine, spun it over on the engine stand and removed the sump to get access to the windage tray.

Old picture which is basically as far as I got. Then



The problem with this is that the steel is quite thin, 1mm probably, and it's only supported by 4 bolts - I will extend this by an extra 3 so 7 bolts in all. A while back I bought some 4mm square mild steel to use a stiffening ribs to tie the whole assembly together and prevent fatigue cracking due to vibration. Mentioned before that the windage tray runs very close to the crank - it needs to be to be effective - so with all that steel whipping around so close it needs to be pretty rigid. If any of it came loose the result would be quite noisy.

Today when the sump was taken off



So I cut and bent some of the 4mm








And got welding - a great deal of welding as it happens - far more than I was expecting. The job also used up every piece of the 4mm steel that I ordered, granted I did not order a huge amount but I figured I had more than enough to have spare lengths left over.

Ends first





And then it just snowballed.






























Made sure that the oil pick-up and the dip stick cleared everything. A little clearancing was required on the pick-up but the dip stick had no issues and the high level mark corresponds perfectly with the bottom of the windage tray.

Just the tabs to add for the extra fixing points and I can start to close it all up.

[stealthstylz]

That should stiffen the block up a bit. None of the aftermarket ones I've ever fitted are much different to the pre braced version, usually 16 gauge steel and a few pressings/louvres to add rigidity. They're obviously universal fit (to one type of engine) though so need a bit of flex to make up for differences in castings.

[Darkspeed]

Feb 23, 2020 19:18:46 GMT stealthstylz said:

That should stiffen the block up a bit. None of the aftermarket ones I've ever fitted are much different to the pre braced version, usually 16 gauge steel and a few pressings/louvres to add rigidity. They're obviously universal fit (to one type of engine) though so need a bit of flex to make up for differences in castings.

As it only bolts in with 1/4 UNC its probably not capable of adding that much. Block is about as stiff as it gets being one of the rarer cross-bolt small journal types so more material in the block than the cross-bolt large journal blocks. The sump has a fair bit of extra steel for baffles and trap doors etc. that's also a bit stiffer than normal. I suppose it all adds up and as I am going to be spinning this one a bit higher than usual it needs all the help it can get.

The usual RV8 folded types are better than the stock SD1 tray type but do not offer a whole lot as they do not run close enough to the crank for long enough - about 10 degrees if that. This type runs close to the crank for at least 180 degrees and is reported to help gain a few extra horses at the top end.

[peteh1969]

Nice work as all ways.

Will you be adding baffles to the Sump as well?

[Darkspeed]

Feb 23, 2020 20:11:40 GMT peteh1969 said:

Nice work as all ways.

Will you be adding baffles to the Sump as well?

Mentioned above - Sump is baffled and has trap doors.

Covered that bit of work over in the Strato's thread before I split the threads up - forum.retro-rides.org/post/2334336



It worked well enough before but I have a couple more mods that I want to do to it.

Oh curse word - July 2017 !!!!

[jjeffries]

I just read this whole thread for the first time; I've been following your other ones. All fascinating and educational. Tough to believe just how small this car is though. It's a cliche, but looks like you'll wear it more than get in and sit down. And you certainly won't relax! Very cool and I much appreciate the time and effort you put into your updates. John

[Darkspeed]

Thanks John - your comments are appreciated and I'm pleased to read that you enjoy the posts. Just had a flick back through myself, as its not that bad only being 9 pages at present, to remind myself just how little I did on this car due to all the G15 and G21 stuff last year.

It is a very small car, all the cars I have are pretty small even the 6 foot wide Stratos!

[Darkspeed]

Spent a day playing with the G27

Started with welding on the brackets that I made for the front upper shocker mount. Happy with the fit.





Back to welding with another old Clarke machine today - my old 185 with Euro torch - I love the way this thing welds - It's such a pleasure to use.





After that little bit of work the suspension was fitted up to check the fit and operation and what was required for the mounting at the rear as I had changed my direction on where the coilover upper mount would be.





And once I had that decided we just kept on adding





Until we decided that adding more would just be making more work when we come to do the rear suspension work in a couple of weeks time.









It was fun though.

[Darkspeed]

Tyres arrived - I have gone for Toyo TR1's for the time being - well away from actually taking any of the tread off but need them for the set-up of the car.

Fronts 195/50/15's - really quite cheap - offset by the 225/50/15 rears that are not near as cheap.



The calculations of the speeds with these slightly oversize tyres makes for an interesting read. - Well it does if you are me.



Better make sure that the brakes are up to the task.

[trimtechniques]

What a great read your threads are. I love the work on the Stratos thread. But this Ginetta is an equally interesting car!
Absolutely great work.. I just don't know how you make the time to get it all done!

[Darkspeed]

Mar 21, 2020 20:45:49 GMT trimtechniques said:

What a great read your threads are. I love the work on the Stratos thread. But this Ginetta is an equally interesting car!
Absolutely great work.. I just don't know how you make the time to get it all done!

Cheers, feedback is always appreciated - The time question gets asked quite a lot - simply. I enjoy it and find it pretty therapeutic so whatever time I can find and spare it's what I will do.

[Darkspeed]

Can't make much in the way of progress on this at the moment as its 50 miles away - but..... I have ordered up enough alloy for the floors on this one whilst I was buying in all the materials for the other projects. Hopefully when things ease a bit more I will either collect the wheels or get them dropped off as part of a delivery collection day so I can get the tyres on the wheels.

[Darkspeed]

Wheels and tyres are now together and will be going off to be fitted on Saturday with a bit of luck which also means they will then take up a lot less space.

[biturbo228]

I really must sit down and read through all your threads. There's always dead interesting things, like the sump baffling and windage tray. I've baffled the sump of the Spitfire, but I don't think I've done a great job of the design really. Needs to box in the sump a bit better really, rather than be open around the edges.

Great food for thought

[Darkspeed]

Jun 9, 2020 13:07:30 GMT biturbo228 said:

I really must sit down and read through all your threads. There's always dead interesting things, like the sump baffling and windage tray. I've baffled the sump of the Spitfire, but I don't think I've done a great job of the design really. Needs to box in the sump a bit better really, rather than be open around the edges.

Great food for thought

Cheers - Just give yourself plenty of time



Not much of an update on this one - Wheels and tyres are now together.