History of a Lola T492 Sports 2000 chassis?

[911thillclimber]

Clive's has a tipple too many!

Mustard microscope came today so we shall see...tomorrow, just got back from 3 days in Stockholm so well knackered.
All the bits for the engine are also here so time to get that sorted and built.
It has been suggested that the exhaust will work better with more back pressure and a crosss-over link across the engine exhaust, but i know this engine when younger ran very well when fresh with simple tube 'straight-out' headers, no silencers etc.ie very little back pressure.

Tony sent a few additional pics of the car and the 'builders' which add a certain charm to the whole thing!

If all this mechanically does not work thinking of a BMW/Hewland as used in Chevron B6's etc. nice alternative to a Ford Pinto.

[Clive Brown]

This type of engine is both well-known and well-documented, so it should not be beyond the whit of man to make the 'king thing run properly for the duration of a hill climb....The Porker should surely be able to put out about 100bhp per litre

The BMW is a seriously Bad Idea. These motors weren't even competitive in their own era, hence the Chevron-FVA. Moreover, even that SOHC BMW in competition form must be prohibitively expensive now. The 16v Poxhall motor is probably your best alternative in terms of bangs-per-buck, with the Ford not far behind. However, I believe (although I may be wrong) that the Ford lump is rather bigger and heavier.

[911thillclimber]

My old 911 hotrod has the same engine as the Lola just that it is bog standard.
I popped it in about 14 years ago to have the smooth torque of the mighty 3.2 flat 6. It has run just over 120,000 miles, one set of plugs and fresh oil every year.
It has never been apart and runs perfectly.

Only 230 bhp mind. Big Porker engines are very lazy. (6250 red line)

So I know how good these motors can be....
Take your point on the BMW. Many Historics run them though due to period rules.

Rebuild starts this week, plan is to get it all done in the car by end Nov and then down to the rollers.

[Clive Brown]

Just out of interest, what sort of power would you hope/expect the Lola's motor to produce at the flywheel?

[911thillclimber]

The best run on the rollers gave 269 bhp/240 lbft at the flywheel early this year just after I re-ringed the old pistons.
The rollers are ultra reliable.

Having said this, it never felt that the car was 400 ish bhp/ton.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjglk...tailpage#t=75s

[911thillclimber]

Stripped the first head down the other night to clean the thick (and oily) carbon off the chamber and took the valves out to make sure the seats were OK. To my surprise the exhaust valve stem seal off off the guide and running up and down the valve stem in the springs.

Certainly oil will have been getting into that cylinder. That will be my fault as i replaced them so i didn't knock it on far enough.

All the others are ok, so just the one. all the seats are OK etc, so putting them back together to be ready to build the long block back up over the weekend.
I'm summoning-up the courage to time the cams myself. Tricky process and needs a few special tools too, but will save £200 and a long morning run to the specialist.
We will see!

These engines take ages to re-build as there are so many separate parts and getting them clean is very time consuming.

[911thillclimber]

Plodding through the rebuild still.
It's not so interesting when you did the same thing 17 miles ago...
Heads all cleaned, valves re-ground just for assurance, but apart from the one valve stem seal off the one head, all was well if somewhat coked over in an oily soot, apart fron that one that obviously was not firing much.
Fitting the rings to the bores to check the gap shows the bores to be very close to original spec where previously the gap was a huge 13 thou.
Had a right game getting the piston pin C clips in but all done now, heads on paying care to the torque of the heads and the cam carrier and the cams rotate nicely when all done.
Trying to convince myself to time the cams in the garage, but will probably take the engine to Bob's for the timing/tappets as before. i dont have the dti gauge and the mounting block anyway, would have to make a block etc.
Next will be a strip of the PMO cars to ensure the holes are all clear hence the bulk buy of carb cleaner!
All a bit tedious, but saw a mates Smart car last night that hillclimbs. It has a Toyota MR" engine in it and now is getting a Mini Cooper S supercharger.....looks a more interesting and FAR cheaper project to me.
This has to work this year coming.













You can see the oil here...

[spd(john)]

Its coming along nicely there graham, hope to start the engine transplant this week on mine as work has been manic.

[911thillclimber]

The Hillclimb Winter is upon us all!
Good luck with the 'big-un' John.

Will you even be allowed in 'saloon Libre'!?

G.

[911thillclimber]

Forgot to say i have had a close look at the original tony Harman pics in the chassis plate area.

The microscope I have is cRap and so i resorted to taking the finest digital pic of the analogue pic and then zooooming in close.

Got the plate to about 3 x 2" on the PC screen all nice and blurry!

At a further distance you can 'just' make out Lola Cars on the plate but then nothing legible.
Tony really should have got David Bailey in to take some snaps!

My thanks here to Tony to trusting me wioth the pics, they will be returned soon Tony once I've done sone high resolution scans at work of them.

I have read that some Lola's had the chassis number stamped onto the front roll hoop (which is removable) and when i called a shy John Schneider I think he said he still had the roll hoop somewhere, but maybe me hoping that's what he said. Still would not prove it came off this car though.

To be honest i think the truth of the chassis number will never be found.

Nearly 88,000 people have looked at this topic (or 20 people visit the thread very regularly!) and the history has come a long long way over the time, I would think the missing link would have been cracked by now?

Getting the cams timed-in on thursday, on course to get the lot back together for Xmas.

[Clive Brown]

Just to refresh my memory, what colour was the Lola when the Humberstones bought it from Dennis Humphries, and what is our source for this information?

It seems that Messrs. Harman and Schneider's only involvement was to fit KG bodywork to a car already changed to Tony Dickinson spec. with Hart power, so who performed that change?

H&S gave the Humberstones back a Hart-powered KG, so who fitted the turdbo Ford? Who fitted the Brembo brakes?

I think Brian Davis might know the answer to at least some of these questions.

[911thillclimber]

The Lola came to H&S with an orange body info from Alan H himself.
indeed H&S had the car with the Hart already there (and a complete installation with the oil tanks etc as the parts that came to me with the car)
Who did that I assumed was H&S but now I think not.
Tony has never said they did the engine transfer.

Then the Ghia bodies/Hart engined car got the big turbo ford as pictured in Autosport and raced at Brands by Alan H.(once) No idea who did that swop and that would have involved a bit of extra work with intercoolers etc.
ALSO, in sorting stuff out in the grage attic last weekend i have a bundle of water alloy pipes that came with the car one painted red for hot water. I cannot see where these ran in the tub from the front (where the water rad was) to the engine at the rear.
That 500bhp engine would need a good sized intercooler and ducting.

Could this be where the chassis plate dissapeared?

I think Mike said Brian Davis fitted the Brembos.
Was Brian the type to fit the Turbo engine for Alan?

When I called Brian years ago when this hunt started he was really brief with me and I felt like a pest. He did not answer my emails either, so doubt much will be gained by a new call.
Everyone else was really good, esp Dickinson and Alan H himself.
I think John Sch' was not sure of the details from so long ago.

Finally, there are several big/small holes in the rear bulkhead for the passage of various 'round things' so this tub has seen some mods in the past.

Where do you find an RS 200 engine they used? Someone from the rally preparation side of motorsport??

[BritishV8]

With ~1037 posts to date, this surely must be the most discussed T492 ever! I've just published an article about a sister Lola T492. On the off chance it might might help you prepare your hillclimb car, here's the link:
Walter Davies' 1978 Lola T492 Sports 2000 Racecar (HU21)

(please don't hesitate to p.m. me if you spot any errors in my write-up)

[Andy Clegg]

Originally Posted by 911thillclimber

Forgot to say i have had a close look at the original tony Harman pics in the chassis plate area.

The microscope I have is cRap and so i resorted to taking the finest digital pic of the analogue pic and then zooooming in close.

Got the plate to about 3 x 2" on the PC screen all nice and blurry!

At a further distance you can 'just' make out Lola Cars on the plate but then nothing legible.
Tony really should have got David Bailey in to take some snaps!

My thanks here to Tony to trusting me wioth the pics, they will be returned soon Tony once I've done sone high resolution scans at work of them.

I have read that some Lola's had the chassis number stamped onto the front roll hoop (which is removable) and when i called a shy John Schneider I think he said he still had the roll hoop somewhere, but maybe me hoping that's what he said. Still would not prove it came off this car though.

To be honest i think the truth of the chassis number will never be found.

Nearly 88,000 people have looked at this topic (or 20 people visit the thread very regularly!) and the history has come a long long way over the time, I would think the missing link would have been cracked by now?

Getting the cams timed-in on thursday, on course to get the lot back together for Xmas.

911, just a thought. If you printed a nice photo of the chassis plate out. Then scanned, or enlarged it, would that make the number clearer?
Andy.

[PeterMorley]

Originally Posted by 911thillclimber

Where do you find an RS 200 engine they used? Someone from the rally preparation side of motorsport??

Talk to Geoff Page (geoffpageracing.com - ex-Tyrrell engine guy from the turbo days) he's the RS200 engine guru and has built RS200 engines with around 1,000 Bhp (e.g. for the Pikes Peak car)! But he also does plenty of 'normal' RS200 engines and is good at finding cost effective solutions (e.g. using modern ECUs etc).

Possibly because of the number of cars that were never finished, it seems to be fairly easy to get BDT engine parts and a 500 Bhp engine isn't exceptional (but some were 2.1 litre which obviously helps).

Geoff might even know something about the engine that was in your car and if he doesn't might be able to point you in the right direction - which might be another lead on the chassis identity.

As for the identity, if the car was re-chassied with an un-numbered (e.g. spare) tub then the intention of the tub supplier (e.g. Lola) was that it took the previous identity (e.g. HU6).
Even if the tub was from another car there are plenty of precedents where they have simply transferred the identity - especially with cars that are road regsitered.

The tub is not the identity of the car, it is simply one component and the entity is the car/history - what is relevant is the entire history of the car (e.g. pre & post tub change), if you take the identity of the car from which the 2nd tub came you are effectively claiming history that is unrelated to your car.
The fact that it was replaced with a T492 tub means you could simply refer to it as T490/492 HU6 for example - that often happened in period, when cars were upgraded to a more recent specification.

Good luck with the project and please keep this most interesting thread going.
Peter

[911thillclimber]

Thank you all 3 for your posts, and all very constructive. i will follow them up.
The tub when being re-bodied by Tony and John has a chassis plate in the right place. I have tony's 3 pics clearly showing it.

The finished car then went to Alan H to race, but the engine was changed from Hart to RS 200, a good amount of specialist work.
No idea who did that change, and Tony has said that they did not do it.

From leaving Tony to Mike buying it from Brian Davis the plate went.
Mike did not have the plate but had a brand new plate for me. You cannot buy them off ebay, so i think this was a real Lola plate.

I have used that for insurance purposes where the car must have a plate.

I would like to be clear:

The car was a T 490 when Tony Dickinson had it, HU6.
That car was crashed and a crashed tub was for sale at the time just after the crash, maybe HU6.

That car might still be going round race tracks somewhere, so i cannot lay any claim to that Chassis.

The tub i have was a running 492 Group 6 car from Dennis Humphries, presumably with a plate, HU XYZ

Maybe because the car was after the Ghia body etc so far off the S2000 spec the plate was removed and sold to another S2000 492 for a rebuilt racer?

My chassis number may be racing round tracks with an honest gent or lady.

The original Dennis H car is totally unknown to those on the Sports 2000 web site, and nobody on there has heard of him as driver/owner.

Dennis is the Real Invisible Man.

I am usually quite determined to finish unfinished business in life, and this topic is no exception.

As to this thread, i am truely amazed so many have found this little story interesting, it is just a humble 'hot-rod' of an old cheap series race car with a chequerd background and a grumpy old current owner trying to get it to work, but it is getting rather stymid now and I'm getting absolutly nowhere on the identity even with the mighty backgrounds of Clive and Driftwood on my side.

Fixing the cam timing tomorrow morning and it can then be slotted back into the tub by Xmas.

I still have the Bedroom to finish off, but the Brownie Point Bank is going well (I think) so i might be given a Permission to do the 911's gearbox.

It has to work in 2012.

Walter, what a great car that is!
I see many details different to my car, most notably the 1" square tube rear frame of the early 490/492 and the 'crash' box over the pedal cylinders. Loads of others too.
I will closely look at it again!

[chunterer]

Drifty? He's not posting under another new ident is he?!

[911thillclimber]

Not that I know to.
I was refering to the input Kevan made before he left in the early days of this 'investigation', he guided a lot of thought with period fact much the way Clive has/is.

This obviously helps when deciding which route to take next!
What a map this has been to navigate....

[haggispeed]

Just to reconfirm some of your assumptions Graham.
Our (H&S) job was to just turn it into a special saloon by fitting the KG body which meant panelling it out with bulkheads etc, extensions to the sidepods, wiring and some plumbing
We did not change the engine but I do remember that it was always the plan to fit an RS200 in place of the Hart, I wasn't involved with that and I don't think John had anything to do with it either.
I seem to remember relocating oil coolers and we may have done something with the main rad but I'm not sure.
When I first saw the car there was no S2000 bodywork with it so cannot confirm the colour, likelehood is John had already removed and and Alan took it away.

I suspect the car left us with the plate on it and it was removed later during another evolution it lost it's identity.
It was such a shame it raced just the once (and I wasn't there to see it) and then was stored in one of Harry H's containers somewhere in Kent for a few years I believe.
Apologies for not bringing in a professional photographer, and I remember thare was quite a famous fashion photographer living in the same mews at the time!

[911thillclimber]

Excellent Tony, thanks for the facts from the one who really knows.

I recall Mike saying it was stored in the top of a 'barn' in Kent for some time before Brian Davis sold it to him and that Brian removed the engine (did not say which one) but left the FT 200 in the chassis which was offered to me along with the Cossie Sierra engine that Mike was intending for the car.

The RS200 would have shredded an FT I would have thought, but maybe the RS200 and box was fitted. I looked at an RS 200 at the Classic Car show the other weekend, but it was nothing like I expected in shape.

Did you get back in touch with John S at all?

The car after Alan H's Brands Hatch run it seems went into a container then in 1989 ish, and then to B Davis and then to Mike. Mike bought it off Brian in about 2004, so only lost for 5 or so years.

You would only take the plate off to sell it to a fresh tub or something?

[PeterMorley]

Originally Posted by 911thillclimber

The RS200 would have shredded an FT I would have thought, but maybe the RS200 and box was fitted. I looked at an RS 200 at the Classic Car show the other weekend, but it was nothing like I expected in shape.

FT200s have been used with DFVs, at least in F3000 where the power was reduced by the rev-limit, but it was still around 450 Bhp, and the weight advantage was beneficial.

The loading on a gearbox has more to do with tyres than engine - the tyres limit (very effectively) the amount of load put through the gearbox when it is setting off - once it is moving the loading is totally different.

Given your car has relatively small wheels/tyres, it might not have been capable of transmitting all the RS200 power instantly (e.g. they would have spun if asked to do so) so an FT200 was probably adequate, especially for short races.

Hewlands are pretty crude, rugged things and putting more than the recommended load through them will wear them out quickly rather than blow them up.
Of course there are limits, but a VW based Hewland can handle a BDA for example.

Of course hillclimbing requires a rather spirited start which is not going to enhance any gearbox's life, but the mileage (in UK events) is pretty low so reliability won't be a major worry.

n.b. I know that torque is the real issue (and what Hewland specify, rather than power) but there is a correlation and the point is still the same.

[911thillclimber]

Yes, quite agree.
That RS motor would put quite a lot of torue at boost, but maybe with a track style rolling start thing are gentle compared to a drag race start that is a hillclimb!

I used to leave the line in my 370 bhp/360 lbft impreza with 7000 rpm and lift the left leg asap. Whatever you do never slip the clutch.

The lola is a bit tamer, 5000 rpm and lift the left foot asap.
Taking 2nd seems to be my issue...

Engine all back and fully timed in, so the build up is continuing. Hope to almost get the engine/box back into the chassis by end of the weekend.
Just might get it to the rollers for running in and tune-up fror Xmas.

I've been invited to show the Barlotti Kart at Kart Mania next weekend so distracted a bit as the kart trailer needs some tlc and a good drying out.

Busy.

[haggispeed]

Originally Posted by 911thillclimber

Did you get back in touch with John S at all?

I saw John at a couple of meetings last year (2010), but we were both busy running cars on the day so never got much time to talk, I did mention it to him but he didn't recall much, haven't bumped into him this year as I haven't been racing. You could try ringing him again for a chat.

[911thillclimber]

I'll try that, but at his own admission his memory of the details were sketchy because he thought he was getting old!
Can't help thinking he had the front roll hoop off the car still as a momento, but some Lola's had the chassis number stamped on the hoop too!
Could be my old age dreaming though..

Sending your pics back registered on Monday Tony.

[911thillclimber]

Getting close to finishing the egine today, but stuck for 48 aluminium washers that are critical for sealing off the lower rocker covers a notorious oil leak ara righ above the exhaust manifolds..so the build had to stop, but as I was cleaning/installing the ignition system found a nasty hole blown through the rotor arm. Never in my 33 years with a 911 have I seen this before.