1973 Mk1 Capri V8

A joy to behold and hear, wonderfully brutal.

Leyland LD van narrowed, Leyland LD rear axle too but converted to discs (all discs were made floating so if you took a hit on a wheel it didn't bind up with the caliper) - gearbox was a Bedford TK (rolling starts then locked into 3rd) steering box was Ford A series van but used upside down - self built chassis / roll cage etc - the sport has moved on immensely since - now on very large Chev engines but quick change gearboxes, independent suspension , power steering & race tyres - but as you well know it's not all about the huge engine - its about building a car that's capable of taking the power from the flywheel and planting the traction to the ground that its sat upon 



Here's us out at Lelystad in the Netherlands back in the early 80's  

Whenever I put a racing engine together out of junkyard parts I can flog it within an inch of its life

But I seem to have terrible luck whenever I do everything right, buy all the right parts, etc.

Same with this one.

Right from the start, there was a oil pressure problem.

It did fine on the dyno, but a couple of laps into running it on the track the pressure would drop down to a scary low level.

After its first run on the short track ( probably the one in the vid ) I loaded the car up and went straight to the engine builder, to get his input.

We took the filter off and cut it open, no metal shards...

So his verdict was: " Don't worry about it, it must be your gauge"

Wrong...

Next time out I hurt the crank and one rod...

Probably this time out, on the long track.






You can also see the gearbox problems are back, full force.

It keeps popping out of gear.

The second rebuild went pretty much like the last.

All the clearances and tolerances re-checked and measured.

They were able to save the crank and rods.

Balanced the crank again, matched the weights of the rods again.

Engine put back together with new bearings, rings, seals, and gaskets.

It converted back to dry sump, I was able to pick up a nice 48IDA Weber setup.

And it picked up a couple more HP & Torque.

Time to put it back in.

I took some time to go through my red car ( it picked up the nickname 'lil Red, in my group of racer friends )

Checked and replaced everything to do with the suspension and brakes and steering.

Built new rear suspension.

Freshened up a engine & gearbox.

I was back to having fun again...

The 2 cars are just one extreme to the other! must be completely different driving style needed between them?

Yes, very different.

But really fun in their own way.

The Fiat is a momentum car. 

Everything is about getting a good corner exit speed, because power to weight is low.

But brakes and handling are really good.

So you can get much deeper into the corner and brake much later.

With the Fiat you are either full on the brakes, or full on the throttle.

Nothing inbetween.

I grew up with that car, did most of my racing with it in the Netherlands.

And off and on, I've been working on improving it for some 30-35 years...


The Capri doesn't have as good as a turn in ( I'm still trying to improve that ), brakes are good but you can feel its a much heavier car, and a careful toe on the throttle will make the back end step out.

Top speed is really good ( I drove around a guy in a Viper Roadster on the main straight of the long track once...)

Another big difference are things like steering and shifting.   

The Fiat is really direct, short throw, etc., so the controls are heavy.

But nothing like the Capri's...

That Super T10 is horrible. Its slow shifting, heavy ( and gets heavier when trying to shift fast), and at the same time sloppy and vague .

If this is the 4 speed people were used to, I'm starting to understand why they chose automatics instead...

Fixing that was a priority...

Haha... 

Thanks.

Its a really amazing engine.

That amount of torque with a very flat toque curve in a relatively light car is something I'd never driven before.

Some time in the ( hopefully near ) future, I'll get on it again to try and figure out what's going on with it.

There are only a couple of possibilities.

The oiling system ( I know that isn't it, it works fine on its replacement.  More about that later ), the crank , or the block itself ( engine builders I trust seem to go for either on the last 2 ).

For now, its on a engine stand wrapped in plastic to keep the dust out...