"Lucky" Gets a New Smile

[chrisyork]

Grim V8 reminded me tonight that I haven't posted up some of the recent improvements to Lucky.

Last time he was up at Uncle Colin's we took the opportunity to get round to finalising the new front undertray. It's been made for a while! Here are a couple of pictues, first of Uncle Colin (Colin Gould - P6 expert and Vulcan enthusiast of Kingsdown Garage at Faringdon) fitting the truncated Police spoilers:




And then of the finished product:





The undertray is produced from the outer ends of a 4 cyl undertray grafted on to the centre section of a V8 undertray. The previously solid depressions in the ends of the 4 cyl sections are then cut out to form additional intakes. All the intakes are then unified with stainless steel mesh grilles. Finally a pair of Alan Ramsbottom's (Classeparts) Police spoilers for the 4 cyl undertray go on each end.

The original object of the exercise was to create more space at the front of the car to be able to mount gearbox oil coolers outboard of the main radiator underneath the headlamp nacelles in the base unit. The air from these will then escape into the engine bay via the cutouts in the nacelles rather than through the rad. The coolers will be fitted at the same time as the ZF transmission goes in, so for the time being they are blanked off with aluminium sheet behind the grilles. The grilles are finished with some neat plastic chrome trim from Baines's (http://www.coh-baines.co.uk/)

I'm delighted to report that a side effect of this mod is to completely eliminate the P6B's tendency to go light at the front at high speed. Also it completely eliminates the well known sensitivity to side winds! To my surprise it alo seems to have very noticeably improved fuel consumption from around 21mpg into the high 20's, perhaps even 30mpg!

So a very worthwhile mod from my point of view. Up to you whether you approve of departing from standard appearance or like the effect!

Chris

 

[ghce]

Not that I am doubting you Chris but........those higher MPG figures sound to good to be true perhaps more documentation and testing you might start a stampede.
I like the overall look not a detraction from standard, sitting somewhere between the subdued 2000 frontal appearance and the much more agressive V8 front end stance, I must say it looks a bit more elegant and expensive than the factory OEM.

Graeme

 

[rockdemon]

I'd like to see a picture of lucky when that front end isnt so pristine and new... Then in my mind I'll know how it looks... Must help engine cooling?

Rich.

 

[testrider]

That's a good factory looking mod Chris. I never quite understood why the Rover engineers didn't do that when planning the V8 conversion. When viewed from the front the P6 car look like there are some bits missing below the bumper because you can see so much of the front wheels and it's easy to see how the front end lift is caused.

 

[Demetris]

That's a good factory looking mod Chris. I never quite understood why the Rover engineers didn't do that when planning the V8 conversion. When viewed from the front the P6 car look like there are some bits missing below the bumper because you can see so much of the front wheels and it's easy to see how the front end lift is caused.

That's exactly what i am thinking too.
However, i am not a big fan of the stainles mesh grilles. And unfortunately i am not in a position to suggest something else that could work differently from an aesthetic point of view.

 

[chrisyork]

Demetris - The mesh grilles are my third option here - you need something for the side grilles and it wouldn't be easy to replicate the pressings originally in the V8 scoop. Next I tried some grille extrusion chopped down to fit the holes, but the spacing of the bars is too large to look right in the shallow side vents.

Testrider - I agree about the look of the factory V8 front end. I've puzzled over this and I have a theory! I think the V8 undertray is actually a development of the original "sharks tooth" 4 cyl undertray. Original V8 prototypes, complete with as launched undertray, are seen running on "D" plates at about the same time that the later wide 4 cyl undertray goes into production. It could even be that the V8 undertray predates the V8 and is actually part of the P7 6 cyl or 5 cyl programme. They would have needed the radiator as far forward as possible in exactly the same way as the V8. If so that would imply that the P7 programme actually got a lot nearer to fruition than Rover admitted at the time. At any rate, I reckon the press tool for the V8 undertray was produced before the 4 cyl undertray was changed. With Rover's finances as they were by that time, I reckon there was an attack of "you've already got an undertray! Why do you want to modify it before we've even launched the thing!" There has to have been a good reason why Rover changed the undertray on the 4 cyl - It wasn't publicised as a styling change and is barely noticeable except to the initiated. So I reckon the new 4 cyl undertray is a response to exactly the same problems of front end lift and X wind wander on the 4 cyl. I'm therefore fairly confident that what I've done is what the factory engineers would have done had they had the chance!

GHCE - I agree the fuel consumption does seem too good to be true. But I'll have to wait a bit until I've got a few top to top fills through the tank to comment better. The run to Rugely and back was mainly fast motorway and, as I suspect the effect will be most noticeable at speed, this run would have favoured it.

Chris

 

[ghce]

Hi Chris do you have any full frontal photos (the car not you) it would be great if someone could make up a pressing of fibre glas moulding of that design. One of the things about the p6(b) is the way it side stepped the current trends of the times and as such is relatively timeless in it styling, your under tray development to my eyes seems to enhance the attractivness of the design and I am sure would have been adopted at factory were it permissable.

graeme