Birkin42

I wonder if you could put this engine across the engine bay and more or less have the shaft drive output face back to directly connect to the drive shaft. This might work better for a right hand drive car where you can sacrifice a bit of the left footwell.

One of the few flying Lancaster's is based out of the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum which is 10 minutes from my office. It's always great to hear it go overhead. A few years ago a freind was helping rebuild the actual B-17 used in filming Memphis Belle at another nearby airport. I can't believe how crampt that plane is inside and couldn't imagine being in that plane during war time. To get to the rear turret or into the lower turret is near impossible.

For Zetec powered cars, it on the upper left engine bay diagonal tube stamped into a welded on plaque. In looking through your build photos, it looks like Brikin has moved it to the upper right diagonal engine bay tube. It looks like it should be just under your exhaust header where it comes off the head. It also use to be stamped into the rear shock mounts just where the roll bar attaches. Again, not sure if Brikin has moved this or done away with it. I could be wrong.

An S2k will fit in a traditional size 7 if you try really hard, are prepaired for a few sacrifices, and are up for a lot of work. It is no where near close to a drop in even with a few mod's. I needed to completely rework the frame from front of the engine to back of the trany tunnel. This will also require complete rework of the panels for the tunnel. The engine is shifted to the passenger side by 3/8". The S2k trany is fat on the passenger side so this also narrows the passenger footwell. I also shorted the passenger footwell for space for the dry sump tank. The engine now almost fits under the stock Birkin hood. The last thing that I need to a dress this is cut away a small portion of the valve cover at the front. I had my reasons for wanting to go the S2k route. I think I will be happy once it's done, but it is a lot of work. It's probably not too much less work than building a car from scratch. For me, designing and building is a big part of what I wanted out of building this car, but if you are not a builder and just want to make the change for the final result, I'd recommend buying something like a WCM that gets you there to start with. I haven't had time to work on the car much laterly due to work, but hopefully this fall I will be back into it and can post some updates as progress is made.

I have never driven a BEC but have a ton of miles on sport bikes. I never use the clutch on an upshift and just breath the trottle, and breifly use the clutch on the downshift. The transmission dogs have always looked fine when serviced. I quickly abandoned clutched upshifts once I got into bikes since the shifts never seemed smooth, and like the article said, leads to clutch problems.

I bought a set of wheels, Enkie RPF1's through Good-Win and found they were great to deal with.

For the IRS, you need to consider if the track is correct, do the wheel bolt patterns match (not a problem if you can live with mis-matched wheels), suspension pickup points, and diff mounts. I am pretty sure you will never find a plug and play kit that will except the entire rear subframe. My guess is that you will need to narrow the track and do significant frame modifications to accommodate it in any kit that isn't designed around this as a doner.

Thanks for the compliment 7evin. I'm enjoying the work, but it taking way longer than originally hoped. I'm sure many others have or are going through similar. Going with a purchasable pan would save some time. Some pics/dimensions would definitely be appriciated. I'll send you a PM with my email address. Thanks, Jack

I checked out ARE the last time I was at the PRI show. They make nice stuff. My only issues with using their S2000 pan is that it doesn't seem to save any significant ground clearance, and it leaves the oil lines very exposed since in my case, the engine hangs below the frame. I am hoping to route the oil lines inside the pan to the high side and avoid them hanging down. I would hate to rip a line off. Obviously a lot more work to make my own, but hopefully in the end, worth it. Jack

As Bruce pointed out, I am putting an S2000 engine and transmission into a late model Brikin chassis. Definitely a very tight fit with a lot of changes to accommodate it. The primary reason I went this route was for when I eventually want to get the car registered for the road. We seem to have ever changing requirements regarding needing to meet emissions regulations depending on how the car is classified. I wanted to use a stock engine and control system so that should it need to pass an emissions check, I have a hope of passing. I also was attracted by what will hopefully be a fairly reliable and driveable drivetrain. I am dry sumping my engine to save some height. Like others have pointed out, the bell housing is also and issue. I plan to take some material off there. Next is the sump on the transmission. To help with all this, I am putting the engine/transmission is slightly nose down so the dry sump pan, shaved down bell housing and transmission sump are all about parallel with the bottom of the chassis. I can't remember the exact number but I think they will hang down about 2.5". To get the hood to fit, I need to do a slight modification to the valve cover. The S2000 transmission is quite wide, particularly on the passenger side. To give as much foot well room as possible on the drivers side, the engine/transmission is shifted over 3/8" towards the passenger side. I have shortened up the passenger foot well to make room for the dry sump tank. The big loser is the foot well room for the passenger, but I can still fit in at 6'-1". Progress is happening a little slower than I'd like, particularly now that I have a 1 year old at home, but am having a lot of fun designing and building the car. Next projects on my list are to make the dry sump parts. I'm thinking of CNC machining the pan with mounts for the pump and lines right on it. I would say if you have lots of time, access to a lot of fabrication and machining equipment, and have the desire, it can be done, but it is an awfull lot of work. I would say between accommodating the engine and transmission and modifying the frame for my own DeDion rear suspension, I have changed easily more than 50% of the frame. On the plus side, the frame has gained 50% on torsional stiffness (not taking into account the effects of the skin) and should be close to a wash on weight for the chassis (live axle vs DeDion). If I had to do it again, it would almost be easier building a whole new chassis from scatch. Hope this is of some help.

I have the kit but as my car is now where near ready for the road yet, I can't report on how it works. I considered fabricating the parts myself but found the factory kit to be a good enough value just to buy it and save the time. I ordered my kit direct from the factory long before Dick started bringing them in. I also know that Walt from the Birkin Owners forum made his own. The nice thing with the factory kit is that it comes with new uprights that use stronger ball joints. The one thing I really don't like with the kit is the anti-roll bar and connecting links. On my list of things to do is look into a better arrangement for this. Jack

A Birkin live axle weighs 150 lbs plus the calipers and rotors, so about another 25 lbs. Besides reducing unsprung weight, a DeDion also does not have the live axle problem of transfering weight side to side due to drive shaft torque. In a high powered light car with sticky tires, this can be significant.

I love working on motorcycle engines. I use to do all my own work when I raced and rebuilt/modified may of them. The last bike I raced was a 96 GSXR750. After new cams, head work, piston, rods and many other mods, it made 142 rear wheel hp, which was pretty good in the day for a 750. Valve to piston clearance was ridiculously tight at around 0.030" on the intake and a bit more on the exhaust side, if I remember correct. Yamaha would always frustrate me though side they would stick one fastener from the crankcase up to the head so if you wanted to that the head or cylinders off, you had to split the cases and take everything apart. Never figured out why they always did that. With how impressive motorcycle engines are compared to automotive engines, it still blows me away how much more specific output an F1 engine has, particularly when you consider their much bigger volume per cylinder.

I modeled my Birkin frame as a solid part as opposed to a weldment, though I did this in a much older version of SW's were the weldment function didn't exist. At that time, the option between modeling individual parts and putting them together as an assembly or modeling as a single part made it quite easy to decide on a single part due to the complex joints in the frame. I did do a lot of Cosmo FEA on the frame and then did torsional tests on my actual frame for comparison and found the FEA results to be very accurate.

Where do I sign up for his job if he is going to be sacked.

Motorcycle engines, particularly those with wet clutches have very specific oil needs as they lube the engine, transmission and clutch, and generally don't work well this general automotive oils. Usually clutch slippage is the firsth problem to show up with cam and/or transmission issues being next. I used Silkolene Pro 4 with good results when I raced. They now also have a Pro 4 Plus. At $14/lt and $20/lt respectively, they aren't cheap though. They are ester based synthetic oils which you may or maynot like. Jack

My rotors and calipers are from Wilwood so that was the first place I looked. They just didn't have what I needed.

None are available with the right pilot hole diameter and more importantly, the right offset that I have been able to find. Since on a Birkin the rotors are mounted off the inboard side of the flange, they have very little offset. They are more like a plate than a deep hat. The rears are more traditional. I checked the anticipated stresses with FEA and tried to match wall thicknesses with commercially available hats so I don't have a lot of concerns about failure, but there is always a risk. With all the custom parts I'm making including the entire rear suspension, I'd never be able to drive the car when eventually done if didn't have confidence in what I am doing. I'm guessing there are going to be some teething problems, just hopefully noting too catastrophic!

I made a set of rotor hats to mount 2 pc rotors on the front hubs of my Birkin. When I went to trial fit them, I noticed the hat would not pull up tight to the rotor mounting flange on the hubs. On a Birkin, the front rotors mount off the back side of the hub flange and are not trapped between the outboard side of the flange and the wheel. I first suspected that it was an interferance with the corner radius on the hub but after measuring it up, this was not the problem. I checked the flange for flatness and indeed they had run out (slightly conical) by about 0.006". I checked both hubs and both where the same. Any idea if this is may be intentional? If so why? I'm assuming this is a manufacturing error. In checking the front hubs, I also noticed that one has radial indicated run out of 0.010" TIR for the pilot for the front wheel, but the remaining cylindrical features like the pilot for the brake rotor run true. Only one of the 2 hubs has this issue, so I know this is an error. How much run out is acceptable for a wheel? 0.010" may not be that much but it is bugging me. Jack

Brian, Sounds like a great deal. I have a couple of questions to confirm a few things, but otherwise I'm in. Check your email. Jack

I'm using a 93 3rd gen manual transmission RX-7 Torsen diff. Quite different to the 2nd gen diff's. Jack

Pretty neat stuff. I did notice that the size of composite tubes they made were much bigger then the typical 1 x1 tube used in a 7 space frame. This on its own would add a lot of strength/stifness, but takes up a lot of extra space. It seems like it saves a fair % weight, but seeing that the typical 7 space frame is just over 100 lbs, how much overall weight of the car is it really saving. The 100 lbs for the steel frame includes the suspension anchors which on the composite car requires bolt on metal brackets with imbedded metal plates in the composite anchor too. 4 x's the cost of the frame to save about 50 lbs may be expensive, though if you are going for the ultimate 7, it might not seem bad to some. Not sure how user friendly a composite frame would be to the home builder that wants to customize his build, but would be a great basis for the next ultimate 7 from Caterham. It will be interesting to see who this technology will evolve in the coming years. In terms of bonding aluminum panels on to a steel frame, this should add some stiffness, but your ability to repair a panel or the frame in the future could be a problem.

Thanks for the link. It's nice to see someone is still carrying the torch up here.

I purchased a rolling chassis from Dennis Tobin when got out of importing/selling Birkins. I had him disassemble the chassis into numerous small assemblies and then had it all shipped as one lot from the US to Canada. It was all itemized, priced and listed as "car parts" in all the paperwork. I did not purchase or take delivery of the wheels/tires nor the shocks, but was otherwise a complete roller disassembled. I inquired about breaking the shipment up, but since the bill of sale was all from the same source and was going to the same designation, I was told splitting it up would make no difference as Canada Customs would eventually see the history. If you can ship from different sources, that may help, but really the only thing that matters is who is listed as the seller and who is purchasing. If they are the same, there is no value in splitting up the shipments. I had it shipped by frieght and cleared customs myself. I think this helped in that the "car parts" sat in a bonded warehouse while I went to the customs office to have the shipment cleared. It also saved a bunch of money. In the end I had no problems bringing the "car parts" in, but as pointed out, there are risks involved as Canada Customs do seize shipments. Good luck with your search.

Do you know if British American Motorsports have a web site up and running? Do you have their contact info by chance? Thanks, Jack