paul1393 Posted January 10, 2008 Share Posted January 10, 2008 (edited) Above re-located steering rack. A small box section was welded to the front of the cross member. By lowering and moving the rack forward it gave more room for the 4 branch -steering input shaft now lower closer to the high torque mini starter- and kept the rack in line with the Commodore steering arms. Side view showing small box section on front of cross member with steering rack. Note the nuts welded to the cross member, this is the original location of the rack. Edited March 3, 2011 by paul1393 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul1393 Posted January 10, 2008 Share Posted January 10, 2008 (edited) Above the anti-roll bar/track control arm lowering block. This was used to give more room for the bell-housing and exhaust 4 branch headers. lowering this bar caused the caster angle to increase - lower control arms moved forward - this was compensated for by re-shimming the upper control arms to reduce the caster back to the correct angle. I think it is not quite right yet! Edited March 3, 2011 by paul1393 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul1393 Posted March 6, 2009 Share Posted March 6, 2009 testing signature Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SS069 Posted March 7, 2009 Share Posted March 7, 2009 Paul - the car looks great.........I want an A series, but for the time being I'll plod on with my 84 GTE Coupe V8i..... You've done some really nice & sympathetic modifications on your A, I like the Commodore 5 stud hub conversion, the car's a credit to you mate - how does it go, drive & handle now...? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul1393 Posted March 7, 2009 Share Posted March 7, 2009 Paul - the car looks great.........I want an A series, but for the time being I'll plod on with my 84 GTE Coupe V8i..... You've done some really nice & sympathetic modifications on your A, I like the Commodore 5 stud hub conversion, the car's a credit to you mate - how does it go, drive & handle now...? Hi, Thanks for your remarks. The car is pretty quick, It uses a Piper stealth cam with high rev lifters and stage 3 big valve heads. Done a 13.7 quarter mile last time I went to Santa Pod. The handling is fine but a little too stiff at the front. I am swapping the front springs over for some softer ones at present, hopefully this will give a more comfortable ride. Another mod I am doing at the moment is a cold air induction system which I am hoping will take off another tenth or two. Maybe next year I will go for fuel injection like yours as its got to be better than a carb! Cheers, Paul Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul1393 Posted March 24, 2009 Share Posted March 24, 2009 (edited) I have made some changes to the car lately, Firstly I have installed Lotus Elise rear LED lights in the Manta housings. The front spoiler now sports new air intakes for a cold air induction kit my friend Malc is making. It will be attached to the underside of the bonnet and enclose the air filter when the bonnet is closed. Lastly I have fitted the wheel arch liners I got from Germany. Edited June 11, 2010 by paul1393 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robbie Posted March 24, 2009 Share Posted March 24, 2009 A work of art as usual Paul Like the way the inner arches are sealed of 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
midasmesh Posted March 24, 2009 Share Posted March 24, 2009 Does look nice and the wheel arch liners look good quality. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul1393 Posted March 29, 2009 Share Posted March 29, 2009 (edited) Couple of close up pic's of my latest mod... the Lotus lights. these are LEDs for the stop and tail (outer ring on the outside unit) and rear fog (outer ring inner unit). The turn and reversing lights are bulb in the centers of the units. Fitting is fairly straight forward. I used 4x Manta reverse light housings which I modified by removing the bulb holders and enlarging the hole in order to allow the back of the Lotus units to sit flush inside of the Manta housings before being bolted in using the original Lotus bolts. Apart from the fog lights which will require additional wiring and an illuminating switch the rest was easy, just a simple hook up. Edited March 3, 2011 by paul1393 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul1393 Posted June 13, 2009 Share Posted June 13, 2009 (edited) Just back from N Ireland with the Manta. Weather was great!!!! Visited Manta guru Robbie Stinson loved his Mantas, Had a great day out in some beautiful country side with Robbie driving. Then off to Donagal had some fun on a beautiful big empty beach, gave the car a good jet wash afterwords. Covered over 1300 miles driving via Scotland. Cost in petrol ? who cares!!! Great weather great holiday. Click on the top picture below to watch a video. http://s94.photobucket.com/albums/l88/paul0303/Manta/?action=view¤t=Familyphotos030.mp4 Edited March 3, 2011 by paul1393 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul1393 Posted January 15, 2010 Share Posted January 15, 2010 (edited) Decided to go for a larger engine....well seemed like a good idea at the time Got a 4.6 short engine from V8 Developments in Spalding Lincs. With a set of stage 3 heads a hot cam this lightened and balanced bottom end should see me around the 13 second mark on the strip. I have changed the rings for these "Total Seal" gapless rings they claim to improve compression over the standard ones! hope they do as they are not cheap! Edited May 10, 2010 by paul1393 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul1393 Posted March 3, 2011 Share Posted March 3, 2011 (edited) Been a while since I have up dated this thread. The 4.6 is now fitted. This is a post 1995 engine with serpentine belt and crank driven oil pump. On earlier Rover v8s the oil pump was driven from the camshaft like the Opel cam-in-head engines. The crank driven oil pump is driven twice as fast as the cam driven one. The carb has been tuned using a wideband air/fuel ratio meter which uses a Lambda probe fitted into the exhaust just behind the nearside manifold. The carburetor jets and metering rods have been changed to get as close to the optimum air fuel ratio mix (14.7 to 1) as the engine will tolerate. If I can just keep my foot off the gas now I should see 30mpg on a run!! Still not much of that...It's the foot down fun I built it for! I am off to Los Angeles in April and have plans to pick up an MSD fully programmable advance curve ignition system with multi spark discharge. This should help my 1/4 mile times! This is a pic of the 3.9 before removal. I am now using a bigger radiator. All Rover v8s with V belts driving the water pump etc have the Cam driven oil pump. A lot of the pics I have previously posted on this thread have been moved as my brother took it on himself to re-organise my Photobucket albums not knowing I had active links to web pages. So I am re-posting this pic of the car. Hopfully at some later date I will find the time to re-establish some of the links. As requested by Walsall86 pic's of the engine mountings below. In this pic you can see the steering rack has been lowered this was done to keep the steering geometry correct as I am using Commodore stub axles and steering arms. Rover rubber mount with custom bracket which moves the rubber mount back to line up with the new mounting points welded to the front of the crossmember. If the engine was set further to the bulkhead the custom bracket would not be necessary. I had to use it as I was compromised with the position of the gear lever being too far down the tunnel, The gearbox I am using a Getrag 265,(Ex Monza) the selector being further to the rear of the box than on the Rover LT77 gearbox. Triumph TR8 engine bracket supplied by Rimmer Bros. Edited March 4, 2011 by paul1393 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul1393 Posted March 3, 2011 Share Posted March 3, 2011 As far as I know it is not easy to get hold of A series bushes for the front lower arms, apart from Dr Manta that is. I decided to have a go at fitting the Manta B lower arm poly bush to my spare A series lower arms. After removing the old bush I enlarged the holes with a cutter in a pillar drill to accept the housing of the poly bush which was then welded in position. Old and new bush below. Manta B bush housing welded into position Below notice the cracks in the rubber bush which has only covered around 5000 miles in 8 years. Just need to paint the housing and arm before fitting the polly bush and inner tube. I have been informed by the supplier that he can supply just the poly part for future re-bushing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Barrett Posted March 3, 2011 Share Posted March 3, 2011 some good work there. that has helped me actually as i need to lower my rack for more sump clearance, seeing that tells me it can be done, great! cracking car! p.s. i ve stole your idea of the elise rear clusters, gone and got myself a new set, they look so good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul1393 Posted March 3, 2011 Share Posted March 3, 2011 Hi Novashed, on the subject of lowering the steering rack. What you can't see is the two tubes I welded into the crossmember which the bolts securing the rack to the crossmember pass through. This was my means of holding the bolts to correctly line up with the new position of the rack. The Lotus lights don't come cheep do they? Still I would say they are worth it for the look they give the Manta A. If you haven't already done so get a length of round section rubber the right size to take up the gap between the outer circumference of Lotus light and the inside of the Manta housing. I made four "O" rings out of a length of the stuff for mine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Barrett Posted March 3, 2011 Share Posted March 3, 2011 cheers paul, some sound advice always welcome Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
transeurope Posted December 14, 2012 Share Posted December 14, 2012 (edited) Hi Paul which steering arms did you use? Manta a or rekord D ? sorry; see now that you did use the commo's and adapted the steering rack instead of using other steering arms. Edited December 14, 2012 by transeurope Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul1393 Posted December 25, 2012 Share Posted December 25, 2012 (edited) Hi, Yes they are Commodore. The arms were heated cherry red then bent outboard to restore the Ackerman angle. You can see the cut-out in the disc back plate to give clearance for the steering arm and track rod end. Edited December 25, 2012 by paul1393 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toronik Posted March 31, 2020 Share Posted March 31, 2020 Hey, waht Color you use? Could you send me the Color Code? Regards, Achim Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GTEPETE Posted March 26, 2023 Share Posted March 26, 2023 Just re-looking at Paul H's lovely modded A...he put in a lot of work.... I know he sold it....Its currently MOT'd (and still showing as a 1600!). Still in our Club? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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