[ROVERNET - UK] Rover rear end and Brit car day

[Tom Trafton]

Bill

This is interesting information;  would you know what the horsepower and
torque output of the hot rodded 4.3 litre V8 was?  If the Rover diff was
beefed up, what would you guess was done to it?  Just looking at the design,
it would seem that the spider gears are the first weak link.

Tom

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Bill Robertson" <rover2000nut at hotmail.com>
To: <rovernet at lyris.ccdata.com>
Sent: Saturday, September 11, 2004 12:56 PM
Subject: [ROVERNET - UK] Rover rear end and Brit car day


> First off next Sunday, September 19 is British car day at Bronte
> Creek........Minutes east of Toronto......This is one of if not the
largest
> gathering of strictly British cars in North America.....Last year over
1200
> cars ..........There is usually only about a half dozen or so Rover cars
of
> any model....Of course there are  Land and Range Rovers but they have
their
> own spot........If any of you are close and would like to come up i,d love
> to have a few more Rover nuts there........Email me for
> directions............It is a great day and some really nice cars .
>
>
> Now for the racing V8 Rovers............They started out with the 3500
diff
> and De Dion rear end and at least 2 ran with a 3.5 litre Rover V8 in
> Britain...... The car which was built as the factory prototype for FIA
group
> 2 touring cars in 1970 featured a Traco modifed, quad weber, 4.3litre V8
> closely related to Rovers 3.5 version........They also used a Muncie 4
speed
> gearbox with the Rover differential and De Dion rear end.....( doesn,t
> mention if if was beefed up but i imagine it would have to
be)............In
> its competition debut at the 84hour(yes 84) Marathon de la Route at the
> famous Nurburgring it was said to have reached 176mph and in 16 hours it
had
> built up an easy 4 lap lead till retiring with an out of balance tail
shaft
> breaking off the rear of the gearbox........as a note it ran with the
Series
> 1 aluminum 2000 grille and badge attached .....Just after it ran British
> Leyland decided to close its whole competition department which probably
> helped it ease towards extinction..........Another major corporate
> blunder..................
>
> The factory car was sold and made its way to Australia where it had little
> to no success running against what amounted to full on race cars as the
> rules were very open to interpretation and they had definately decided to
> run in the wrong class.............it was in late 1971 that it was
actually
> raped of almost all things Rover to try and be more competetiveand ran
with
> a conventional twin wisbone front end and the Rover differential was
> replaced with a Jaguar diff with the inboard brakes, but was made fully
> independent using E-type rear uprights modified to carry sliding spline
> halfshafts and open wheeler style locating linkages.... That actual car
ran
> up until Aug 1976 and does not appear to have raced afterward and was
> purchased by a Robert Harrison who still has the car but with all the mods
> made and escaping a garage fire he can,t even keep a windshield in it
> without it cracking as soon as the car moves............After installing
his
> 3rd windscreen he realized the whole car was flexing even just rolling it
> across the garage floor..........
>
> Bill Robertson
>
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