Moggy's Darrian T9

[Moggy]

here is the start of the story of my Darrian GTR. It's been a bit of an up and down story, but the car is now finally getting to a point were it will be ready for the stages!

Here what Blue Boy looks like now.

[Moggy]

Re: Moggy's Darrian T9

I always wanted a Darrian having watched Davrians and early Darrians on rallys as far back as the 80's.

Have done plenty of rallying over the years with a Manta, Sunbeam, Escort and 3 Novas...including one with a Swindon Race Engines rallycross engine....very fast but ate driveshafts and gearboxes for breakfast!

Anyway I also got back involved with autograss racing, which is where I had started when I was 17. Autograss racing is very serious nowardays and I jumped right in at the deep end with a class 8 bike engined racer! It was awesome and sparked my interest in motorbike engines.

We did one season and then built a new car with a Honda Blackbird engine......which at that time was the ultimate engine. The new car was tricky to drive but SOOOO fast!

We even took it tarmac racing in an open winter series at Ty Croes on Anglesey (where I had done many rallys in the past)....the car, when fitted with slicks and harder springs was extremley quick and battered all the rally cars (including an XE powered Darrian and a Full Group 4 BDG Escort) as well as most of the 'proper' single seat race cars.....Running down the back straight at 11,000rpm in 6th was exciting to say the least...especially as the wind was getting under my crash helmet.

Anyway this all got me thinking why not put my two loves together...bike engine plus rally car = RAPID!

At that time I only knew of one person who had done it...a guy with a beautifully built Reliant Kitten (yes really) with a Kawasaki engine....we went to see him, but eventually decided against it.

We were going down to deepest darkest Lampeter in south/mid wales to deliver a couple of bike engines I had sold to an autograss chap so arranged to make a visit to Darrian cars.......this is a day I will long remember....driving up the dirt road to Tim Duffees (the genius behind Darrians) remote hill farm. I showed him the bike engines we had in the boot of the car and he showed us round the Darrian factory/barn.....I loved the cars and the principle and it turned out he was keen to see one of his cars with a bike engine.

I sat in the 'works' car in his workshop/barn and that was it.....it clicked in my head and the deal was done!

We gave Tim the order for a super lightweight (Even by Darrian standards) GTR bodyshell, fitted with modified T9 wheels as this was more suited to 13" wheels. I paid extra for a much higher carbon/kevlar content so it could be light but still strong.....

Tim said 3 months for delivery...which to be honest we thought was optomistic!

[Moggy]

Re: Moggy's Darrian T9

We kept in touch with Tim over the next couple of months and went back down to sit in the 'tub' which had specially lengthened footwells (I am 6' tall).....I got addicted to the smell of epoxy resin that day and still am! my car still smells lovely on hot days.....way better than the weed

Tim had said 3 months....and was spot on! my mate Les and I went down to collect the car on a very hot day a few days before I was getting married.....It was great day, although carrying (2 of us) the bare shell into the garage when we got home was a nightmare.

I actually spent the morning of my wedding day fitting the front suspension...before I went to the church...but dont tell Lidia!

[Arieke]

Re: Moggy's Darrian T9

nice car, had porsche shell? with the old rx7 spoiler and so? never seen this car.

Keep up the good work!!

[Moggy]

Re: Moggy's Darrian T9

Here are a coupld of early shots of the car before it was painted as well as the reversing box we fitted to the bike engine.

[Moggy]

Re: Moggy's Darrian T9

Before we started the project we wrote to the RAC MSA to get permission to run a bike engine...as did Tim Duffee. we were told all was OK so long as we didn't run a chain drive....they said that would be dangerous....dont tell all the thousands of bikers riding arround! Anyway we had to bow to their supreme technical knowledge and fit the reversing box as shown in the photo above....actually it was very good and gave the car six foward geers and six rearward

Anyway here is the shell straight after we painted it.

[Moggy]

Re: Moggy's Darrian T9

By now we had decided on Suzuki Hayabusa Engine. It was dry sumped, and run on Power Comander engine management. The engine was 1300cc and with the dry sump, electric water pump, proper exhaust and a few induction mods made and easy 185bhp...the car handled terribly at this stage but my God it was fast!

we even used the dashboard off the motorbike...I got the engine, loom, dash, fuel pump etc for about £2500 from a 3 month old crashed bike which had done 1500 miles....good value power!

Here is the engine



Here is the bike dash........the eagle eyed will spot the Austin Montego steering wheel I used a montego upper column and switchgear...but have since ditched it all.

[Moggy]

Re: Moggy's Darrian T9

Next we took teh car for it's SVA test....which it needed to get road registered as it is classed as a kit car.

It passed at the second attempt and was registered as a new car

That's when the troubles started...........

The MSA who govern () the sport decided not to issue any more log books for bike engined cars (existing logbooked bike engine cars can run till 2012).........so basically we were shafted and had no choice but change the engine.........

you can imagine my feelings at this point, having to throw away all my work and start from scratch.

[Wessie]

Re: Moggy's Darrian T9

thanks for the story, and gutted for you about the logbook issue
what engine are you thinking of now?

[Moggy]

Re: Moggy's Darrian T9

thanks for the story, and gutted for you about the logbook issue
what engine are you thinking of now?

Thanks, but hold on fella the story has hardly started yet...

[Wessie]

Re: Moggy's Darrian T9

Thanks, but hold on fella the story has hardly started yet...

[Moggy]

Re: Moggy's Darrian T9

OK so after this fiasco....I just could not decide what to do. I quickly sold the engine and transaxle to a guy who put it into a Radical racing car....and I almost sold Blue Boy as a rolling shell...........

But I just couldn't bring myself to do it....so Blue Boy was mothballed under sheets and we went back to rallying a nova for 18 months.......

[Moggy]

Re: Moggy's Darrian T9

Anyway one night after I had rebuilt the Nova's diff yet again....one of the two lads (Les and Dave) said the fatefull words....

"when the f*ck are we going to do something with Blue Boy?"

after several beers whilst modifying another nova geerbox case to take the bigger diff/cwp....I was pursuaded to sell the Nova and get stuck back into Blue Boy.

[Moggy]

Re: Moggy's Darrian T9

Obviously we had to fit a car engine to keep the 'powers that be' happy.

At first we were going to fit a Honda S2000 engine (I had 2 sat in the corner) and a Hewland Mk9 I had.....but in the end we decided that the S2000 would rip the Hewland to bits in no time (it was on Jneveys/management and did nearly 250bhp). Stupidly I sold them to a chap in Ireland...I should have put one of them in my escort (see my other project)....but I didn't

After much thinking I decided to fit the car with a Ford 1600 Zetec SE engine as used in Pumas/Fiestas etc

It seamed like a good plan as I had managed to get a Sequential Elite transaxle at a proper good price...and Jon, who is Shawspeed and builds these engines....lives about 2 miles from my house.

[Moggy]

Re: Moggy's Darrian T9

The thing is that the car had been built for the bike engine so was set up on 13" wheels, had relatively small brakes etc and needed major work to take the car motor.....

So we stripped it completely back to a bare shell...got rid of everything and then built everything from scratch again over the last 12 months.

suspension to take 15" wheels
Alcon brakes (these are lovely!)
TOTALLY new wiring loom
Totally new cooling system complete with PACE radiator
new subframe for engine/box
new stainless exhaust system
new gear linkage
new steering column
new dash

basically EVERYTHING!

I bought the engine from an almost new Fiesta S which some t_it had crashed and gave it to Shawspeed along with a dry sump system I bought from PACE (and waited many many many months for).

John built up the engine with pocketed pistons, worked head, his own cams, direct to head jenveys, Omex 1600 etc. He also lent us a dummy block and head so whilst he did his 'thing' with the engine we could sort mounts/subframe/exhaust/driveshafts etc