Being around racing for a long time, building and preparing cars for others we decided it was about time we had a play ourselves. To do this we sought out and purchased a TVR Chimaera.
The car is a nice example of an early road car and even has the lupo headlight conversion.
Our plans are to go through the car checking everything and upgrading as we go. The aim is to build the car up starting with track days and then develop it into a road legal Class C racer for the TVR Challenge. This is the sort of progression we can see many owners making with their cars, with the changes to class C being specifically aimed at the owners of 4 ltr road cars. We will be trying the various upgrades as we go and subjecting them to a thorough setup and testing regime. The data that we gain will be invaluable to others going down the same route to build a race car.
The first upgrade we have done on the car its to upgrade the brakes the the larger disks and calipers from the later model, The next step will be dampers as the original equipment is a little worn and tired. We will also try to see what we can do about the high speed lift, currently with tired springs and dampers giving a little too much sag at the rear the rake on the car is going the wrong way allowing too much air under the front. In Class C we cant combat this with body modifications so will look at ways to combat it with suspension settings. Although we may also look at under body options for the other classes.
We haven’t set a time table for the build, yet as we want to take our time to fully understand the car and how it performs on the track with each upgrade, and we also want to get as much track time for the driver before we let him loose on the grid! Next on the agenda after looking at the suspension and the outriggers will be the Roll Cage. There are a number of options available, and for racing a full 6 point cage is required. As we want to keep the car usable on the road we may look for a cage where the front hoop can be removed, so as not to compromise the car to much in daily road use but still provide the required protection whilst on track.
If your interested in converting or having us convert a car for you to race spec, please don’t hesitate to contact us, we’re more than happy to point you in the right direction and discuss options, and can carry out the work for you if you require.
One interesting fact, we discovered after purchasing the Chimaera is that when at the TVR Center Mat serviced the car back in 1995 and 1996, just shows what a good job he did back then ! We have also fitted a unique anti-theft device!
The Next Round of the TVR Challenge is at Rockingham on Saturday 7th September, we’ll be there if you’d like to chat about road car conversions or just see what goes on at a race meeting.