60s/70s Prodsports-Modsports pics

**Peter Mallett** · 8 Aug 2002, 20:30 (Ref:469790)

Welcome aboard John.

TimD · 5 Aug 2002, 21:33 (Ref:469791)

This is a long shot, but I don't suppose anyone has a bigger shot of that E-Type with the shark's teeth motif on the nose?

And is it Filbee or Loveday who drove it?

(1/43rd scale miniature in mind....)

TimD · 9 Aug 2002, 10:12 (Ref:469792)

Welcome to the forums, John. Hope we can provide a few more nostalgic memories for you.

You know, I think I've heard about that club. A little while back, one of the Classic car magazines reported a vintage Rolls Royce doing precisely the job you described.

When the time came that a collector gave the owners the proverbial offer they could not refuse, they had to break a hole in the side wall of the venue to get the car out.

Andrew Kitson · 5 Aug 2002, 19:07 (Ref:469793)

Oulton Park 1968

zefarelly · 5 Jul 2007, 09:47 (Ref:1954986)

what an incredible mix of cars !

SidewaysFeltham · 5 Jul 2007, 11:37 (Ref:1955073)

Oh there were too! That's why it was so much fun!

And then Davrian Imps and TVRs and Turners with Ford power were allowed in: and it all became a wee bit silly.

zefarelly · 5 Jul 2007, 14:48 (Ref:1955250)

a bit like some historic racing now with all the V8's !

SidewaysFeltham · 5 Jul 2007, 16:40 (Ref:1955364)

Jon Britton in his fraud Midget, helped by Gabby Koenig running interference, used to regularly see off E Type Jags; around GP ciruits like Brands GP and Snetterton!

Britton's type cars were banned later on. He used injection and a Cooper s 1275 taken to 1293 (from memory) with either an Alan Woods crank or one of his own. What the lads used to do was take a steel s crank, cut off the mini transverse type flywheel boss, turn up a steel "In Line" boss and weld it to the crank. Voila! One steel forged crank for a Midget!

Britton also used to build his cars mainly from ally and glass. Later banned.

Etc.

Off topic, my other favourite 1970s Giant Killer, was John Fitzpatrick in Ralph Broad's 1600 c.c. Broadspeed BDA Escort, chasing and often beating Brian "Yogi" Muir, in the Wiggins Teape 7 litre Camaro! In the rain it was invariably Fitz!

COLIN STUBBS · 5 Jul 2007, 17:11 (Ref:1955393)

Ok.Back on topic then and heres 3 modsports cars having slight problems.

Recognise em?

chrisks · 5 Jul 2007, 19:33 (Ref:1955518)

The Ginetta was John Evans??

davyboy · 6 Jul 2007, 07:59 (Ref:1955841)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Michael C Felth

Jon Britton in his fraud Midget, helped by Gabby Koenig running interference, used to regularly see off E Type Jags; around GP ciruits like Brands GP and Snetterton!

Britton's type cars were banned later on. He used injection and a Cooper s 1275 taken to 1293 (from memory) with either an Alan Woods crank or one of his own. What the lads used to do was take a steel s crank, cut off the mini transverse type flywheel boss, turn up a steel "In Line" boss and weld it to the crank. Voila! One steel forged crank for a Midget!

Britton also used to build his cars mainly from ally and glass. Later banned.

The 3 bearing crank in the A-series was a weak point for sure and some people went to lengths to deal with it. I heard of people having cranks turned from solid billets of steel where they'd specify the hardness... I think GA Farndon may have done it... but I could be wrong. In fact, lots of Midget components had to be 'remade' from EN40 steel. My modsports Midget had an appetite for drive shafts which kept snapping because of the super-sticky F3 slicks I was using.

SidewaysFeltham · 6 Jul 2007, 10:33 (Ref:1955960)

In fact a steel billet crank, whilst obviously far cheaper to make than a forged crank, has inherrent weaknesses too.

Steel is like wood: it has grain. Carving a crank from the solid means the grain is "End Grain" at the end of each web.

With a forged steel crank, the metal is forced to "flow" around corners, since the forging process uses a number of die and repeated stampings to arrive at the final part, prior to fettling and grinding and machining.

Once heat treated and etc, the forged steel crank is far tougher.

The other A series weakness of course, was the centre main cap. Line boring and solid steel caps helped to cure this.

I broke a FJ Red crank in my Midget on the top straight at Brands (my "Home" circuit!) as I was accelerating oput of Clearways. Exciting at the time, since I was doing probably 100 and it just locked everything up!

Who needs handbrake turns!

zefarelly · 6 Jul 2007, 08:30 (Ref:1955856)

I think most race engines today in historics are made from EN40 as a minimum grade

just listen to the revs most engines pull these days, and reliably ( some of them!)

davyboy · 6 Jul 2007, 13:37 (Ref:1956179)

I was told at the time that the billets were better, but more brittle. I never had the opportunity to run one, so I can't comment. I did lunch a few A-series cranks in my time though. That motor did break my heart for sure.

SidewaysFeltham · 6 Jul 2007, 18:40 (Ref:1956461)

With A series, back in the 60s and 70s, the best ever engine (In Line) was the XSP, which was the experimental lump built for Formula Three.

Forged pistons, steel rods forged steel crank duplex timing gear, dry sump; and a different head with an extra bolt at the front near the thermostat cover/top hose take off.

This was the basic concept for the original Cooper s too. However the XSP was only 998 c.c. The Cooper s, of course, came in three flavours: 998; 1041; and 1275.

In order to increase capacity, to 1300 c.c. (Class limit) it was necessary to both bore and stroke the motor. And the XSP crank would not serve!

However, by the simple expedient of converting the boss of a Cooper 1275 c.c. crank it worked and the end result (if one used an early and original s crank) was a steel forged crank for an inline car, like a Midget.

The main weakness as I said before was of course the middle centre cap. Fitting steel main caps and line boring solved this trouble. A middle fix was to mill off the top of the middle cap and strap it with a flat steel bar.

For realiability it was also essential to open up the oil galleries in the block.

If all was completed properly, then the A series was a realiable and safe engine. Obviously not as "unburstable" as a five bearing Ford eight port, but pretty robust if built correctly, maintained and bearings and oil pumps were changed regularly, as the oil pumps were quick to wear. As were the early phosphor valve guides in an s head!

There are many ex F3 XSP engines being run in historic F3 single seaters: I was chatting to Woody, the Chairman (Think he still is??), of the Cooper Car Club about his totally re-fettled Cooper F3 and his XSP last year and he has re-built using the right bits and has achieved excellent realiability: and power!

Farbrooke · 6 Jul 2007, 20:56 (Ref:1956550)

I thought the mini cooper came in 997 then 998cc form, whilst the Cooper S came 970, 1071 and 1275cc as standard.

SidewaysFeltham · 6 Jul 2007, 22:27 (Ref:1956587)

Yes I do agree: the Cooper s was 970 in its smallest iteration. The 1071 s came firstly, of course.

I discount the plain Cooper as they were re-worked standard A series components and owed not much to the Abingdon developments and XSP, were pretty gutless in standard form and both the original drum braked and disk braked versions didn't stop much!

All properly tweaked 850 c.c. versions were in fact far quicker! (e.g. Speedwell; Alexander; etc).

At a distance of some 45 years and relying purely on memory, it is easy to make the odd error. Plus, of course, one tends to think in terms of the standard capacity in which they competed. Thus 970 becomes 998 or 999 c.c. etc. Which took the engine up to the normal class limit of 1,000 c.c.

Andrew Kitson · 5 Aug 2002, 19:10 (Ref:469794)

John Chatham's famous Healey 3000 "DD300"

Andrew Kitson · 5 Aug 2002, 19:14 (Ref:469795)

Warren Pearce ( Father of Lister Cars boss Laurence) leads John Filbee and Mike Loveday at Brands 1968.

JAG928s · 30 Jun 2007, 08:20 (Ref:1950290)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andrew Kitson

Warren Pearce ( Father of Lister Cars boss Laurence) leads John Filbee and Mike Loveday at Brands 1968.

Andrew, that's not John Filbee behind Warren Pearce, it was me. I sort of remember the race, Mike was known as "Spinner Loveday", he got off to an amazing start, Warren and I got past, and then 'Spinner' spun!

SidewaysFeltham · 30 Jun 2007, 14:11 (Ref:1950517)

First time out in my Midget: not even enough time to paint it!

Lyydon, circa 1971? TEAC meeting.

Me in paddock conversing with pit crew (AKA wife!).

As an entrant (Felspeed Racing) I ran three Midgets, included Peter Beech.

Noting the reference to Roger never earlier in this thread, Peter's car was in fact one of the original Enever cars, which had been run by Robin Widdows and held production sports class car record at Nurembergring.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about this car was that Roger (apparently using Dad Sid's inside influence) managed to access the plant on a shutdown period and with an accomplice, they passed loads of aircraft quality NS4 alluminium alloy through the press tools and pressed out virtually a complete MG Midget in NS4!

The cars (two of I gather) were built using aircraft type rivets (same as single seater monocogues and something like Avdal Cherrylock rivets) and some form of metal bonding resin like Loctite.

Understandably, they were amazingly light!

When the regs changed in 1970 (??) and Modsports cars had to be original material within the wheelbase - measure from axle centre to axle centre, this left Peter with a problem: his car was scrap.

However not to be beaten, we took it into the bodyshop and opened up the rear wheelarches and inserted some 18 gauge mild steel sheet beneath the ally exterior skin!

Scrutineers in those days merely employed a magnet to test if the composition was ferrous.

Poor old senior RAC scrute Fred Mathews was pulling his hair out!

His magnet would slide off from the top bead (where the rear wing joined the boot closing panel) and slide down until it hit the bit immediately above the wheelarch and would then screech to a halt!

I convinced him this was caused by the loss of friction from the new highly glossy silicon-based body polish we were testing, aimed at cutting wind resistance!

Peter's car used a highly tweaked dry sump XSP F3 and although outclassed in size (as he was giving away 300 c.c.) it made up in power and aceleration!

**Tim Falce** · 30 Jun 2007, 16:08 (Ref:1950613)

Quote:

Originally Posted by JAG928s

Andrew, that's not John Filbee behind Warren Pearce, it was me. I sort of remember the race, Mike was known as "Spinner Loveday", he got off to an amazing start, Warren and I got past, and then 'Spinner' spun!

JAG928s could you let us know who "you" are please. It's always nice to know racers names from present and past.

JAG928s · 3 Jul 2007, 23:08 (Ref:1953803)

Quote:

Originally Posted by falcemob

JAG928s could you let us know who "you" are please. It's always nice to know racers names from present and past.

Hi falcemob, my name is John Wilson and I raced an E type in UK alongside Warren Pearce, John Quick, Alistair Cowin, John Lewis etc, before I went off to FF and F3. I've found some photos of the E type wars of the time and if anyone can tell me how to add a photo when using a Mac, I'll be glad to do so.

This is my second attempt to answer you question but the first disappeared into the ether. Regards JW.

**chunterer** · 4 Jul 2007, 09:30 (Ref:1954028)

John, welcome to out section of the forum!

For info on posting images and such like please see the following passage in faq:

http://tentenths.com/forum/faq.php?f...q_faq_post_pic

We all look forward to reading more of your posts and seeing some nostalgic images.

Andrew Kitson · 5 Aug 2002, 19:18 (Ref:469796)

Anyone have any pics to add?

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