Hi. This my 1st ever post so hope its a good one. I am building a tarmac spec Talbot Sunbeam Rally car from one of the Last Sunbeam Lotus's. DAC 19Y is my project but its life as a lotus is no more. This is a picture of the car I found on here a while back. I bought her in 2007 but it is only now real progress is taking place.
The day I brought her home:
A brief history of how I got here may help. A Friend I have known since my late teens was always into Rallying. I never had the money as spent all my cash on Bikes. 25 Years down the road, he was working in an F1 team and wanted to go and play again. I always wanted to and this was my chance. His talent was prep and navigation and mine driving. Well cut a long story short he bought a lotus sunbeam (as I had had one as a raod car years ago) and we set about the build. After a year we had a cracking car.
She had the Std Lotus engine and ZF box.
500 miles of practice and learning how to drive, a BARs test and competion licence in hand we entered our first event. The John Overend Memorial Rally in Yorkshire.
The Engine lasted 6 stage miles and the well known oil surge issues on the Lotus engine killed it.
Faced with a big bill and the fact we needed reliability the decition was made for a new direction. C20XE with Type 9 box, running on the Lutus carbs and dry sumped to end for ever oil issues.
Result:
198BHP reliable, quick and Fun. We did a further 5 events on Tarmac and in the forrest, progressing and developing the car and my driving. I am definatly quicker on Tarmac and have upset Escort Cosworth's and a few Scubies. But the relationship between my mate and I was getting tense. We wanted different things and I decided to bye my own car (DAC19Y) to run along side this car. One pure tarmac the other pure forest.
Life threw a curved ball. I got divorced, had no money, he took my ex wife's side, frendship over and he took HIS car and drove away. He did rally it with someone else but, I later found he had sold it on and emigrated to NZ. The new owner returned it to being a Lotus and has used it for a few years in Scotland. It was on E-Bay a mounth ago so.....
Which brings me nicely back to DAC 19Y. She spent years in my garage acting like a xmas tree, as things came off I sold them and now find I got more for the bits than I paid for the car.
I would work on it now and again but have mainly been building a house and getting my life back together. I want in the end another car similar to the last but better. So I bought a plasma cutter and started. I want to Run an Atlas Axle that is fully floating and turreted. With an internal tank etc etc.
The frame work at the back not only adds a lot of strength but is custom made for the Alloy tank. The Axle is connected via Billy's to the turrets and I have made new upper and lower links with the left/right hand thred rose joints. Should be nice and strong and handle easy the 250/280 BHP planned.
Working on an old car is a pain so I built a spit out of old angle I had in the garage. What a difference.
Even with that all the crap and underseal made every job a pain. So off to the dipper she went:
And then I had 3 weeks aof thinking will I get a shell back or a T Bag....... Thankfully, She is home.
And now I can get to work with the plasma and welder again. She (MiShell) is in remarkable condition considering how badly they were put together in the first place. OMG the car industry was bad in the late 70's. My welding is not the best in the world but with this much practice I am getting better.
I am repairing and modifying as I go. Sill stands, removing unwanted bits and strenthing as I go. As of yesterday this is where I have got too....
Hope your enjoying reading about this???
Just read back through. Got there is a lot of Typo's.... Ooops. Will add more to this as I go but would love comments and advise, Many thanks Kev
Nice stuff. Keep posting!
1970 Mk1 Escort Tarmac Rally Car
I cannot get back in the garage till next week so thought I would post a few pictures of my engine build. I built this a few years ago and it has been sitting on an engine stand waiting for the shell to be ready. I have developed it over the years with little MOD's like the altinator adjuster, and belt deflectors to allow a decent oil flow into the engine etc etc.
All the parts were sourced from SBD and they did a wonderful job modifying the head for me. Really although I have made bit's and pieces in truth all I really did was assemble the parts and set the Cam timing. Probably I was a bit podantic with that setting it up with a DTI to within 1 deg.....
But as you can see it looks the part and should give me somewhere near 250BHP. Depending on the Exhaust and mainifold. Really looking forward to hearing it fire up.
I was lucky when I bought the car as a previous owner had splashed out on front Bylstiens (Probably spelt that wrong) for the front. They needed work but are perfect. I (Suprisingly) had to modify them...
I wasn't happy with the the Roller top and was sure I could do better. I found an adjustable Unit from a Nissan Drift car that I turned some spacers for and that will give me adjustment at the top of the strut.
As I mentioned earlier I am going to be running a FF Atlas axle. I'll post some pictures of that soon but with the experience of the last car I bent bottom arms and there was axle movement when on the limit. Enter Kev's home made design rear arms. They are 3mm tubes that I cut to length and turned down blank ends (1 LHT & 1 RHT) and welded them on. Fitted rose ends and a strong bracket for the top of the pigs head. Now they are fully adjustable and should be massively strong. I therefore cut the sping cups from the chassis as they are not needed. The more weight I can take out the better as the skids I am welding in are 3mm steel and not light. The s shocks are billies with 2.5" coilovers.
I bought the Pigs head from the Squires Brothers in Stoke. That was years ago. They fitted thicker tubes and the FF ends. I bought it home and have welded on Brackets for the arms, shocks and brakes. I have a ZF LSD from a Capri in the garage and a 4.6:1 CWP to go in it and will need to take it back to stoke to have it built up. They will probably think it is an abandoned project, it has been so long.
The rear brakes are Outlaw Billet units from the States. They are identical to Willwood ones. I heard it was the same designer. The Fronts are Outlaw to.
Last edited by rallysunbeam; 21-09-2013 at 15:57.
Gonna be a nice job when you finish it... In middle of building a sunbeam also. Are you arching it with fiberglass arches...?! If so how are you getting on with them? Do they fit ok...?! Have a semi floating atlas with 4age engine and g15 seq. quaife box going into my one!
Hi,
Nice to hear there is another in the build stage. Yes I am using fibreglass arches. 2 reasons, 1) If I had used metal ones on the last car (when I had a light roll) all the energy would have transfered into the shell, Causing alot of panel damage, instead the arch crecked and was easily repaired, 2) I happen to have a set in the garage.......
This is what caused the damage:
And the repair in progress
This was about a month later on the Northwest stages. As you can see I didnt even get chance to resticker it. Not a bad gob though.....
Last edited by rallysunbeam; 23-09-2013 at 19:49.
I don't think you will ever get a perfect fit with F/G arches. I fit mine as flush to the body as possible, then glass the inside of the extention onto the extended inner arch. That way adds stength and helps water proof and stone protect under the arch. I also fill the outer so you cannot see the rivetts but I know some like to show the fixings.... Personnal choice. One thing I did on the last car was to fill the area between the outer skin and the trim panel with expanding foam. Added loads of strenth to the main panel for next to no weight increase. Means you have more trouble if you come to weld it though. Has to be one of the last jobs, but definatly saved the main panel on more than one occasion.
Love the sound of your car, I had a Corolla GT with the 4AGE engine in it years ago and loved it. Unfortunatly I cannot run to a sequential box (though it is on my wish list) for mine and have a new Quaiff SCCR type 9. Get some picture of yours up on here, would love to compair..
Cheers
Kev
Hello. Car is in a shed 3 hrs up the road from me sitting on a bench at the moment, at the earliest of stages yet!! a sorry sight to be honest....(",).. I'll try and root out a few pics of it here later on!! Yeah the fiberglass seems to make sense when you look at the things that may happen, plus don't fancy spending 500 quid on a set of alloy ones to leave them welded into a round bale of silage on a stage some day!! Has the large tunnels from engine bay to back axle and is also turreted and 5 linked....long way to go yet...(",)
Could i ask the cost of having the shell dipped and where it was done i live in Herts
Yes Mate no problem.
There is 2 main places, One in Dudley called SPL, You have to deliver the car to them and collect it. Cost is around £1000 then for a further £1500 they electro coat it that gives it modern day car rust protection.
Then there is the people I used, Enviro-Strip (UK)Ltd (Tel: 01827 284333) in Tamworth (Midlands). I cannot speak more highly about these people, They collected the car in a covered trailer, kept me informed through the whole 3 week process, e-mailed me the odd picture of what was happening to the shell, Delivered it back to me (with a photo, file and DVD of the whole process, personallised on my car), coated in an etch 2pack primer for £1100. Fantastic company I would very highly recommend. Service is world class..
Hope this helps.
Kev
This is the Video Enviro-Strip gave me when the shell came back:
Kev
Last edited by rallysunbeam; 25-09-2013 at 01:41.
After reading this thread from top to bottom I felt I had to congratulate you on all your effort to build this car.
I'll keep waiting to know more about your developments.
It's becoming a fantastic car.
Good luck,
Mário Santos.
Well another productive day in the Garage: Although the N/S sill is the better of the two, I wanted to strengthen it and make sure of no isues in the future.
Two adantages to making your own sill
1) I made the lower (flat section) from 3mm sheet for added strength and the upper part in 1mm.
2) It's a damb site cheeper to get a sheet of metal than a complete sill.
The disadvantage is it takes a bloody long time and (with my ability) will never look as good as a preformed panel (Good job its a rally car and not destined for show grounds).
Anyway, here is a few more pictures for the post.
Last edited by rallysunbeam; 25-09-2013 at 23:30.
Had a few hours on the car again yesterday and tidied up a few bits, holes in the floor etc, and started on rebuilding the floor, Afraid the pictures are not as good as before as I tried just using my phone instead of a decent camera:
This is the front section where I fitted the sill stand. A little concerned I made a mud trap. So this is to resolve that
This is where I cut all the rear floor away to redisign the boot, for the internal tank. Still a fair bit to do here,
Last edited by rallysunbeam; 27-09-2013 at 08:13.
coool project always good to read somthing differant
stitchmotorsport
fail to prepar prepare to fail
Time for an update. The lady of the house has gone away for the weekend, so I get to stay in the garage untill sleep insist's I come in. The upshot is the following pictures:
Nice to see something different
Another productive day in the garage.
More strengthening for the suspension mounts. I want to make sure I get the best from the FF axle.
And at last I can start filling in the boot area.
So much easier useing card to make a pattern.
Nice to get to a point where I can be thinking where to place bits.
Last edited by rallysunbeam; 06-10-2013 at 22:46.
The circle attachment arrived for the plasma cutter on Saturday, so I just had to try it out. Therefore as I wont be using the petrol filler it was the ideal curcle to cut.
Last edited by rallysunbeam; 06-10-2013 at 22:44.
The new fibreglass dash arrived yesterday so I thought I would prefit the dials. This will need to be adapted to fit around the roll cage and flocked before final fitting. Dials look good though. Need a carbon centre panel to reach down to the tunnel for the other bits. If anyone knows wher I can get one at a reasonable price please let me know. I think I will end up modifying an escort one...
Hope you like:
Had to spend a bit of time cleaning the garage today so only had a couple of hours to spend in the car. I used the time to make brackets and prefit the fuel pump assembly. Means I could weld the retaining nuts to the shell etc.
I sent this in a txt message to a mate who replied saying simply "CAR PORN"!!!!!
Next update and a few more pictures. I have carried on filling in the boot area:
The off side area of the boot suffered from the tin worm quite a bit, so it took quite a bit of cutting to clear it out.
As this is the petrol filler side it is doubles skinned. Double the area for the rust to gather. I have cut the majority of the inner skin away and attached the new boot plate to it for strength.
I have also started on the Off side wheel arch. This was totally rotten to putting Grp 4 arches on meant cutting high and removing all the bad stuff.
Those wondering what the green cable is. I threaded it through the box section and intend to run all the cables for the boot area through it.
Last edited by rallysunbeam; 20-10-2013 at 19:56.
Not sure if people are not interested because it's not an escort but seems I am the only one looking at my thread. Is anyone interested? Is it worth continuing?
Definately continue, love watching these build threads.
Thanks, nice to know I am not talking to myself.!!!
Yep, i'm here reading as well! Its a nice change to follow a build thats still RWD and not an Escort. Keep it coming
I read anything with the word Rally in the title!
Look forward to seeing your progress.
Matt
5 years since my last post but I am looking at your thread with interest . Have my own Sunbeam in the garage needing lots of work and you are giving me an idea of what needs to be done to it.
Please keep reporting your progress as even if I dont comment I enjoy watching your progress.
[/SIGPIC]
I'm reading. Keep the updates coming.
I'm looking too!
Thanks folks for the support. Will keep the post updated as I get further along. Unfortunatly I am on night shift now for the next 4 nights so it will have to be me designing the wiring on a PC. I will build it from scratch but intend to hide as many of the cables as possible to keep it neat. The idea is to have a bank of circuit breakers on the center console (When I can get my hands on a reasonably priced carbon one). The other things to go on there will be the main isolator, Fire pull a fuel guage and volt meter (Racetech to match the rest). Plus my have to mount a light switch there for the standard lights, (not sure yet) as well as spot lights etc...... Will keep you all updated as I go.
Last edited by rallysunbeam; 23-10-2013 at 00:28.
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