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
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