Vitesse MK2 camshaft upgrade?

[Iain T]

Hi, 

I'm new to the forum and have had my Vitesse for 3 years and although it was a ground up restoration about 10 years ago (by the previous owner) it did come with lots of issues! Having ironed out most of them, with a great deal of effort and not a small amount of cash, I am left with a harsh engine to deal with. The head has (allegedly) larger valves, a phoenix 6-3-1 twin box exhaust and gives 115bhp and 115ft/lbs of torque on standard CD150's with K&N pancakes. However it is a pig to start even though I installed a Pertronix Ignitor 2, a Huco low pressure electric pump and have had it tuned on a rolling road. It is 'lumpy' on tickover and nothing much happens until 3000rpm so I am thinking the cam might be the culprit as a too hot cam can make cold starting involve a lot of cranking! As to the harshness in the engine I will be balancing the bottom end and replacing shells etc where required gas flowing the head which will hopefully cure this issue. My question is for a fast(ish) road car would it be better to install a standard cam from say Newmans or go for something else?

Any suggestions?

Iain

[Pete Lewis]

i would stick to standard

we dont have test cells running engines , messing with the basics normally produced something worse than standard but due to costs and nightmares never gets disclosed

the  Triumph spec works  does what it says on the tin , 

i wouldnt expect it to start if std CD150s and pancakes again  must have add on's that just create havoc.

needs revised needles and not many strombergs needles available to play with 

and hot air intakes are a no no ,  cold  air    more   O2 per bang,   or you loose more than you are trying to gain 

Pete

[Iain T]

Thanks Pete,

I am definitely leaning towards a standard cam but making sure the engine is assembled correctly (time to get my pipette out!) and balanced. It was just as bad to start with the standard air box so I think the crazy cam is the culprit, just not enough suck with cranking revs. The tuners, Atspeed, did have to play around with the needles as it was running weak on tickover/low revs but fine at mid/high revs. As I have to take the engine out to hopefully sort out the last bit of harshness, changing the cam to standard seems logical as I want a fast tractable engine not a screaming racer. The car also has the Type 9 5-speed with 2.8 ratios (from BGH) and cv joint conversions so mechanically it's not a standard car but I want it to look as standard as possible and not change to SU's (HS6's?).

Cheers

Iain

[Gary Flinn]

The Standard Mk2 Vitesse Camshaft (308778) is ideal for fast road use, giving a good spread of Torque, and good pick up from 3,000 RPM all the way up to 5,500 RPM.

Should be even better with your exhaust Manifold😉

 

[Pete Lewis]

i have two local vitesse that had awful running on HS6  revert to std CD150 and back to brilliant 

its unfortunate but mess with ' it does what it says on the tin; and you open the door to chaos.

the std cam is about the best every day tractable spec you can get

do you have any idea what spec the cam fitted actual is ??

Pete

 

 

[Colin Lindsay]

I put a TR5 camshaft into the GT6; it was terrible and I removed it very quickly. I just couldn't get it to run well at all.

[Nigel Clark]

19 minutes ago, Gary Flinn said:

The Standard Mk2 Vitesse Camshaft (308778) is ideal for fast road use, giving a good spread of Torque, and good pick up from 3,000 RPM all the way up to 5,500 RPM.

Should be even better with your exhaust Manifold😉

 

+1, the 308788 is an excellent cam. However, if you want a bit more at the top end, Chris Witor fitted a version of this cam with higher lift on the inlet valves, code CW3021.

I recently fitted one to my 2.5 litre GT6 conversion and am very impressed. My impression is no loss of bottom end and more power above 4000 rpm. I will be putting the car on a rolling road when the engine has done a few more miles, that should really show how good the cam is.

Nigel

[Pete Lewis]

chris witor gives a fair comparison of the lobe timing

https://www.chriswitor.com/cw_technical/camshaft_applications.pdf

Pete

 

[Iain T]

Thanks All,

I have no idea what the cam is as it isn't in the bumph that came with the car but it isn't right but I do have a lot of invoices racking up over £40K in costs! In fact the car as I bought it seemed to be too hard core with the shocks being ok for race track but intent on loosening my fillings on the road. My wife keeps on saying why did you buy it but I love a challenge and always had a soft spot for Vitesses from when one of my teachers at school bought one from new.

I have looked at Chis Witor's cams and will see how his standard 308788 cam compares with Newmans PH1. I believe both are billet cams. I also spoke to Chris about sorting out the inlet manifold but as his guy doesn't do it any more I'm leaving it as is.

I agree apart from the lack of needles the standard CD150's as fitted to my car are every bit as good as SU's in fact it could be argued a more modern design.

On another note has anyone used Classic and Modern Engine Services at Bracknell, the E Type guys seem to like what they do and I may ask them to balance the bottom end and test compression etc on the head.

Cheers

Iain

[Pete Lewis]

I am a stromberg fan  spread out the component parts on  a sheet and its easy  to  see the best design,

Having said that and an avid hate of any SU i have a 2000  mk2 with two  HS4   Grrrr!,,

I had a rorty Vit6 when with a nasty swing spring conversion bottomed out the rear shockers bump stops and tried to loose me teeth   awfull

Pete

Pete

[Pete Lewis]

If it has adjustable shockers start at the  weakest setting.most are far to strong for a relatively light car.

Its another case of must haves,   but what setting do you use, we dont have a chassis dyno to  record bump and rebounds llike triumph

Development would have used .

Pete

[dougbgt6]

I agree with Pete, Strombergs! You set them once and that’s it, SUs you’re constantly tweaking.

There are only 3 Strom needles as far as I know, One for top adjusters, one for bottom adjusters and one for pancake air filters. 

Pancake air filters look pretty, but they’re sucking in hot air from the engine bay, where as you want cool air ducted grill. I would ditch them and go back to standard,  a common theme in this thread! 😀

Doug

[Iain T]

Pete,

I have since changed the shocks for fully adjustable GAZ fronts and back which has made a huge difference to the better. I also had the car set up correctly. The car came with an uprated front roll bar and solid mounted rack which makes the handling and steering much more direct and to my taste.

I might add the £40k+ bills were not mine but the previous owners but I seem to be racking up a few now to make the car into a more road friendly version!

Doug

Yes I probably will put the old air box back, there is a lot of heat coming from the 6-3-1 manifold and I'm not going to spend £4-500 ceramic coating it!! Do you know the numbers for the standard (bottom adjusted) and pancake needles?

[Pete Lewis]

from Burlen  a Mk1 2ltr is a   6J

Pete

[Iain T]

Thanks Pete,

Had an exciting day today, in the hunt for this spurious vibration around 2500-3500rpm I took the car to Vibration Free at Bicester who use specialist widgets to see where and what is causing the problem. However bowling through the countryside on the A418 a boulder hit the windscreen, frightened the life out of me and made crazy glass of the screen. Anyway I got to VF (as they very kindly collected the car on their trailer) and the culprit of the very harsh vibration was the 'new' alternator that I fitted only 3 months ago! It is the second alternator I have fitted from a very well known Triumph parts supplier, the first one just didn't charge after only a few hundred miles and this one charges but is of so poor quality it is unusable. Steve from VF said in his 20 years experience he has never seen anything this bad as it vibrated the engine/gearbox and chassis.

The upshot is apart from all the usual suspects ie propshaft/UJ's etc just take the fan belt off and see if the vibration disappears....it could be the cr**py alternators and parts we are sold to maintain our cars!!

I can't recommend Vibration Free enough, this is the second time I have used them, the first time was when they successfully identified the bell housing was misaligned. Sure enough a 'specialist' workshop hadn't fitted the all important 3/8" alignment bolt but 5/16" all round so when I put a dti on the flywheel and measured the gearbox aperture on the back of the bell housing it was over 20 thou out of centre. The limit is less that 5 thou. Try their services it can save you an expensive rebuild.

Finally is a MK2 2ltr also a 6J?

Iain

 

[Pete Lewis]

https://www.canleyclassics.com/triumph-vitesse-mkii-2-litre-stromberg-carburettors

http://zenithcarb.co.uk/carbspec/carburettor/spares/id/4012/

 

Both show mk2 as 6AC

Pete

[dougbgt6]

Iain,

Rimmers have the needles but only list as suitable for particular model. The K&N needle is listed under GT6 carb parts but it’s the same thing I think. Worth a ring.

Doug

[Iain T]

Thanks for everyones help greatly appreciated😀

[Steve P]

On 01/10/2019 at 19:01, Iain T said:

On another note has anyone used Classic and Modern Engine Services at Bracknell, the E Type guys seem to like what they do and I may ask them to balance the bottom end and test compression etc on the head.

Cheers

Iain

Send me a private message if you want my experience of building a 2.5 for my Vitesse with them.

Steve

[daverclasper]

22 hours ago, Iain T said:

very harsh vibration was the 'new' alternator

Goodness. Who would thought that (not me anyway).

I know there's a lot of crap parts about, but maybe you were unlucky with that batch/manufacture,er?.

[Iain T]

I shall be having an interesting conversation with the supplier tomorrow after I collect the car from VF who are kindly putting in the new windscreen. I also bought a steering column shaft UJ last year that had such badly formed splines that the shaft just turned in the UJ. Even clamped up tight it was unable to engage with either splines, not only useless but unsafe and dangerous!!! I put the old disc one back on......buyer beware!!!

Iain

[dougbgt6]

Iain,

C & M in Bracknell re-bored my block and ground my crank 30 years ago! 40k miles on and still got good oil pressure and compression. Pleased to hear they’re still going, although probably completely different staff and ownership now?

Doug

[Guest]

On 04/10/2019 at 09:08, dougbgt6 said:

C & M in Bracknell re-bored my block and ground my crank 30 years ago! 40k miles on and still got good oil pressure and compression. Pleased to hear they’re still going, although probably completely different staff and ownership now?

Hello Doug,

Still going strong and still producing a high level of machine work - I have heard good reports via other classic car clubs.

http://cmesuk.com/

Regards,

Richard.

[Steve P]

C + M used to be XRN engineering but when they sold out, Paul who worked there took it over and still runs it.

Steve

[AndyTV8]

All the work for recent engine rebuild on my 4 was undertaken by C+M..... just about everything positive from my seat, the only downside being a longer wait than I would have liked - but that isn’t unusual for places whose services are in high demand.

...... Andy