Sunbeam Tarmac Rally Car

**rallysunbeam** · 20-09-2013, 12:00

Re: Sunbeam Tarmac Rally Car

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.

**rallysunbeam** · 20-09-2013, 12:10

Re: Sunbeam Tarmac Rally 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.

**rallysunbeam** · 20-09-2013, 12:24

Re: Sunbeam Tarmac Rally Car

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.....

**rallysunbeam** · 20-09-2013, 12:39

Re: Sunbeam Tarmac Rally Car

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.

**rallysunbeam** · 20-09-2013, 12:48

Re: Sunbeam Tarmac Rally Car

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.

**rallysunbeam** · 20-09-2013, 13:01

Re: Sunbeam Tarmac Rally Car

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???

**rallysunbeam** · 20-09-2013, 13:09

Re: Sunbeam Tarmac Rally Car

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

**MK1_Oz** · 21-09-2013, 13:20

Re: Sunbeam Tarmac Rally Car

Nice stuff. Keep posting!

**rallysunbeam** · 21-09-2013, 14:50

Re: Sunbeam 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.

**rallysunbeam** · 21-09-2013, 15:16

Re: Sunbeam Tarmac Rally Car

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.

**rallysunbeam** · 21-09-2013, 15:34

Re: Sunbeam Tarmac Rally Car

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.

**rallysunbeam** · 21-09-2013, 15:55

Re: Sunbeam Tarmac Rally Car

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.

**Timmy tosser** · 23-09-2013, 00:38

Re: Sunbeam Tarmac Rally Car

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!

**rallysunbeam** · 23-09-2013, 19:42

Re: Sunbeam Tarmac Rally Car

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.....

Sunbeam Tarmac Rally Car

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