History of a Lola T492 Sports 2000 chassis?

[haggispeed]

Well I do at least know this "car-in-a-box" as I originally owned it and as it's another Haggispeed I have most of the drawings and info from the period. We have the rebuilt chassis already and hoping to go and collect it next month. I have to sell the Mk10 as only have a single garage so nowhere to store a car while I'm building another one. Yep a lot of work and cash.

50,000 hits, amazing, just shows how much interest there is in real club motor racing and with the added intrigue of a mystery to solve

[911thillclimber]

Did the charming One-Day meeting today at Prescott Hillclimb.
Great day, fab cars and met some long lost faces also, so Very good.

In some ways it did me no good as all over the place were Hotrods, USA Fords with Flatheads and the such, back to my Youth of the 70's...

I want one again!

Anyway, back to the day.
Friday was awash all day, rain and rain again.
Today was blue skys, dry ish but the track was seriously slippy, so off i went with my new 'fast reaction' throttle pedal position and did the car twitch on slicks on the slime. Glad to get back in one piece.

Second run was much better, but 3rd gear again kept on refusing to engage, bloody thing!

Race time came round quickly, so best to concentrate.
Sure worked with a personal best deep into the 49's and close to the 48's. V nice.
Sean from McClurge Motorsport was there with a customer's Mallock so a few chats with the Mallock driver and Sean made me think for the second race run.

Put the lesson into practice and dropped (just) into a 48! Now we are cookin' on gas!

Bloody hell, time to go home! Typical, just as it was getting interesting.
If i could string the best bits of the very twisty Prescott hill together i think a 47 even might have been possible, but not to be.

Last race of 2010 and finished with a PB, just wonderful.
So sad the season is now done, but i must admit the last 4 meetings have been great and i feel a part of this little car more and more.

Had my huge ego stroked a few times by spectators and drivers alike about the car with compliments so even better..

So: what to do now?

The winter job list is looking like:
Rebuild the gearbox, especially 3rd...Maybe a Wevo selector mod too.
Engine out and check everything and the chassis for any cracks etc!
Mega clean up of everything, everywhere.
Buff the body in places as it's suffered a few times.

But that is it. I am very pleased with the chassis, the handling and the brakes, so i hope the work and money invested in the first place is good for 2011
The carbs will get a tune-up in March and i think a chassis alignment check (and tweek) at McClurg's will set me up.

Going to contest the Midland Championship and the Leaders next year to spread my wings again.

I've won the Midland Championship Class purely on the fact that generally only I was in the class! Silly, but a pot coming my way.

The little Barlotti go kart will get done after the Lola is back together, but for now i need a skip-load of Brownie Points so painting windows tomorrow, what a contrast.
Scotland on hols soon, then into the garage!

The year has been far better than i had hoped for, and the highs have out-gunned the lows by far.
I even have got a bit closer to finding the chassis number of the tub, but to be realistic, i think that has now gone into the mists of times gone by.

Good Game.

My fav hotrod!

[911thillclimber]

The Lola is back in the garage, the body stashed away, the 911 stashed away and the Barlotti Kart extracted from the shed at the bottom of the garden into the garage.
The Lola and Kart look like Little and Large, same proportions, just different scales.

The Lola comes first at the moment.

The only big job is the gearbox rebiuld. That is now out and on the floor ready to go to MB Engineering for a strip and freshen.
I hope this will tighten things up for a better change next year in all gears.

The chassis looks good, no cracks or bends due to stresses and the Sach 'fast road spec' lightweight clutch looks new. The flywheel looks ok and no oil leaks on the engine.

This is almost boring!

I am convinced the engine mount/box mounts flex forward under hard accelleration so I've stiffened the gearbox cross member by welding a thick steel strip to increase the cross section. Now done, the MIG welder drove me mad with 'pigeon' welds until I found i had 0.6mm wire with a 0.8mm tip....
Welder worked well once I fitted a 0.6mm tip.

I was tempted to bolt the engine/box into the chassis solid but don't like the idea of the engine taking stresses like that.

[911thillclimber]

The gearbox is going to MB engineering tomorrow for a full tear-down and rebuild.

We will strip it down quickly there and then, so might 'discover' a surprise or 3 while I'm there..

The clutch came off and is in unmarked condition. Not bad for a 'fast road ' clutch so I popped it back on tonight.

The strengthened rear box cross member is finished and re-bushed, and i hope to get the box back in about 3 weeks time.

I have made a start on the Kart, so a bit of a distraction there, but it should be an easy job (right...)

Mrs hillclimber wants the bedroon re-furbishing, so that should be a skip load of points to tide me over until Xmas.

Seems very strange not to have a stack to do.

[911thillclimber]

Crack of dawn run to Kendal to MB Eng for a looksee into the gearbox.

The good news is that it has a nice Quaife torque sensing LSD inside.

The very bad news is the gearbox is 'beyond economical rebuild', ie Fooked.
It is shattered inside.

The first gear on the long input shaft is shattered and the needle roller bearing on the other side of first has all but dissapeared.
Synchro on 3rd is shattered and the worst Mike has ever seen.
He questioned how I ever got 3rd...well, most times I never did!

4th is overheated!, 5th is close behind....

The huge main bearings are loose in thier case and the outer races fell out.
The play in the crown wheel and pinion was 'generous'.
There were several other issues too, but it seemed pointless looking into them.

The drain plug is good though

It just so happens I have a spare 911 gearbox.

This is a rare magnesium cased 4 speeder from my original 911 road/hillclimb car, was rebuilt about 12 years or more ago and used for 3K miles after, so good inside.

We are going to transfer the LSD into the box, flip the crown wheel/pinion over for mid-engine, tidy things up and scrap the rest.
A donor box would be £1500 and could be as bad inside, but i know the history of the mag cased one.
About 10Kg lighter too.

So we have a surprise but it certainly answers a lot of issues i had this year with the bloody box not working.

Benefit of the 4 speeder is that the gate from 2nd to 3rd is clean with no 5th to fall into by mistake.

Here we are:



This is first. Look carefully and you will see the gear faces are fretted deeply.

[911thillclimber]

Got my spare 911 box to MB Eng on sunday, and Mike took a look inside today.

The internals are good!
We (he) will replace the main bearinga and add the so-called 'teddy-bear' (figure of 8) bearing carrier to stiffen the case up and clean a few things too.

Mike can shuffle the raatios a bit to help on a hillclimb.
Lucky for me is that Mike hillclimbed himself for 4 years so knows some of the hills i do and understands.

The ratio's should give 1st 45 mph, 2nd 74 mph, 3rd 94 mph and 4th 119 mph.
That should keep the engine right in the max torque band.

LSD will go back in and button the lot up. If the cost is not too high might fit a WEVO shifter guide to top it off.

This should make for a great transmission at last!

[911thillclimber]

I think/hope/expect to get my box back on Friday from the lake district.
Seems to have taken an absolute age so far. Latest hold-up has been the 12 stretch-bolts to fit the crown wheel, but everything else is ready to assemble.
Although the specialist has been trying hard, I find using outside help very difficult, but I am very impatient.

It will need a good clean and a paint of satin black, even though the mag alloy caes are nicely patina'd it will fit-in well with the rest of the car painted.

Re-assembly will not be hard.

After this there are a few body tweeks and then a good tuning of the PMO carbs which i think will have to be after Xmas.

In the mean time the Barlotti kart is doing well, all stripped down.

The cost to do the kart is laughable in extreme, everything is so cheap and easy to get, no wonder people do them.

Found some great action pictures of the car this year on the hills which will gve McClurg Motorsport something to think about as a re-visit for a check and tweek is on the cards.

First practice event is at Loton Park in late March then the year starts.
I feel as confident as I left the season, and can't wait to get serious.

I won the Championship Class in 2010 easy, mainly because nobody else was in the class!
I think it will be different in 2011 with a lot of modern machinary joining me..

I could be ready 3 months early.....

[911thillclimber]

Gearbox is back home and already has 2 coats of satin black over it.
Had to make a cardboard box heat box to place over it with a 2 KW fan heater inside to roast the thing as it is too cold to flash-off the paint. Best left now to harden and pop it back into the car.

Before this though I need to check the cam timing on the engine.

A theory to my starting and back-fire issues is the one can is out to the other.

Quite easy to check, just a bit of messing with a gauage and an inlet valve.

If there is something out the engine will need to come out andbe re-timed, not for the faint hearted on a Porsche...done it before but a long time ago!

I hope to get it all back in and ready to oil up by christmas, rolling road in Feb for the carbs and we should be in business. The quietest Xmas I've ever had I think.

[haggispeed]

Graham, with Hewland boxes which are usually magnesium it's normal to Chromate the bare casing rather than paint them, although of course that does require a full strip down to get to the bare casing.
What are you going to do with the Barlotti Kart when it's back together? do they have a class for karts at hillclimbs, if not why not, seems like it could be good fun !

[SAMD]

I nearly bought a Modus Kart about 1976 that I wanted to use for hillclimbs. (The Kart was actually for sale near the bottom of Craigantlet)
The Modus had a sort of rubber suspension that I thought would be needed on hills! I wanted to put a 750 Kwak triple 2 stroke in it. Should have done it, although prob wouldn't have survived till now.
The kart or me!

[911thillclimber]

I wanted the box to 'fit-in' with the black satin paint of the whole rear of the car. You are right about chromating, but it was too late to do all that at the time!
I hope to get it all back together this weekend.

The karts are not allowed on UK hills. Far too dangerous.

My intent is to display/demo the kart in specific events such as the Silverstone Classic meeting. I've always like the look of them, so thought i would 'sample' them before my bones were too brittle for a kart...

It was progressing very well until the chromers have promised a 4 week turn-around time for the parts.
Will soon be inside the little Villiers 11E engine and box you can pick up and wander around with under one arm. Everything is so very cheap too!
Set of fresh slicks? £70 (the 4!)
Set of mag alloy wheels? £80 (the 4!)

Just 3 months to the first event with the Lola.

Graham.

[dabeca]

you can make your own Ghia body

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/KARMANN-GHIA-C...#ht_500wt_1156

[911thillclimber]

Ah!
I saw that body elsewhere about a month back!

I think i've got used to open air motoring now, so the Lola body stays UNTIL it gets beyond use. It was a new race-weight body, has done only16 hillclimbs (= about 45 mins on track) has kissed a wall lightly and has a surprising amount of stress cracking to it already.

New ones cost about 3.5K.
I can get a Porsche 910 replica body for 4K.

Hoping to get into the garage to put the gearbox back in as the temperature might be above -2 degs....

[911thillclimber]

Actually +2 in the garage this afternoon, so got going at long last.

Plan was to get the box bck onto the engine and maybe fit everything else. Please to have done all that.

It all went back on a dream.

The gearbox is now a bit special, it has a special input shaft which allows 1st and 2nd ratios to be changed like you do with a Hewland Mk 8 (etc). The Porsche shaft has 1st machined directly onto the shaft, so when first lets go you need a £1200 shaft...

The two large main ball bearings have a 911 Turbo cradle to keep the bearings together and not spreading apart under load so ovalising the casings (which had happened on the box I 'raced' on this year) and a few other tweeks inc a longer first, new synchros and stronger selector forks.

Here are a few pics which may be of interest:








Summer's coming!

[911thillclimber]

I've started the re-build of the Barlotti kart now so a bit distracted..but thinking what now needs doing on the Lola.

The front body has louvres moulded into the front wheel arch 'apex' so to release air build-up and nose ift at speed I'm told to open the fibreglass and this will do the job. There is no under floor to the nose of the car so maybe they have a point!?

To be honest very little is left to do. I recon I will be ready to hillclimb in 4 weeks time, 3 months too soon! (a first)

So;
Oil the engine
Open the front body slats
Full spanner check over everything.
Take the car to be tuned to get the carbs finally sorted
Fix the leaky front wheel (buggered if i can find the leak, but 10 psi in 12 hours..)
Very tempted to fit the correct rack i have to get a little extra steering lock, but there are repurcushions to doing that...

Clean and polish.
More clean and polish

A nice shot of the car by Zipp, about 60 mph approaching the Esses at Prescott Hill this year. So little roll and very stable thanks to McClurg Motorsport!
Happy New Year if you are watching Sean.

[911thillclimber]

Been focusing on the Barlotti kart restoration until yesterday when i looked inside the villiers engine....

So:
Thought i would see if i really wanted to change the steering rack on the Lola.
Way back when the car was converted to the Karman Ghia it inherited the (Tilcon?) race quick-rack instead of the original Lola rack.
I have found out that Lola used a LHD Ford Escort MkI rack straight from the saloon car.
I bought a new one off ebay ages ago, so laid it over the current rack to see what would be involved.

I've decided to leave well alone as to me the geometry is all wrong with the radius arms:



The pivot is very different place to the race rack and the rubber bellows would clash with the roll cage on both sides, that will upset the scrutineers..



One Escort rack for sale!

Will vent the front wheel arches tomorrow, about the last job on the car besides the spanner check, the carb tune-up and probably a trip to McClurg Motorsport as i've noticed a touch of understeer every now and then.

3 months before we start the season!

[Tom Walker]

Well Graham, having been off 10/10ths for a while, I decided to see if I could find what you have been up to, and have just finished a good read through your thread. Fantastic! what a great story, and you have obviously had an amazing first year, a huge "well done"!! All your hard work has paid off.

The little Lola looks really good, and I simply love the concept. i enjoyed the clips....I only wish I had been at one of the meetings, to hear the roar of that flat 6 coming out of the back of the little red rocket....must be quite a handful. I didnt compete in a single hill climb in 2010, much to my shame, as I had'nt missed a year since I started in the VSCC in 1981.

All that, because I was very concentrated on racing the T160, which I did twice, at the Brands Masters Festival, and the Spa Historic meeting, so that was all very exciting...! And bloody expensive !

I would still like to bring it to a hill-climb, I just need to get my act together. If I do, I look forward to meeting you and your fabulous little Lola. If not...have a great 2011...all the best, Tom.

[911thillclimber]

Those big meets must be very heavy, esp compared to a humble clubby hillclimb. We went to watch the Spa race in 2009 in Sept and what a fab meeting, best race meeting i have ever been to.

A weekend hillclimb will cost you £110 entry, some bacon butties, a few gallons in the Big Banger and some towing.overnight costs.

Cheap, but only about 5 mins in the racing seat!

The cat is quite hard to drive, but my last 3 meetings it really did start to gel and i loved every split second. If only the box had worked, but that should be history now!

Season starts in late March and the car is getting ready..

Make sure you come and find us!

[haggispeed]

Hey Graham - can you post a calendar of the event's you'll be doing so your ever growing fan club can come along I for one want to see the ol Karmann Lola again.

[911thillclimber]

Sure, will do tonight. Not sure if the Championship dates are all collated together yey, though all are known to the organisers.
My plan is to run the Midland Hillclimb Championship and the associated Leaders Champ's too.

I will not be alone in the class this year so will have to try much much harder. Should be a Pikes-Peak Audi Quattro and a super/turbo charged Impreza with possibly an MP 42 Pilbeam with a V8.....easy life!

Be careful, you just might like hillclimbing!

The Bend above is at Prescott in Cheltenham and certainly is not as huge as the clever picture kids you.

[Tom Walker]

Where can I find the regs, Graham ?

Do you run as an Historic, or up against current modern cars ?

I guess the T160 would be in the "Unlimited" or some such. It is 5000cc.

[911thillclimber]

Regs come from Tony Fletcher, phone number at home, so will send later.
You must be a member of an invited club (there are a lot) but the best is of course the one I'm part of Hagley and District www.hdlcc.com

You will be in sports Libre (with me) over 2 litres, so YOU can give chase to the quattro...
Basically anything goes.
The car will need an MSA log book which I would think you have?
The race license is more than adequate.

You will need a timing strut on the front, details in the blue book, and you have a different race number for every event, so a bloody big supply of sticky numbers!

Hill climbing is a very simple sport made deliberatly very complicated, so read the blue book just in case..

[911thillclimber]

http://www.uphillracers.com/download...id=49&act=down

[911thillclimber]

It does seem a very long time since i visited 10/10's, explained by me not really touching the car for ages.
The Barlotti kart however is progressing...

The car was actually touched this weekend gone in preparation for a trip to the rollers to sort the big American carbs out.
With a gearbox full of gears and toughened, the shifter feels about 1000% better I have hopes for a good year in the Lola.

Sometimes something crops-up that speeds the heart a tad, and an email last night from Mike who I bought the car from did just that.
In a clean-out he has found some papers on 'a Lola t 492' but can't recal how he got them, but they are on their way to me.

Papaers talk of a HU XX chassis number!
Bad news to quell any excitement is that HUXX is actually allocated to someone.
It is a late number (my chassis is a late one) and says it was retubbed in 86, and ran a Cosworth engine on Methanol.

If only the HU umber was 'free' of a name on the Lola Heritage web site!

On the papers are names and numbers, so maybe I will get to the bottom of the missing plate yet.

Was the plate removed to go onto the new tub, and the old tub used to rebuild the crashed Humberston T 490 tub? Hence no chassis plate on my car???

Now there's an explanation!

[Tim Wilkinson]

Originally Posted by 911thillclimber

Was the plate removed to go onto the new tub, and the old tub used to rebuild the crashed Humberston T 490 tub? Hence no chassis plate on my car???

Now there's an explanation!

Humberstone buys car (from Dennis Humphries?) solely to use tub to replace his crash-damaged tub.

Job is done, Humberstone is left with crash-damaged 490 tub (which someone tried to sell at some point soon after the accident, I have the advert somewhere - did I send that to you?) and a tub-less 492.

2 options - the crash-damaged tub is repaired and put under the 492 body; or a new tub is bought and put under the 492 body. To make the finished entity more saleable the chassis plate is swapped over; after all, who needs it on a special saloon?

If you wish to PM me some names to look for and possible time periods I'll take a look through the Autosport classifieds and club news again, and see what I can turn up. I was scanning some bits from '86 a couple of weeks ago and remember seeing some 490/492 ads, so there were still bits being traded then.