Hot Herald and the basket of snakes
Last year I got involved in helping out Kas Kastner (US Triumph tuning guru and all round good bloke) in putting together some info for his book. He was after stories of interesting Triumphs from across the pond and my mind quickly turned to Kev Hadfield's racing Herald, amongst others. Kev and I put together some words and pictures of the car, tech specs etc and I bundled it up and sent it off to Kas. The results are now in his book along with numerous other cars from around the world.
One of the pieces of tech info in the book is how Kas managed to get the Spit 1500 engine to hold together under race conditions. The 1500 is notorious for running it's bearings due to low oil pressure at the bearing (not at the gauge!) Kas came up with a crank mod and ultimately an external oil feed system and he stopped losing cranks.
Kev wanted to get some info on this mod as he was losing cranks far too regularly to retain a smile. The book wasn't out and I though Kas wouldn't bee keen to give up his secrets in advance of the publishing date. I was wrong, he was kind enough to let me have an advance copy of the article, some pictures and a bit of extra detail long before the printer saw the book. I passed it onto Kev and he duly sat down with his engine builder, scratched heads and started creating. The crank mods were done, the oil feed plumbing decyphered from a photo of a 6 cylinder layout and what you see below are the results.
Kev reports that he hasn't yet lost a crank and is now doing 40 min races with no detrimental effects. Go Kev and thanks Kas!
Hmm, must get myself a three letter nick name,
Jas
One of the pieces of tech info in the book is how Kas managed to get the Spit 1500 engine to hold together under race conditions. The 1500 is notorious for running it's bearings due to low oil pressure at the bearing (not at the gauge!) Kas came up with a crank mod and ultimately an external oil feed system and he stopped losing cranks.
Kev wanted to get some info on this mod as he was losing cranks far too regularly to retain a smile. The book wasn't out and I though Kas wouldn't bee keen to give up his secrets in advance of the publishing date. I was wrong, he was kind enough to let me have an advance copy of the article, some pictures and a bit of extra detail long before the printer saw the book. I passed it onto Kev and he duly sat down with his engine builder, scratched heads and started creating. The crank mods were done, the oil feed plumbing decyphered from a photo of a 6 cylinder layout and what you see below are the results.
Kev reports that he hasn't yet lost a crank and is now doing 40 min races with no detrimental effects. Go Kev and thanks Kas!
Hmm, must get myself a three letter nick name,
Jas
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