Friday, February 27, 2009

Austin 7 Racer


While most people's inclination would be to preserve a pre-war Austin 7, there are folks in the UK who make their own version of an Austin 7 "Hot Rod", tweeking the engine, transmission, suspension, and pretty much everything else, to make it a real "go fast" car.
This Austin 7 racer is an example of that kind of work. The car is described as:
This well developed Mk11, styled on the lines of a 1925 Austin Works racer, is one of Tim Myall’s well known Pigsty series of Austin 7 racing specials and incapsulates his years of experience building competitive racing cars which use semi-monocoque construction whereby the chassis and floor are riveted together with a very rigid aluminium. The 1930 crankcase has a 1.5 inch Phoenix crankshaft with Renault pistons and rods and a lightened flywheel with an aluminium clutch. The ported and gas flowed block has a Pigsty full race camshaft and followers and the high compression Austin head is dry-decked for extra integrity. Fuel is fed by a 1.25 inch HS2 SU carburettor, the ignition is fired by Lumenition electronics and the exhaust is Pigsty’s own multi-branch design. The car has a 4 speed close ratio synchromesh gearbox and power is transmitted to the 5.25 back axle by a Hardy Spicer u/j’d prop shaft. The back axle is suspended on lowering brackets and the front axle and spring have been inverted to reduce the frontal area and overall height. The ride is controlled at the front by twin front Hartford type dampers made by Tim Myall. The car is stopped by Morris Minor hydraulic brakes. The engine is reasonably estimated to give 38 bhp at the flywheel and the whole car probably weighs just over 300 kilos (660 lbs) so you get a very good BHP per Ton ratio. This is a real racing car for really competitive drivers. It has successfully competed for over five years in Triple Challenge and Bert Hadley Championship events amongst others. It has had a VSCC buff form showing it as a 1929/37 Special (all major components were dated as pre 1930 apart from the back axle) so it would be eligible for their events if the current electronic ignition was replaced with a conventional system. It is a well developed and proven competition car which offers fast and competitive motor sport for a small financial outlay!
And there is even proof on YouTube that this car can move.

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