TR6 TR6 repower?

[35thbdaytr6]

You may have bought one of my LSD diff's on eBay. The 3.73 LSD is easy to find, all 87 to 91 325is cars had one. There is a 3.23 and 4.10 readily available also. I was going to cut the upper plate off ome of my spare subframes and weld it to the TR frame, how did you bolt the front four bolts in?

 

[Ab Crevoiserat]

Keep the stock motor and Supercharge it. I have seen a couple of these and the are very cool and very fast.

 

[jeff3113]

LOL- I may have bought one of those!!! I check almost daily. I'd love to get hold of something like a 3.73 or 4.xx for testing (fun too). Of course, probably burn off the rear tires.....

You may notice on the picture that it has one center top plate. It is a combination of about 5 pieces of angle iron welded together. I installed a 2x4 inch square tube across AND into the existing brace (after cutting off all TR mounting bolts). Basically reinforcing the exisiting TR mounting frame. It's the same part the rear springs are mounted to. It is really strong. I then used two 5/8 inch grade 8 bolts to mount it to the frame (with 1 1/2 inch thick rubber washers in between). No vibration at all - at any speed or power. Guess I've been lucky. It is all mounted with the driveshaft 2 degrees from both tranny and diff.
I also installed a brace under the rear portion of the diff where 2 mounting holes are located. Not that strong of a place on the casting- but just to keep things in place.

It was OK to get in and out. I have friends help with putting it in. I may sell that other diff (lsd 2.93 also) since this one seems to be very stout.
I must have used 25lbs of welding wire for all the work I've done on that car....
Jeff /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

 

[vrod]

Jeff3113, have you done any other reinforcing in the frame area of your tr to handle the extra power of that v8, and are your using the stock rear hubs. I have a 302 HO mustang motor and 5 speed borgwarner siting in my shop begging to be put into my frame off tr6 project and considering the flexability of the tr' frame and body I'm thinking this would be the time to beef up along the back side of the rockerpanels may be build some kind of structural transmition tunnel that can be bolted down to the floor starting at the firewall and to the rear kick panel. I'm guessing that the suspension should perform better if it has a stiffer platform to bolt to, any thoughts on all this.

 

[jeff3113]

vrod,

I ended up welding over 30 feet of 3/16 x 2 inch steel onto the frame. I did the entire bottom of the frame and one SIDE of the frame from the front suspension to the seats. It took about 2 weeks to grind the frame clean enough to get good penetration. A lot of getting up and down in marking and cutting. I also found that the TR6 frame is rather thin - as the weld would occasionally break through the frame.. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif
I also added a steel driveshaft safety tunnel between the seats. It was made out of 1/2 thick 5 inch diam pipe. I cut it lengthwise in half. Then welded 1/2 steel plate onto the ends to act as skirt to the floor. Covers the entire length of the driveshaft. Sure didn't want any concerns about a broken driveshaft greeting me with it being 6 inches away. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/shocked.gif
I haven't had too many concerns about the rear hubs. They have held up real well to this point.
I will probably look into rebuilding them at some point since they are 30 years old..

I made the tranny tunnel out of heavy gauge steel insulated for sound and heat. It's real quiet inside. I also have 2 mufflers and 2 exhaust tip resonators to cut down on engine noise. The attached picture shows the area where you can see the BMW differential in between the mufflers.

Hope this helps,
Jeff