President Mike de Andrade 3 Sipan St, Santa Rita, Guam 96915 mikedea@hotmail.com 81 9068605104 Membership Joe Worsley 1591 Peoples Creek Rd., Advance, NC, USA 27006 jworsley@yadtel.net 336-998-6501 Editor Ed Krakowiak 1713 Valley Forge, Downers Grove, Illinois USA 60516 e.krakowski@prodigy.net 630-435-0652 Tech Rep Woody Cooper 45 First Street, Raynham, Massachusetts, USA 02767 Wedgeshop@AOL.com 508-880-5448 Fuel Injection James Tencate 542 Todd Loop S, Los Alamos New Mexico, USA 87544 Tencate@mac.com 505-672-1953 Webmaster Vacant SparesCommittee Wayne Simpson 242 Sprucewood Dr, Brick Twp, NJ, USA 08723 staghunter@comcast.net 908-477-3878 TR8 Car Club Web Page: http://www.team.net/TR8/tr8cca

#80 JANUARY — MARCH 2006

REFERENCE

Last Newsletter Index : Issue #71 Membership directory : Issue, #75 ——————————————————————

EDITORS CORNER

Just wanted to thank everyone for the positive feed-back on the last issue. And especially Joe and Dave for all their help as well as everyone else who contributed. Once again any and all submissions will considered and more than likely used. Sorry about this abbreviated edition. As I mentioned be-fore most of time has been consumed by a kitchen re-modeling project that I can say is finally finished. ! I could fill 16 pages with details on that. But I could only find time to put together 16 for this issue of the TR8CCA Newsletter. Thanks, Ed

COMING EVENTS

British Car Swap Meet, April 7-8 2006. Held at McLeod;’s British Cars 14310 Corvallis Road , Mau-melle, Arkansas/ Call 1-800– 352-5816 for more info. Import Carlisle, May 19-21, 2006. A nice way to start the driving season by scrounging through the flea market at Carlisle. This is an Import and Kit car show, therefore lots of British stuff. Check out www.carsatcarlisle.com for more details. The Brits Are Back at Hope Lodge. May 27 2006. Held at the Hope Lodge Historic Site. 553 South Bethlehem Pike, For Washington, PA 19034. Hosted by the Delaware Valley Triumphs (www.delvaltrs.org). Contact Steve Klein email

klassiccar@aol.com or 610-825-2617. This site is the intended show field for the 2007 VTR National. VTR National Convention, July 19-23, 2006, Las Co-linas, Texas. The VTR’s annual convention is in Texas next year. Check the website at www.vtr.org or www.vtr2006.com for further details. The fea-tured marquee is the Triumph GT. The Roadster Factory’s Summer Party, date TBA. Armagh, Pennsylvania. The event is still not con-firmed for 2006, but watch TRF’s website for more info www.the-roadster-factory.com VTR Southeast Regional Convention, Sept 29 – Oct 1, 2006. Jekyll Island, Georgia. Check the VTR web-site for more details, www.vtr.org

FYI & NEWS

The TR8CCA membership form is also available on the web at : http://www.team.net/TR8/tr8cca/assets/membershipform.pdf Thanks to all the members who renewed or sub-scribed for two years. It makes Joe’s life a whole lot easier. Spring is around the corner. And soon the car show and cruise night season will be in full swing. Send a cool pic of your TR8 at a car show or cruise night for the next newsletter. Email your TR8 pics to e.krakowski@prodigy.net

CAR CLUB of AMERICA

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The weather was perfect. Maybe 75 degrees, sunny and dry. I rolled up the country lane near Char-lottesville, VA wondering if I would be able to find John Sanders and his TR8. It was easier than I thought. There was a low white cloud, as puffy as the ones in the sky, but this one was on the ground, and inside it was John's TR8, being blasted back to its bare metal, by plain old baking soda.

John had carefully prepared the 1980 TR8 fixed head coupe car for this episode of its resto-ration. He bought the car last year from a racer named Buddy Norton who had it stored in Connecti-cut. After bringing it home, he stripped it inside and out and removed the doors, glass, and bonnet. For the soda blasting, he brought the car to a friend's field near a pole barn (filled with sports cars and racers) where he could keep it out of the weather. He is also the owner of a 1978 pre-production fixed head coupe and a very nice yellow drop head coupe with a seriously modi-fied 3.5 V8. John Sanders is active in the show circuit and he's the current Vice President of the Shenandoah Valley Brit-ish Car Club. This car is his next project and the pre-production coupe for "his retirement".

I had never heard of sodablasting, and John was kind enough to invite me down to Palmyra, VA to see the boys from Sodablast of Virginia blast his TR8 back to its original state, as naked as the day "before" it was born. Chip Carpen-ter of Sodablast of Virginia, clad in a white set of coveralls, hood, and breathing filter, was steadily taking the paint away. He had begun at 9:30 and a little over three hours later he was almost finished. I checked my watch. Both sides of the bonnet, a little less than 15 min-utes. The entire engine bay, about 20 minutes. John, several of his buddies from the Shenandoah Valley British Car Club, and yours truly, stood at a dis-tance, truly impressed.

Soda blasting has been around since the 1980's. It is useful for graffiti, mold, and grease re-moval, situations where something non-abrasive is required to preserve the surface underneath and it is a great way to remove paint from old cars, without warping or damaging the metal underneath. Soda scours away paint without damaging aluminum trim, without tearing up rubber, and without requiring much more than duct tape to defend plastic lenses and parts.

I've seen some sand-blasting and done a lit-tle, and many of you who have done it know that there's a trick to doing broad, flat surfaces, and that often it's not easy to see what you're doing. Soda takes the paint right off, knocks the top off rusted ar-eas and is much more forgiving and mistake-proof than sand. Further, cleaning baking soda out of cracks and crannies is no big deal as it is water-soluble and a quick wash dissolves it right away. It will remove body filler or undercoating, however it will not completely remove rubberized coatings in the trunk areas without a softening agent. Heat and humidity will affect the way the soda flows, so on some days, he will use more or less soda.

Soda blast of Virginia has a plan to reach out and touch your car, no matter where it is. They have a mobile soda blasting system, consisting of an F350 Super Duty Diesel pickup towing a trailer-mounted compressor the size of a mini-van that they will bring to your house or other location. Those of you who have pondered how to strip your car, then get it to a sandblast shop, and then wait with sweaty palms for them to return it, (God knows when and in God knows what condition), will appreciate the conven-ience this concept offers. The gas-powered com-pressor handles the job without even breathing hard and Chip and his crew work steadily.

Continued on page 3

Having A (Soda) Blast! By Tom Burke

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Continued from page 2 This is not, however, the kind of job you want to do in your driveway, twenty feet from your neighbor's Toy-ota. Soda, which is less dangerous than the silica dust that comes from sand, was spread over a 75 foot by 75 foot area. Also, the noise from the compressor would assure that, whatever your neighbor was yell-ing, you probably wouldn't hear him, (or the cop, ei-ther). John was having this done on a farm, well out in the country, on torn up ground around a construction site, so noise and dust were not an issue for him. Care also has to be taken to protect grassy areas as the baking soda will "burn" grass and shrubbery if it gets wet. The good news is, three hours later, you got yourself a nicely refinished car, dusted like the Pillsbury Doughboy, needing only rust repair and a quick rub-down with 180 sandpaper to be ready for primer. For

this, Sodablast of Virginia charged John $750. The price will vary, depending on how far Chip has to travel to do the job, but considering the con-venience and the struggle involved in doing this yourself, that price seems pretty reasonable. Needless to say, Chip's skill and the power of his set-up are worth a lot also. You can reach them at http://www.sodablastofvirginia.com/ or (804) 556-5250. There are, of course, other types of blasting media, walnut shells, plastic beads, aluminum oxide, anthra-cite coal dust, to name a few, but soda is less expen-sive ($40 per 50 lb. bag) than most, as effective as the "low-cut" media types, and easy to use. Could you do it yourself? Sure, given enough com-pressor power and enough baking soda and enough patience, anything is possible. But, as we watched Chip and his son blast off the TR8, we all agreed, (while holding our frosty bev-erages), that this time, we were learning a better lesson by watching the pros than we would have learned by doing it ourselves.

More on V8 Badges for your TR8. I had a couple of inquires about the V8 badge on my TR8. It is from late model Land Rover models. I got mine on ebay. Keyword search “ROVER V8 EMBLEM”. As of this writing there was only1 available and it was gold for no kidding $25.00 with no takers. I got a pewter one for $5.00 from the U.K. that I painted black. At that time there were at least half a dozen on ebay for the taking. I suppose they can also be had at your neighborhood Land Rover dealer for a hefty price. Anyone else have a source for these? Let me know. Thanks, Ed

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More Fresh Air For Your TR8

Fellow TR8CCA member Steve Olson shares the same view as me in that the fresh air intake is way too restricted by the warm air diverter. He has sub-mitted his version of bypassing the warm air diverter and will hopefully report his results during the next Speed Run in Chanute Kansas that is held at the local airstrip.

All that is needed to replace the hot air diverter is something to couple the air box inlet which is 2" OD to the air horn on the inner fender which is about 2 1/2" OD. Also there is a need to span the gap left by removing the diverter and make the same right angle bend that it did. I found that a 45 degree bend actu-ally kept the flex hose from kinking better and made for even less air restriction.

I used 2" PVC pipe which even comes in black. I needed about 6" total but had to buy 5'. But that only cost $2.89. I cut notches around one end so that the original clamp could be used to squeeze it onto the air box snout. Then comes a 45 degree street elbow for $1.19 each. The OD of the elbow was not quite large enough for the hose to grab so I wrapped it with a few rounds of duct tape. I already had the tape and a hack saw and some PVC glue so my total cost was just $5.66 tax included.

By Steve Olson

Footnote

At the “Speedometer Calibration” event mentioned above the local airport closes down their mile long taxiway one day in May for British cars to hit the ra-dar traps at the 3/4 mile mark. Steve reports a best of 114mph in his slightly modified TR8, modern Jags in the 120’s and a MBG with nitrous in the 140’s! Anyone else care to share the top speed reports?

A Good Day at Goodwood

In August 2005, I was invited to bring my TR7, and as many others as I could muster, to a fund-raising track day at Goodwood, organized by The Good-wood Marshalls Club.

Goodwood is one of the premier car racing circuits in the United Kingdom, and holds regular Revival Meetings, featuring classic racing cars at full speed, with apparent disregard for themselves, their cars and each other! An amazing and most enjoyable event, which I visited in 2004.

The race track is situated on Sussex Downs, and has spectacular, beautiful views everywhere you look. It is also quite near the Rolls Royce headquar-ters!

At this time of year, it is hard to find TR's that are still on the road, being tucked up for the winter in dry, warm garages. I managed to persuade two other TR drivers, Andy Jerrom, who brought his genuine TR8, and Graham Hodgkin and myself in our TR7s. At the last count, Andy has five TR's of various styles, in-cluding a very late TR7 Drophead, (25th from last), and also a TR7 which was given as a prize by Wil-kinson Sword, back in the early 80s. We have both tried to find out more from the company, but they have absolutely no knowledge of the car at all. When presented as a prize it was in Carnelian Red, with black over the rear wheel arches; it also had badges, which the first owner removed, leaving a shadow where they were placed. The company has kindly presented Andy with a couple of replica badges, and so we hope the car will be back to its original detail for next season.

When we left home, hood down of course, the weather was very cold and foggy, something I don’t suppose Texans get to experience! The 50 plus mile route took us through some beautiful countryside, which we couldn’t see, but we know the area well. Climbing out of the valleys we were above the fog, and in beautiful sunshine, but back down the hills we were into fog again. After crossing the northern side of the downs though, we found ourselves once more in sunshine, although it was still chilly. Thank good-ness for a really warm coat, boasting our club logo!

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When I arrived, I found the other two cars already

there, waiting in an area known as The Paddocks, where the cars could be parked under a roof, but no walls. This was a great photo opportunity, while we waited for our turn to have a cruise around the race track. My car is an all original TR in A1 condition, as is Andy’s TR8, but he describes his vehicle as like an old girl friend, better from a distance!

We were given the chance, at a cost, to drive two

circuits of the track “ a great experience, and we all had great big grins on our faces. This is where Stir-ling Moss had a really bad crash in the early 1960s, which I believe was the end of his racing career. I was there that day, and it is one I will never forget “ the hush that fell over the huge crowd . . .words can-

not describe the feeling. We all enjoyed ourselves, especially Andy’s 12-

year-old son Daniel, who has an amazing knowledge of all things TR. I think our cars will be safe in his hands in the future. He is in our TR Juniors Club, open to children of all our members, and has prom-ised to write some articles, so perhaps my job will be safe as well!

After we came off the track, and back down to

earth, I looked up the Chairman of the Marshalls, Christopher Darwin, and asked permission to take our cars back on to the track to have some pictures taken by their official photographer. He readily gave permission, as there was a four minute slot that we could have. Wow, what a rush, but worthwhile, and we ended up with no less than seventeen profes-sional photos, one of which is shown with this article.

During the drive home, the weather deteriorated,

more fog, rather wet this time, which dampens the car, but it was a great experience, and we are all planning to do it again next year, maybe taking a few

others along as well. All Texan’s welcome!

And now the story behind the story. The above arti-cle was submitted by TR8CCA member Joe Ma-honey . Joe has a friend in jolly old England Val McMillian who wrote “A Good Day at Goodwood” . Val can be seen in the poppy red TR7 above on the right. Andy Jerrom and his son Daniel in the genu-ine TR8 in the middle. And Graham Hodgkin in the white TR7 on the left. You may recognize the course in the article as the same Goodwood Festival of Speed aired on the Speed Channel from time to time. Thanks again to Joe Mahoney for his submission and to Val McMillian for permission to reprint the arti-cle.

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. Last time we were testing. Trying to maximize the amount of time on course and minimize time in pits. Let’s continue on with some of the other things that we found. The longer the car stays out during a race, fewer pit stops are needed. Main item to keep car out longer is fuel mileage. We found that if we raised the right side of the car during refueling, we could crowd in an extra ½ gallon of fuel. By tilting the car, fuel would go up into the filler neck, which on the TR8 is fairly large in diameter and relatively long. An additional ½ gallon per pit stop added up to mak-ing 1 less stop per 24 hour race. One of the things we did to speed up pit stops involved the driver change. We would change drivers on every stop. Using 3 driver’s f or a 24 hour race and 2 driver’s for a 12 hour. More than 3 drivers meant someone was out of the car for several hours while the other driver’s cycled through. This got you too far re-moved from the flow of the race. You had to go out and spend some time getting acclimated if you had been out of the car for a long period of time. To speed up driver changes, we fastened each strap of the shoulder harness to its corresponding side of the seat belt. This way, when the driver exited and the new driver entered, no time was lost looking for the seat belt/shoulder harness. For those of you not fa-miliar with a racing restraint system there is a seat belt – 3 inches wide – a 2 strap shoulder harness and an “anti-submarine” belt that attached to the floor. This belt came up between your legs and attached to the main seat belt. The idea of this belt was to keep the driver form sliding out of the seat belts/shoulder harness in case on an accident. You had to get all these belts gathered up and fastened. Anything that reduced this time was a big plus. The cars were not allowed racing seats by the series rules. However, nothing was said about not being able to repair a damaged seat. Off to the up-holstery shop we go. We had the driver’s seat taken apart. New foam, much firmer than the original was installed

The upholstery shop also packed in all the foam they could so the side bolsters were much firmer. This kept you in a better driving position. A good racing seat is worth up to a second a lap. If you are hang-ing on in a corner trying to stay behind the wheel, you are not as fast. Concentration should be total for driving, not distracted by trying to hold yourself in place

Some seemingly minor mechanical items could make the difference between time on track and time in pits. We always started with a slightly used set of belts for both power steering and water pump/alternator. New belts stretch so we would “run in” a new set of belts during a test session. These would then be set aside and mounted for the race. Speak-ing of belts, we always had a spare set of belts ready. The car had a brace that went between the strut towers. A power steering belt was cable tied to the left side of the strut brace and a water pump/alternator belt was tied to the right side. The belts were fastened to the brace on the side they were needed. Why have the alternator belt on the left side when the alternator was mounted on the right side of the engine? Yes, these belts were also pre-stretched. All flexible lines were made extra long – brake, clutch and fuel. This way there was less chance of stressing the line in case of an “incident”. The battery was mounted on a pad that soaked up vibration. The starter and alternator wiring harness was attached with quick disconnect wiring. The new component had a matching harness already in-stalled. So, if you needed to change an alternator, the crew unplugged the old unit, installed a new one that was already wired and off you went. Yes, these units were test run before packing.

Continues on page 7

“A Hole in the Darkness – part 2”

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A Triumph With No Rules Lanocha Racing Systems L.L.C. Triumph TR7/8 and ROVER V8 performance specialist is proud to announce the availability of Triumph TR7/8 IMSA Body Kits! These panels haven't been reproduced in over 20 years and are made from the original molds and molds made from panels off of an IMSA Triumph TR8 Competition Car! -Donor car can be either a Triumph TR7 or TR8, coupe or Convertible of any model year. -Wind tunnel and track proven 190 PLUS MPH with the rear spoiler! -Panels are made from strong fiber glass and optional carbon-fiber! -Great for V8 conversions to accommodate any transmission, engine, rear end and tire and rims combinations! -Basic kits starting at $2650.00 plus shipping and include front and rear, left and right fenders/wings and front air dam.

- Lanocha Racing also offers high performance parts for TR7/8 and Rover V8s. From Start To Finish

Lanocha Racing Systems L.L.C. 3643 Jarrettsville Pike Jarrettsville, MD. 21084 www.lanocharacing.com (410) 557-0003

“A Hole in the Darkness – part 2 (cont.)” Testing also showed that the power steering pump wanted to blow out fluid during hard cornering. We solved this by installing a vented cap with a hose going to a catch bottle. Another testing discovered “fix” was using the emergency brake to adjust the rear brakes. Since this was a disc brake/ drum brake car, we could get through a 24 hour race with only 1 set of brake shoes. However, as the shoes would wear down, pedal travel would increase. Experimenting with the emergency brake handle during testing, we found we could “adjust:” the rear shoes by pulling on a click or to of emergency brake. Much better than adjusting the brakes on a pit stop. And, it was controllable. You could back off the rear brakes by releasing the emergency brake handle. If you remember part one, I mentioned the crew did not like to change hot brake pads. Depending on the track, we would use a harder compound brake pad on the outside of the caliper. Since the outside of the cali-per does not get as much cooling as the inside - outside is covered by the wheel – we could even brake wear and hopefully eliminate pit stop for brakes. Now that you have an idea what is involved in endurance racing, next time will be what happens before and on race day. Stay tuned.

By Ted Schumacher

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This article originally appeared in the July 2000 issue of European Car Magazine. The were doing a 5 part series at the time called “Heavy Metals European Hy-brids”. They saved the best for last, the TR8. The focus of the series was European Chassis cars with American V8 power plants.. Also featured in the se-ries was the Sunbeam Tiger, Pantera, GT40 & Jen-sen Interceptor. I liked this series so much at the time I saved all 5 issues. I thought it was worthwhile to reprint the TR8 part here in the TR8CCA newsletter as it was the article that inspired me to begin my quest for a TR8. Thanks to European Car for letting me reprint the article. Ed

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FROM THE WEB TR8 Battery Venting - Been some chat on the web recently regarding the original early production TR8 Lucas battery setup. Thanks to Clay Scott and Fred Smith for contributing the following photos and infor-mation. They were able to provide numerous de-tailed photos of the original vented TR8 Lucas trunk battery setup. At this point in time I am sure all of our TR8’s have had the original battery replaced af-ter the first 2-5 years of it life. It appears the unique Lucas brand battery had a “manifold, hold down and vent tube” incorporated into it. Fred added “why/how Leyland dared to let it sit in the luggage com-partment with the Hardura mat directly on top of it”. So how many of these original Lucas vented battery setup survive to this day? I know mine doesn’t Does yours?

Top View of Battery No Bracket or Vents in Place

Top View of Battery With Caps in Out

Side View With Caps ,Bracket & Vent

Top View With Caps , Bracket & Vent

Complete With Bracket, Caps, Vent & Strap

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It’s membership renewal time. Look at the bottom left corner of this issue and if you don’t see a 2006 Then you need to renew your mem-

bership! This will be your last newsletter if you haven’t renewed.

If you are willing to accept the newsletter by email let Joe Worsley jworsley@yadtel.net know. Newsletters sent by email contains the color pic-tures we use. We just tell the printer to print it in B/W due to the cost.

TR8’s for Sale: _________________________________ 1980 Triumph TR8. Platinum exterior. Solid blue cloth interior. Excellent Condition. 1 owner car never has been winter driven. This is a Canadian spec car but has the Offenhauser/Holley conversion. The car conversion was in 1981. All original part are included such as carbs, manifold, hoses, exhaust system & mufflers to return it to OE condition if desired. New tires, New radiator core. Motor has been balanced & blueprinted. It runs as good as it looks. Asking $16,000. Toronto Ontario area. Phone day-time 416-997-5234. Email javerill@jamesdick..com __________________________________________ 1980 Triumph TR8 . VIN# TPVDV8AT214880. Per-sian Aqua with tan interior. Original condition not a repaint, only changes have been tires, shocks, hoses, etc. I have owned the car for 23 + years, it was pur-chased from the Triumph dealer in St. Paul, MN. I have the window sticker, all manuals, the original spare is in the trunk and I have saved the original bat-tery carrier as well as miscellaneous hose clamps, etc that were original to the car. I want at least $9850. out of it as I have kept it in pristine condition all these yeas and think that a clean solid car is worth a lot more than a rust bucket that someone has to cut apart and do panel replacement. Contact Jim Hanley Still-water , Mn.

TR8’s Wanted: ________________________________ 1981 Triumph TR8. Bordeaux Red Exterior. DHC with low miles and close to stock as possible. Con-tact Jim Belczak 708-308-8544 or email jbelczak@comcast.net. _________________________________________ TR8’s on ebay: ________________________________ 1978 Triumph TR7/TR8 Coupe. The story goes that the original owner of the TR7 transferred over the all the parts from a TR8 (except for the steering rack) to make a TR8 clone. Car has EFI setup and a Buick 300 crank with 70k on motor. Car also had a webasto top and mini –lite style wheels. $1300.95 did not meet reserve. _________________________________________ 1980 Triumph TR8 Convertible. 84k miles . Good condition but could use a paint job. VIN# listed as TPVDV8AT210602. A no sale at$6500. _________________________________________ 1978 Triumph TR8 Convertible with race history. VIN# listed as TPVDV8AT209098. 68k miles. Ran in SCCA showroom stock class A category. Has Offenhauser/Holley setup. Did not meet reserve price at $4100. _________________________________________ 1978 Triumph TR8 Coupe Pre-Production Coupe. Owned and modified by Woody Cooper for a period of time. 49k miles with VIN# listed as ACN 010406UCA. 4.0L motor with Road Demon carb. Reserve not met $4950. _________________________________________

CLASSIFED WEDGE CORNER

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Brad Wilson Wedgeparts Wedgeparts New Product Updates: Sun visors are now shipping. If you were part of the pre-order batch you should have yours by the time you read this. Now it is time to think about the next projects. For 2006, with your support, we plan to have a very am-bitious parts remanufacturing programme consisting of: 1. Heater control knobs. (ZKC1219 through 1222 and ZKC4011) We are aiming to offer these for five Dollars each. This is subject to final tooling costs from the molding company which were not available at the time this newsletter went to press. 2. Header rail finisher caps, YKC3376 and YKC3377. Again subject to tooling costs we are hoping to sell these for eight Dollars each. Most people might not even realize their car is missing these! 3. Molded Carpets: We can produce original style three piece carpet kits properly molded to our cars floor pans for a retail of around $250 per set. How-ever, we would like feedback from customers as to whether they might like a one piece molded carpet as per modern practice, but this will require a sepa-rate mold for coupes & convertibles. 4. Brake master cylinder reservoir: With enough participation we can offer these for $99, which is a whole lot cheaper than a NOS master cylinder (if you can find one). 5. 14 inch version of the factory alloy: To fit most up-rated brake kits to TR7's & TR8's, 14 inch or larger wheels are required. All the current offerings are es-sentially of the five spoke design, so for those wish-ing to maintain a degree of originality we propose to make the factory alloys in a 14x6 version. To offer these at an affordable price they need to be cast in-stead of machined from billet. The minimum batch is 500 wheels, and we are hoping for a retail price of approx. $1000 per set. All of these projects will require at least one hundred people to pre-order before production can com-mence. Orders can be placed via our secure web site, by phone or email. As always you will NOT be charged until the product ships to you. The sun visors were a very successful project de-

spite being overdue and I thank everyone for their participation and patience. We would like to con-tinue this successful trend in 2006, so please vote for the ideas above with your pre-orders. If there are any other parts you would like to see made available then please let us know and we will do our best to make it happen provided it is commercially viable. There really is no part we cannot get re-made if enough people are willing to participate. Thanks for your support and best wishes in 2006. Brad Wilson www.wedgeparts.com (931) 801-0509 (931) 645-5283 TSI Automotive As many of you know TSI has designed and manu-factured many items for the TR8. They handle uprated springs, bushings, sway bars and many other items. They also have several versions of uprated brakes starting at a reasonable price for re working you callipers to accept a larger set of pads. Along with this they also can supply Kevlar lined front pads and rear shoes. This is done on a ex-change basis for your old pads and shoes. Ted also sells on a exchange basis a rebiased proportioning valve that will do wonders for your front end dive which is so prominent on the TR7 and Tr8. Ted Schumacher http://www.tsimportedautomotive.com Phone: 800.543.6648 (US & Canada) Tech/ Gen. Information/ Worldwide: 419.384.3022 The Wedge Shop Many of the hard to get wedge parts are available at Woody's wedge shop, Expert engine information is available as well as complete turnkey engine rebuild/replacement or upgrade to a 4.0l or 4.6l engine. Woody can provide engines built to any stage of power wanted. All work is done by Woody and his professional machine shop source that has exten-sive experience on the Rover based engine. He also can provide intakes with appropriate sized car-buretors and proper jetting for the engine. Disk brake upgrades for the front and a heavy duty replacement rear axle can be supplied with disk brakes and lim-ited slip. Tried and proven uprated cams and double roller timing chain/gear sets also available. Several brands of cams are available to meet your needs.

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Spares Committee News By Wayne Simpson, Spares Committee Chair

StagHunter@comcast.net

Updates from WedgeParts In the months since our last issue, all orders for the first run of Sun Visors have been filled, and the sec-ond production run is slated to be in soon. I was very pleased with the quality and appearance of the vi-sors I got, and I’m sure you were too. That project was something many of us pined a long time for, and it took the cooperation of a great many of us who placed orders before a prototype was ready to get it done. This will likely be the model for future repro projects. Congratulations to Brad Wilson and all of us for making it happen. Not one to sit on his hands (and now that he has some development funds freed up), Brad has been busy with new projects. In production now are repro heater lever knobs. You know the ones I’m talking about, the little, highly breakable knobs that push on to the heater control levers. The new ones will be made from a more robust material and will feature printed-on symbols, but will not have the raised/recessed impressions of the originals, as this feature proved too costly to implement. Orders are being taken now for delivery in the near future. Cost is a modest $5.00 per knob (compare that to what they sell for on eBay), but this will increase when the pre-order period ends.

Also in the pipeline and on preorder status are OEM style molded carpet sets and header rail caps. Don’t know what header rail caps are? Go to www.wedgeparts.com and see where they go. Far-ther up the road are OEM style “Roulette” alloy wheels in 14 x 6 inch size and correct offset to allow fitment of wider, low profile tires. With the virtual dis-appearance of tires in the stock 185/70-HR13 size this may be the answer for those wishing to retain the TR8’s original stance and appearance. I did a concept illustration of what the TR8 would look like with OEM style 14 and 15 inch wheels, and you can see this on Brad’s web site. And, as always, replacement Brake Master Reser-voirs seem to be just over the horizon, but this may be less of an issue since… OEM Lucas Brake Masters with Reser-voirs Available That’s right, as reported last time, Lucas has reintro-duced the brake master cylinder, brand new and

complete with the reservoir. This is an OEM cylinder, with guaranteed fit and function. The price is reason-able at about $250. These are available from Woody C o o p e r a t t h e W e d g e S h o p (www.thewedgeshop.com) or other sources. OEM Style Fog Light Brackets from TSI

We asked for them, and Ted Schumacher at TSI made it happen. OEM style Fog Light brackets, normally scarce as hen’s teeth, are now available. These brackets, part numbers YKC854 and 855 are the missing pieces that allow you to mount those NOS Lucas or aftermarket fog or driving lamps in the stock location nestled up close to the spoiler and back behind the bumper. Hanging them from the bumper itself tends to leave them vulnerable to curbs, parking barriers and (gasp) flatbed tow truck ramps.

The brackets are available in stainless at $44.95 for the pair or $32.95 in mild steel. The stainless ver-sions are pictured here. Call Ted at 800/543-6648 to order, or check out TSI’s web site at www.tsimportedautomotive.com . Robbins Top News

To follow up on the Robbins Top issue, I was in con-tact with Doug Robbins about a month ago. He told me they would be reviewing the design for the TR7/8 in the near future. That’s good news, but better still, he showed me a prototype for an installation guide Robbins plans to include with their tops. This will be a big help for pro and amateur installers alike. I will relate more news as it comes in. Parts Counter Closing for the Day That’s it for now. I hope you’re all completing those winter projects so your cars will be ready and reliable for a summer of fine British motoring. Don’t forget that British Car Week is the last week in May, from the 27th to June 4th, so get out there and drive ‘em! Find out more at www.britishcarweek.org . See you next time.

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Membership Application/Renewal Mail Checks payable to TR8 Car Club OF AMERICA to: Joe Worsley, 1591 Peoples Creek Rd., Advance, NC 27006 ONE YEAR MEMBERSHIP:

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Car Club of America 1591 PEOPLES CREEK RD. ADVANCE, NC 27006