A Dream Fulfilled - MY 904FF

[Kirklands 904]

Whilst we are making progress in the installation of the new engine, we are now held up trying to locate a suitable fan housing assembly including fan and alternator. If anyone has one they are willing to sell could they please PM me.

Hill climb season seems to be getting very near!!

[Kirklands 904]

A number of people have suggested that it might be of interest to continue the saga of the 904FF, so I wiil attempt to let you all know what has been happening since early 2018 when we were searching for a fan housing and fan. Firstly I have to find out how to upload photos from Flikr. Bear with me and excuse any trial posts, mishaps or just cock ups.

The car has been in Norton on Derwent over the winter having some more mods done by George and Andy but hopefully this part of the story will appear in due course. As I said in my last post in 2018, the hill climb season is nearly upon us and hopefully we shall be meeting our pals in some paddock shortly.

Now to try to post a trial photo or two!

[Bootsy]

excellent!

[bjmullan]

We would all love to hear an update about the car.

Here's how to add pictures from Flickr.

1. View the picture you want to upload
2. In the bottom right-hand corner click on the icon that looks like a right arrow
3. Select the BBCode from the top list
4. Using the dropdown list select the size you want to use (I would recommend Large (768 x 1024))
5. Click on the text box above the size selection and copy
6. This code can then be directly pasted into a DDK message

Hope this helps!

[Kirklands 904]

That seems to have worked in spite of me. Now that I appear to be able to post pictures I will contine the story in due course.

[Bootsy]

Look forward to it

[neilbardsley]

Subscribed!

Sent from my Redmi 7 using Tapatalk

[Lightweight_911]

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Lose the first [ img] & everything after the first [/ img] ...

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[Kirklands 904]

Hopefully having sorted out how to post photographs, I will revert to the story of the 904FF. As I said in 2018 I was looking for a fan housing and fan and on this very day three years ago, Nigel James got in touch and sent the following photographs. It was exactly three years ago to the day as the six nation rugby was on and Nigel nipped out at half time to take the photographs.







A deal was done and the fan housing and fan were duly delivered

[Bootsy]

Excellent. There’s no stopping you now!

[rhd racer]

Gearbox looks handsome, I used the JW linkage on mine which did something broadly similar

[911hillclimber]

Top Esse at Shelsley?
Horrible no matter and very violent. We have all had offs on these hills and it sure happened quickly!

Hope you will be ready for the season Bill!

[Kirklands 904]

Looking back over my posts on the 904FF, I was saying in late 2017 that we were at the stage of changing the 914 4cyl engine for a 911 6cyl and the problems we had already ran into with the dummy engine that Mike Bainbridge had loaned us. The realisation that we (Andy Lockwood, George Laycocock and me) would have to change the rear chassis and suspension was execising our collective minds.



With the dummy engine roughly in place and chassis tubes cut out, we thought that the rear suspension should be somewhat like the photo above. i.e. use the existing rear mountings and keep the front mounting parallel to the centre line of the chassis as previously. The question was now how wide could we make the wishbones without fouling something else and what tubes would need to come out and where would new tubes be needed to carry the suspension and spring/damper mountings.

The final design finished up as this.



Detail of the adjustment of the rear toe in.



Rear shock absorber/ spring mounting



Bottom rear wishbone.



The rear upright is a Gardner Douglas Sports cars (now in Grantham) item from their Lola T70 replica.

Whilst we were modifying the chasis and suspension, Mike Bainbridge was getting on with building the engine.












The Webers were the carburettors which came from the 911 2.0T engine I had bought years ago and which had been traded in to Mike. Note that the toothed wheel and sensor which are part of the Clewett kit had now been fitted.

Mike had said that the engine to 2.4S spec but with E cams for torque would give over 200 BHP at 7,000 revs. We waited with apprehension.

[Kirklands 904]

As I mentioned earlier Nigel James had supplied a fan housing and fan so all that was now needed in that area was an alternator. A 55A one was obtained from Andys Autoparts in Oldham for a very reasonable amount. I see on ebay that they are exactly the same price as they were 3 years ago!

I had decided that I might as well be in for many pounds rather than a few pennies, so I approached Image Wheels to see if they could make a set of replica wheels. My pal Sandy Cormack who is making a replica 906 in Edinburgh had designed a replica wheel for his car and Image Wheels in Tipton hade made them up in three parts in 17 inch diameter. Yes, they would be prepared to make them in 15 inch and by changing inner and outer rims they could make any width required with whatever off set was needed. 15x6 fronts and 15x8 rears were decided upon and an order placed. The original wheels were 15x6 front and rear from a Ford Scorpio Cosworth and had been fitted with Vredestein Classic tyres.







To get tyres to fit these rims and to keep close to the original rolling radius, Avon185/70R15 CR6ZZ and 225/60R15 CR6ZZ were ordered on BMTR. A trip to the West Midlands to pick up wheels and tyres was duly made but BMTR would not fit the tyres since they were unsure if the wheel sealant had cured sufficiently. They were than taken up to Yorkshire separately and made available to George and Andy.

[210bhp]

This is already a great thread!!

Thanks for deciding to share your journey with us Bill.
(And also for casually mentioning a 906 replica build in Scotland——- please, more details on this if possible)


Regards
Mike