Long time member finally got another British car

[titanfan10]

Hi all I am Jim from TN. I have been a member for several yrs. I had 71 Spitfire in early 70s and a 63 TR4 in mid. 70s. I had a little engine trouble and quit driving it, just let it set and deteriorate. Moved it to my Dads, he bought several covers over the years to try and protect it some but it got pretty rusty. About 8 years ago I had a nephew that said he wanted to restore it, I said ok and signed it over to him. He started working on it quite a bit in the beginning, then took it to a shop for frame off restoration. He sank many many thousands of dollars in it. He changed a few things wider tires, diff. trans. with overdrive, new paint scheme, and a moss supercharger.
The interior still needs a little work some carpeting, top dash pad, and some woodwork hopefully to fill gap where he put new gauges. My family and I went to nephews house as usual on Christmas eve. He asked me to come out to the garage where the car was. He started telling me that he had kind of lost interest in completing the work and so many other things in his life right now take priority over the car. I was ready for him to tell me he was going to sell it, but he said he does not want it to leave the family wanted it to be with someone who really wants it. Then I about had a heart attack when he asked would I want it, of course I said yes and he said it was mine. Talk about Merry Christmas to me. I have driven my wife crazy most of our 47 yrs. of marriage talking about wanting a TR6 but this TR4 is way better than any TR6 I would ever been able to buy. Only thing he asked in return was to leave it to his 2 boys in my will. I can't stop smiling and still can't believe he did this.

 

[curtis]

Lovely story.
Well, how does it drive ?

 

[titanfan10]

Still needs a little tweaking on the engine, but he hasn't driven it much because needs the carpet put in and the seats bolted down. The person who first put carpets in glued them down. They had to be cut out when he found the overdrive trans. I can't wait to get it back and finish it and have some fun.

 

[Wire-Wheels]

Interesting setup. I played with supercharging on a Volkswagen I owned back in the 1960's using a Judson supercharger. You might want to pay more than the usual attention to ignition timing and fuel mixture on that. The higher cylinder pressure has somewhat of the same effect as raising the compression ratio, so a little less total ignition advance might be needed. Fuel mixture might have to be a little richer too. Pretty much a trial and error situation. When we modify things, WE become the engineer and have to work these things out for ourselves. Enjoy ! ...J.D.