1976 Autotune Gemini - ELVA MKI replica

[micha1]

the sump clearance, also the rad to be lower as the thermostat housing is a common thing on most kitcars (mainly seven-ish ones)...so nothing to critize autotune for it.

rubbish is the position of the rad middle in the enginebay...as the incomming air from the front "mouth" isnt ducted towards the rad, hence the colling effiiciancy isnt perfect...this said: its still enough for a bog-standard x/flow

the reason is obvious: autotune wanted to keep things simple and help the builder keeping most of the escort donor parts, in that case rad and fan. the mechancial fan only works with thr rad just in front...and the rad middle of the engoenbay only works with the permanent runnign fan....as its permanent "suction" keeps the air flowing form the mouth through the rad without further ducting.


if have installed a rad, direcly behind the bonnet opening (mouth) incl. an electric fan...but it took me ages to achieve the same cooling effect, as the rad needed to be nstalled somehow inclined, therefore airflow through the rad was not brilliant.


adavantage: much neater and "cleaner" enginebay with more space to work.

the original mesh grille was also a kind of air-flow inhibitor.

i would not put the engine higher inside the car, as this will also have neg. effects on the cars balance and centre of gravity.

[Darkspeed]

Oct 31, 2018 21:10:22 GMT micha1 said:

the sump clearance, also the rad to be lower as the thermostat housing is a common thing on most kitcars (mainly seven-ish ones)...so nothing to critize autotune for it.

rubbish is the position of the rad middle in the enginebay...as the incomming air from the front "mouth" isnt ducted towards the rad, hence the colling effiiciancy isnt perfect...this said: its still enough for a bog-standard x/flow

the reason is obvious: autotune wanted to keep things simple and help the builder keeping most of the escort donor parts, in that case rad and fan. the mechancial fan only works with thr rad just in front...and the rad middle of the engoenbay only works with the permanent runnign fan....as its permanent "suction" keeps the air flowing form the mouth through the rad without further ducting.


if have installed a rad, direcly behind the bonnet opening (mouth) incl. an electric fan...but it took me ages to achieve the same cooling effect, as the rad needed to be nstalled somehow inclined, therefore airflow through the rad was not brilliant.


adavantage: much neater and "cleaner" enginebay with more space to work.

the original mesh grille was also a kind of air-flow inhibitor.

i would not put the engine higher inside the car, as this will also have neg. effects on the cars balance and centre of gravity.

Engine is too low, it's wrong in the car end of. If I put the engine higher in the car I can lower the entire car in relation to the axle heights. Any guesses for what that does. If I lower the seat an inch and slope myself forward it will have a greater effect on C of G than raising the engine anyway - Raising the engine to prevent the sump and gearbox being smashed is more important than any minuscule effect on the handling - IT IS TOO LOW.

Rad position is curse word and that's down to Autotune - other kit cars are of no relevance to MY Gemini's - as is the offset rack silly seat rail curse word seats - and many other things they did not develop - I don't really care about easy for idiot builders with aspiration above ability, just not my concern. The criticism of the car is from my view and in that regard meh! I kind of know my way around these things and what makes for a car that handles.

[mercedeslimos]

 I went through a phase of excessive lowering my cars a few years ago, couldn't drive anyway fun at all. Set of proper KW Variant 2 and a shallow sump with a sensible tyre profile and I can drive pretty much balls out on any country road with no longer paranoia about bottoming out. Next mod is a factory steel sump guard that joins the front legs to the subframe, if that is hitting the road you're going too hard!

[Darkspeed]

A bit more digging on the history behind the Falcon has unearthed some interesting possibilities - There is speculation that the original Falcon shells were actually produced from an alloy bodied special built for the founder of ELVA cars - said alloy body being a take on the Maserati A6GCS rather than anything jaguar related.






The thoughts then being that the alloy bodied special was given to Ashley laminates to make the moulds to produce the shells for the bodies of the Elva MK1 racers







Engine bay of the Masertati is a bit more .... well actually a lot more!




The Elva using the Coventry Climax as mentioned previously having decent credentials even if not quite up to the Maserati standard of heritage.

[Darkspeed]

I love this shot of an ELVA MK1 racer

[Darkspeed]

So, what are the opinions ?

Thanks to xbl for having them up for sale on here and local + plus good enough to take a drive out and deliver them - Many thanks.







Tyre profile/radius will be dropped with the new tyres but I am a fan of the larger diameter wheel look as it suits the car style - Good quality 195/50/15 tyres are dirt cheap but the tread width may be on issue as although the wheel rim at the front is inside the wheel arch profile with the current 185 section tyres the tyre is being abit "cheeky" and with a decent 195 it will be getting very "cheeky" on the BOM tyre stick out gauge. but a little way off "taking the curse word" Although winding on a bit of Neg may correct that.

Drill some extra holes, Dunlop stickers - Maybe even some old MGB spinners on a mount of some type. Either way a like the look of these steels on the car.

[horrido]

I like the large diameter wheels, as - looking at the Maserati and the Elvas up there - it´s what the car was designed for.
I suppose a set of skinny 16" Borrani knock off wires are out of the question....? :-)
The more like the old cars above you can get it, the better I think.

[Darkspeed]

Nov 4, 2018 18:43:05 GMT horrido said:

I like the large diameter wheels, as - looking at the Maserati and the Elvas up there - it´s what the car was designed for.
I suppose a set of skinny 16" Borrani knock off wires are out of the question....? :-)
The more like the old cars above you can get it, the better I think.

A set of Borrani's would probably be somewhat prohibitively expensive

I did look at MG 14" and 15" wires but even then when looking at a refurbed set + tyres, adapters, spinners etc. the total cost approaches an eye watering level.

Low rent all the way with these things so a £40 set of wheels ticks all the boxes - 195/50/15 Toyo T1R's are under £40 in H or V flavour and are a superb tyre. Fully done with the wheels given a bit of a resto - paint and stickers maybe a few extra holes - We should come in well under £250 and have 10 old Ford wheels to move on which may recover some of the outlay.

A quick calculation shows that 1.5 degrees of camber will knock the top of the tyre in 15mm - which will have it flush with the body work. Will have to see if I can get my hands on a 195/50/15 T1R to see how it fits.

[xbl]

They really suit the car, I much prefer the larger diameter steels, with some retro spin on lockers grafted on it it'll look awesome.
Glad to be of service too!

[ettorebugatti]

165/65R15 or 185/60R15 might work.

Or how about 155R15 Vredestein Sprint Classic? Or is that too tall?

[Darkspeed]

Nov 5, 2018 21:16:47 GMT ettorebugatti said:

165/65R15 or 185/60R15 might work.

Or how about 155R15 Vredestein Sprint Classic? Or is that too tall?

All much too tall, the max dia. needs to be 577mm which is 195/50/15 or the 175/55/15 = 573mm. The existing 165/80/13 = 594mm are a bit on the lofty side. The 185/65/15 that are on those steels at the moment (less tread) are a huge 621mm fresh

Possibilities are the 195/50/15 which are dirt cheap for a Toyo T1R or as an alternative the Nankang AS1 175/55/15 for a slimmer tread look.

[horrido]

The rear arches seem to be cut a fair bit higher into the bodywork on the Elvas. Would opening them up be an option, rather than limiting the tyre size? Just a thought.

[ettorebugatti]

Cut the wheel arches!



I'm just suggesting different size, because 195/50R15 is a quite common size and used on a lot of kit cars too.
So it wouldn't look more period correct compared to a skinnier tyre.

Here is a Gemini with 195/50R15


165/50R15 could work, but Toyo CF2 is too mild for your use?

In 175/55R15, I would also consider Bridgestone RE050A and Yokohama A.Drive

[Darkspeed]

Nov 5, 2018 23:17:41 GMT horrido said:

The rear arches seem to be cut a fair bit higher into the bodywork on the Elvas. Would opening them up be an option, rather than limiting the tyre size? Just a thought.

They are a completely different shape - bulged out to cover the wider Escort axle - To go back to the original shape would require a much narrower axle than the Escort which goes against the low cost ethos - I you wanted to build an more exacting replica you would probably base the car on MG Midget parts - that way narrower axles and wire wheels are easy to find. Or older Austin parts

I rather like the look of the rear wheel covers fitted to the White ELVA and may well have a look at moulding something like that as project for the future. For the time being the priority is the cheap and cheerful approach - I have one seriously large, one very large and one pretty large sizes of money pits to fill before getting too carried away with these.

[scimjim]

This has just popped up on eBay - also on locostbuilders. The advert doesn’t really state that it doesn’t have an engine - but as the Nissan engine has been offered on a Scimitar Facebook page (the SS1/SST had the S12 Nissan turbo CA18ET), I presume that’s the case?

Looks very rough to me for £3k and no engine?

[Darkspeed]

Nov 5, 2018 23:22:30 GMT ettorebugatti said:

Those wheels probably have a far more negative offset that the Pug steels.

That car is an odd one - body is really perched up on the chassis and looks like the sills have been cut about as well as the front for a quick release front body work.


Yep that Locoster Gem' is the same one as on page 3 27th August !! been on ebay relisted every 10 days - its been kicking around on this thread for a while - commented on it previously as being turned into a completely overprice pile of curse word since the galv chassis and body had been cut about to try and fit that silly Nissan lamp in it. It's a £1200 project if that.

Prior to it being chopped about it would have been a good project opportunity - There was also another on Locosters that has been sat for 20 years.

Mate dropped round today to assist with loading up the G27 chassis for a trip and gave the new wheels a firm seal of approval

[Darkspeed]

Bought a new (s/h) part for the future mods.



Not much else been happening unfortunately

[Darkspeed]

Whilst down the shed looking out some parts I grabbed the DHLA's and dropped them on the manifold with some old o-ring plates to see what the likely outcome will be.





In my old Weber guide a tuned 1600 X-Flow would need 32mm chokes - These have 30mm chokes fitted and they are probably a matched pair from a 1600 Alfa Romeo. Good road manners and up to 120BHP capability - pretty sure there is a linkage kicking about in one of the other boxes and I will find some filters somewhere.

Ebay also provided a Triumph 955i Daytona exhaust - Federal 80dbA! for £9 I bought it as I used one previously for a G15 and it was local and very cheap so figured I would get another - Now looking at it I may re purpose it for the Gemini.

[Darkspeed]

Spent some money and we have on the way from a variety of vendors

Golf Rad
82 C thermo switch
Volvo header tank
Volvo Cap
24" x 6" Stainless silencer
2" to 1.75" stainless reducer
2" stainless 60 degree bend
Triumph hinges

Not ordered the tyres yet - still deciding on the sizes. And scanning over the pictures above I need to add rear lights and a suitable grille mesh to that shopping list. Although making an alloy egg crate type has its appeal.

[Darkspeed]

The silencer arrived today and I think that I may well have overdone it on the diameter - it's looking like it will be a bit of a squeeze into the sill area. If we get a dry day over the holidays I may attempt to find out for certain.

I priced up the lights that I want to use on the car for the front and rear indicators and Side/brakes - Lucas L488 style - and all these little things soon add up. Especially when working on three or four projects and you think to yourself looking at and pricing up L539's for the G15 would be a good idea. It's a that point when you look at the parts you have dropped in your "basket" and think - - this is going to rip through quite a bit of folding. Well, no-one promised that this hobby was going to be cheap.

Try and get some progress on things today as yesterday was a complete washout.