Thursday, March 23, 2006

32 Valve Stag!

I have always harboured a desire to build a 32 valve Stag motor, it just needs to be done! To that end I have a couple of Stag V8's sitting in the engine shop awaiting the glorious day.They are placed in such a manner so that I catch my shin on them every now and again to remind me why they are there!
It's not an idle dream either, I know it existed as a paperwork exercise in Triumph experimental early on in the seventies, but did it progress further? A school mate of mine's Dad ran a small engineering shop locally specialising in amongst other things construction of race winning motorcycle combination outfits, but what he was really known for throughout the Midlands was his ace ability in the black art of aluminium welding. At least it was in those days, I remember his tig plant being virtually the size of the end wall of his industrial unit, nowadays they are much more manageable. Anyway as I recall said mate and I popped into his Dad's unit on the way home from school one day in the mid seventies to check out the latest motorcycle combi, only to be confronted with his Dad 'doing a late one' for some lucrative hush hush British Leyland contract. Obviously oblivious to my even then unatural interest in all things Triumph he didn't make any attempt to cover up what he was doing. Mounted on a comprehensive alighnment jig was what looked like a Sprint head with a Stag chain box being carefully welded on the wrong end? I remember asking my Dad at the time if he knew anything about it (Dad worked near to experimental at Triumph and in the course of his job regularly found excuse to have a nose, and take the odd picture in there!) only to be met with a blank expression? So is that as far as it got? I must remember to ask my mate Pete Clarke (former experimental), he was one of the team on the mini 'production line' building the Stag engine saloons/estates in experimental, maybe he might recall how far things progressed?

13 comments:

  1. All those valves and shims and chains - the potential for spectacular and catastrophic failure is immense - can I be there when you start it up please :-) Mind you, it would be a glorious thing to behold if it were to run and behave!

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  2. Jase

    It still amazes me that I can excited about stuff like this! It's like being in a sweet shop when you were a kid with a pocketfull of birthday money itching to be spent!
    So many projects so little time!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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  3. This kind of thing needs to be videoed for posterity!

    And think of the cooling required.

    Good Luck with it though.

    Regards

    Léon

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  4. This kind of thing really needs to be videoed and put on the CC website for all to enjoy!

    And think of the cooling required.

    Good Luck with it though.

    Best Regards

    Léon

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  5. Careful or you'll put on weight and your teeth will fall out - oops! Too late :-)

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  6. You obviously realise you will need duplex chains.... Theres a guy in NZ with 300bhp + from an 16 valve engine... do you really.. really need 32?

    Why not an alloy block for the six :-P

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  7. We saw a few 32 valve 4.8 litre V8's at the X Power auction at Longbridge on Saturday. They were mostly attached to MG SV's (sort of a production sports car thing with kit car build standards!), thought about buying one of those and sticking a Triumph badge on it? Might have been an easier/cheaper way of doing the whole thing!

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  8. pi or an 8 pack , or will you use twin 1 1/2 strombergs

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  9. PI or an 8 PACK or maybe your favorite twin 1 1/2 stromberg power ??

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  10. it is possible in fact easily possible to build 32 valve stag v8 jobby ive even looked into it myself but didnt get very far and the cooling issue is none existent the stag cooling probs are factory not design flaws ive removed 1 kilo of casting sand from a stag engine thats done 100k and it never over heated you could easily get 350bhp out of a 32 valver at 8k rpm ive got 280 out of my standard setup but with 8 mikini flatsides from 2 motorbikes

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  11. it is possible in fact easily possible to build 32 valve stag v8 jobby ive even looked into it myself but didnt get very far and the cooling issue is none existent the stag cooling probs are factory not design flaws ive removed 1 kilo of casting sand from a stag engine thats done 100k and it never over heated you could easily get 350bhp out of a 32 valver at 8k rpm ive got 280 out of my standard setup but with 8 mikini flatsides from 2 motorbikes

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  12. 280bhp! Lets have a look, any piccys?

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