At last, mission accomplished! Finally got hold of a V8-engined Dolomite Sprint.
The car is fitted (Very professionally!) with a fuel injected Rover 3.5EFI, making about 160BHP and 220lb/ft. This drives a 5 speed gearbox with a Sherpa linkage – and it’s fantastic. There’s literally 1cm of throw between gears, it IS like a rifle bolt and makes a great noise – Ka-chink!
The swirl pot is in the tank, with EFi pump so that’s quiet. Exhaust gases exit via a single pipe system, with fresh air coming in from a K&N filter. The radiator is a one-off item and the engine is as far back as possible. Everything works beautifully and the car is the BEST one that I’ve ever driven.
It also has Spax shocks, uprated springs and goodridge hoses.
Just bought it, got in, fired it up and ploughed the 120 miles home in 3 hours. Felt like ages but we got there in the end……..
The cabin is …….requiring work. It’s so noisy – but everything is well placed, the pedals have been moved but the travel is bang on and it’s got a nice clutch, light accelerator and the brakes work well. The gearstick falls nicely to hand and it’s a real pleasure to drive – it really does ride, grip and go nicely – maybe down to the springs and the 205 tyres it is shod with.
There’s also a little bit of refitting and exterior TLC to be taken care of.
Dead pleased with this one, it’s great fun. I’ll be updating this page as work proceeds on the car and some new photos will be up soon as I currently have no good ones!
– Update –
A pair of 8″ Kenlowes had been ordered and are now waiting to be fitted. These should keep the car cool in the summer months and stop me baking in the cabin.
The Demontweeks catalogue thudded onto my floor this week and I hadn’t realised Nitrous Oxide systems had become quite affordable. After doing some further reading I may consider it as an option to boost outputs temporarily – starting with a 75BHP shot.
A fellow forumite runs a 200BHP shot (progressively ramped up from 50 to 200 to smooth the output) on a pretty standard but nicely built 3.5. Something else to consider……..
The car has also been run a couple of times on timing gear and has so far established a personal best 0-60 of 5.8 seconds flat, in poor conditions and on cheap tyres. It will be interesting to see quite how much I can get out of it!