Hi am new to locost builders forum. but have been the guardian of my Tiger Super 6 for 2.5yrs, in that time I have made a few changes and most
importantly been using and enjoying it.
I will try my best to create a diary of the up and downs from when I bought her to present day, as improvements will continue.
I was a member of the Tiger owners club but unfortunately that forum has gone by the wayside.
The adventure into kitcar ownership started in 2020, Whilst looking through Ebay I spotted this Tiger for sale spares or repairs.
Spares or repairs due to running issues and "its needs a full engine rebuild" so I did the right thing and bought her, and got a train down
to the sellers and attemped to drive her back. the reason she "needs a engine rebuild" was because it was only running on 2 cylinders at
idle, this was simply down to the carbs been that far out balance cylinders 1 and 2 were not firing, I did a quick and dirty carb balance got her
running half decent and proceded on my 200mile journey home.
Unfortunately it was not all plain sailing discovered quickly she had some cooling issues on a light throttle she was sitting at 70C the second you
looked at the throttle she shoot to 95c. mmmmmm headgasket me thinks, so slow and steady wins the race.
100miles into the journey and things went south, rev counter stopped working (no big deal) then a mile later everything stopped working.
we had ran out electricty battey sitting at 6v. so whilst waiting for recovery i was reading through the extensive history folder and to discovery
only 2 months it had a alternator rebuild mmmmm
long story short the journey started at 11am on friday I didnt get back till 6am Saturday and the car didnt get home till Tuesday.
Not the best introduction to the world of kitcars. let the adventure begin
So now she is back home we need to address the lack of electricty and the overheat issue
The lack of charging was simple the alternator bracket was snapped and more to the point had been snapped for a long time looking at the rust on the
break and that alternator had not been refurbed or even removed, the previous owner had been charged £130 for them not not doing the job. anyways nice
easy free fix for me.
Next problem she was running hot and lots of bubbles in the header tank. This was because the cooling system was plumbed up wrong and was effectively
bypassing the rad, and cavitation causing bubbles so rerouted correctly temps are spot on no bubbles etc...
Cooling fan was wired up wrong polarity so was pushing air out of the nose cone.
The next big issue was handling she drove like a pig, would turn right great, not so keen on left, everytime you hit a bump it would try to leave the
road.
The handling was down to a poor setup. the rear axle was 2inches of center due to badly adjusted panard, one rear shock was set to full damping and
the other min damping, tyre pressures all round where 32psi. Front end drivers side had full posi camber and the pass side was full neg camber and
about 5 miles of toe out, so now this are all reset she drives so so much better.
The previous owner had the front suspension removed and powder coated which will be why the geo was all over. BUT Not sure who is responsible either
the previous owner or the garage but they should of been shot. it has had a load of new fasteners in the front suspension which is nice but every
bolt/nut was far from tight, nipped at best which is bad enough but every bolt was that short in length they did not protrude into the nylon on the
nyloc nuts. so barely tight nuts with no locking method, That would be fun at speed.
The 2 bolts that hold the VW upright to the upper ball joint are just normal bolts not the eccentric washer type not huge deal just makes camber
adjustment a bit more fiddly. but then spotted they have used the eccentric washer bolts to hold the shocker top mounts.
Its really basic engineering principles make sure the bolts are the correct length, i have always worked on the priciple of you need atleast half the
diameter of the bolt protruding beyond the nut.
Bought the car knowing it was a rolling project and always knew by the nature of it been a kit car there will be things i would need to rework, either
because its badly done or personal preference. but the likes of the front suspension I find annoying and scary that sort of stuff gets people killed
and there is no excuse.
Not a great deal done. Been busy welding up rotten transit vans (thankfully not mine)
Got a few road miles on it, used it for a couple of days to travel to work. and discovered to things that need addressing.
First one been I need to make some wind deflectors for the side of the windscreen to stop that icey blast.
And the second one is to address the cooling system, when I first got the car it was running hot all the time and air bubbles in the header this was
down to the cooling circuit not been properly plumbed up and was scavaging air from the top of the header tank in to head now it is properly plumbed
the bubbles have stopped nice even temps across the engine etc.....
The engine was fitted by RAW back in 2001 and for whatever reason they did not fit the thermostat housing (remote one) I have read about other seven
type cars with a RAW conversion and they did not have the thermostat either.
So now the cooling system is flowing correctly I now no longer have overheat issues But i now have cannot get hot issues, was out today for a good 50
miles 13c ambient and good not get the engine over 55c, saying that much rather have need to get it hot than get it cool issues, Just to fit a remote
bypass stat and all will be good.
I did address the brakes today and much much happier with them, the car has the standard beetle M/C and Golf brakes with EBC Green stuff and drilled
and grooved disks the brakes as per was somewhat wooden, took me back to when I used to own a breadvan polo which is non servo as well, I moved the
pushrod on the pedal 1/4 inch closer to the pedal pivot point and M/C to keep everything in line and now the brakes are what i would expect a little
more pedal travel but now powerfull and progressive. nice free upgrade.
I have addressed my cooling system, after rerouting the plumbing system i went from hot uneven temps and a bubbly header tank to stuggling to get her
to heat up, for some reason RAW did not fit the toyota remote thermostat housing.
you can buy aftermarket remote stats etc... but as you have probs noticed by now I am not keen on spending money on shiney stuff. the outlet on the
toyota engine is 31mm so needed a remote housing with that size as it turns out a yamaha R1 remote stat fits the bill at 30mm and very cheap, £5
delivered. so now my engine warms up as it should sits between 80-85 ticking over, driving etc.... and because it now has a stat this acts as a slight
restriction so now the water flowing a bit more slowly through the radiator and the radiator is now cooling alot better. (stock tiger rad but did fit
a small bore pipe to rad top tank back to header to purge the air)
Well got a bit fed up with doing mechanical fixes on the car and thought i would treat myself (and the car) to some cosmetic work so she got a abit of
facelift (well more of a bumlift).
The rear end always bugged me the handbrake cables where hanging out protruding beyond the rear panel and hated the trailer type rear lights and the
green is not my cup of tea etc.....
So rerouted the handbrake cable so now they are tucked up, lifted the number up and leveled/centered it, unfortunately cannot get it any higher as it
is hiding the cutouts in the rear panel from when it had a spare wheel carrier.
Then at this point saw that the number plate was not level or centered, which lead me to see the green stripe was off centre and not level, to which I
happily removed, (plan is to de-green the whole car)
Next was the rear lights not a fan of square lights and even less of a fan of them been 1.5 inches out to each other, so some nice landrover type
lights, and the fun of fitting them to hide the old holes and keep them equal to each other etc....
Well operation De-green or De - Kermit as the wife calls continues, all the wish bones have been repainted Spax Coilovers taken to bits and repainted.
etc..... took a while to put everything back together as I spent a lot of time going through my many biscuit tins of nuts n bolts as I wanted both
sides to mirror each other hardware wise,
Well spent the day playing with the carbs and ignition management. whilst the car was running ok and on all 4 cylinders, not running as well as she
should be
The igintion is taken care be a OMEX ecu. ignition map itself was quite messy timing advance quite muddled jumping from 40degrees advance to 10 then
back to 38 etc....... so thats been cleaned up quite abit using a bit of common sense and looking at maps for the 4age, car feels a little cleaner and
more linear.
For some reason the idle feature had not been utilised, its only a few presses of the keyboard and it dynamically changes the timing advance at idle
to help maintain the idle speed, now this is setup, now it doesnt matter if the engine is hot or cold she idles at a nice even 750rpm.
The biggest change I have done is the jetting whilst the car was starting and running etc.... she was running rich across the board, you could smell
the fuel, black smoke and driving in the dark the exhaust provide quite a light show (good 2 foot flames on over run)
Popped all the jets out and wow i think it was jetted for a 3 litre engine
for example a 2.1 pinto with a lumpy cam would probs have 140-145 mains 45idle and 205 air. my carbs had 155 mains 60 idle and 215 air.
using the jet calculators and looking to see what other 4age engine are running with the same carbs and I have installed 135 mains 40idle and 185 air.
and the difference is night and day car pulls cleaner through out the rev range, no black smoke and more of a bark to the exhaust. only downside is I
have lost my flame show.
Photo Archive
Building: Stuart Taylor ST1100 V4 BEC (built)
posted on 4/1/23 at 12:13 PM
Welcome!! Nice looking car.
When you did the right thing and took the train down after buying it I hope you took a pair of vice grips and some spare sparkles
I had a rucksack full of gear lol, and a good recovery policy with my back account. There's been lots of up and down but everytime you drive the
car all is forgiven
This is a great website for building a kit car. it helped me for over 20 years to get mine through the IVA so keep up the great work putting it right,
just in time for our warm weather and run outs with other 7's
This will be her third summer I have owned and driven her the build diary I am posting is retrospective from when I first bought her, we still have
the fuel injection conversion, engine swaps to come to bring it up to present day, I have a few ideas planned before this summer, the thing I found
with a kit car is you acquire friends we now have a local group here in the North east there are about 25 of us with 7esq kits so plenty of ride outs
and car shows.
Headlight buckets and grill are all painted now just waiting on the clear to cure then get them fitted tomorrow and the car is nearly de-greened
and for a bit of fun had a play with the vinyl plotter again and made some side stripes for the car. I am not a 100% sold on them I was just cut from
some left over vinyl.
The H.S.C. came about 5 years ago when I was building a track car, the garage I use is at my mam and dads property which is called " Hall Station
Cottage" hence H.S.C. motorsport was born and every trackcar and toy since then has had the HSC motorsport.
Well spent the day playing with the carbs and ignition management. whilst the car was running ok and on all 4 cylinders, not running as well as she
should be
The igintion is taken care be a OMEX ecu. ignition map itself was quite messy timing advance quite muddled jumping from 40degrees advance to 10 then
back to 38 etc....... so thats been cleaned up quite abit using a bit of common sense and looking at maps for the 4age, car feels a little cleaner and
more linear.
For some reason the idle feature had not been utilised, its only a few presses of the keyboard and it dynamically changes the timing advance at idle
to help maintain the idle speed, now this is setup, now it doesnt matter if the engine is hot or cold she idles at a nice even 750rpm.
The biggest change I have done is the jetting whilst the car was starting and running etc.... she was running rich across the board, you could smell
the fuel, black smoke and driving in the dark the exhaust provide quite a light show (good 2 foot flames on over run)
Popped all the jets out and wow i think it was jetted for a 3 litre engine
for example a 2.1 pinto with a lumpy cam would probs have 140-145 mains 45idle and 205 air. my carbs had 155 mains 60 idle and 215 air.
using the jet calculators and looking to see what other 4age engine are running with the same carbs and I have installed 135 mains 40idle and 185 air.
and the difference is night and day car pulls cleaner through out the rev range, no black smoke and more of a bark to the exhaust. only downside is I
have lost my flame show.
Not done a great deal, but did do a job that had been bugging me for a while, never liked the look of the single roll hoop, personally thought it
looked a bit fragile, so raided the pile of scrap steel at the back of the garage and found some 32mm x 2.4mm steel tube. welded some 6mm mounting
plates to chassis, the end of the tubes have a bung welded in the end and tapped to m12, all refinished in ford panther black (had some spare from
another job)
Its one of those jobs that only cost time using bits I had lying about and i think the car looks alot better.
The car is/was running Omex ignition and Dellorto 45s and runs well but i am a big believer that if it aint broke you can still fix it, one of the
probs is the engine is over carb'd they have 38mm chokes fitted really the sweet spot for that engine is 34-36mm but they aint cheap at £23 a
piece,
So we are going full engine management. which price wise works out the same as buying the chokes for the Dellorto's.
So now she is running Yamaha fzr600 throttle bodies which was a Ebay steal at £15 posted. wasted spark taken care with a VW coil pack (spare I had
lying about)
Got the trigger wheel made up at work,
And the engine management is Speeduino I had built up. I have played with Megasquirt in the past and its very very simular and a lot cheaper.
I needed some way of mounting the ITBs to the engine I could of put my hand in my pocket and bought a premade one but they are not cheap so made one
from 2 lengths of steel from a old towbar and some exhaust from a nova.
Its now at the stage that it starts and revs etc.... still a but more tuning to do but so far happy runs cleaner than the carbs and seems a lot more
responsive.
still a ton of jobs to do the Speeduino is hooked up on a temp harness but I am in the middle of making the proper one, still have the swirl pot to
fit (homemade again). Going to pull the engine out so i can freshen up the engine bay paint it etc... re-route the brake lines harness etc.... as it
looks very cluttered. Description
Made a little bracket up to hold the Speeduino ECU, due to space limitations I wanted to mount it above the the Tiger loom and towards the rear of the
car to give me clearance from the scuttle, all the wiring is now complete I kept the Speeduino/injection system as seperate system,
Well today was the first time in my ownership I got to enjoy the Super6 and not work on it, did a 100mile round trip of mixed driving and she behaved
beautifully, tiny flat spot on a slight throttle opening but she really spent much time on a light throttle LOL.
starts from cold without touching the throttle and idles spot on, mapped some nice pops and burbles on overun. Even saw another kitcar owner out on my
run.
A few months prior to wrap job I bought a set of new to me wheels they where cheap and very rough condition, but mainly cheap,
So after some elbow grease they came up well,
I used my car as lathe, removed the tyres, bolted the wheel to the axle and engine running in second gear we got to polishing.
