Craig's TVR T350 - Its a TVR, its bound to end up been a project thread!!

[Craig]

Here’s a few quick pictures (no time for a photo shoot just yet!) of the new addition to the fleet; a late 2004 TVR T350. Its finished in Lotus laser blue with magnolia over blue hide interior, it’s currently on 19,000 miles and is in outstanding condition given the cars age.

It’s been mildly fettled, like most TVR’s have parts seem to get replaced with superior after market items. At the moment it’s running GAZ Gold Pro Coilovers with a geometry set up from X-Works Service, has a JP Racing Exhaust complete with ACT De-CAT’s and a TVR Power De-CAT EPROM chip to suit... safe to say it’s got a nice noise to it!

http://www.cmpracing.co.uk/uploads/tvr_t350_1.jpg

http://www.cmpracing.co.uk/uploads/tvr_t350_2.jpg

http://www.cmpracing.co.uk/uploads/tvr_t350_3.jpg

If any levels need checking or topping up, it’s simply easier to remove the bonnet than risk spilling fluids all over trying to get into a small gap.

http://www.cmpracing.co.uk/uploads/tvr_t350_4.jpg

Powered by the legendary all alloy 3.6 Speed Six engine, currently producing around 370bhp... or was, haven’t checked to see if it still starts today. :P

http://www.cmpracing.co.uk/uploads/tvr_t350_5.jpg

More pictures to follow once the rain has receded, that’ll be in six months time!

[setra]

Very nice!! :beer:

[CraigMillwardCroft]

Looks nice :thumbs:

[mattCSLnut]

Wow! that's a bit of a swerve to the far left Craig :smt107 ;) Shame that CSL you were sniffing @ didn't work out for you in the end :smt090
Nice looking "Trevor" :smokin: I hope it comes with a bullet proof "AA" recovery membership ;) (only kidding mate)
Enjoy the new toy :thumbs:

[SachaR]

I miss my T350, great cars and great fun to drive! If you look after them and use them, they are reliable!!!

[toplad]

I've had one of these, nice loooking thing, mine didn't last long as I found it lacking overall grip and the suspension was poor too. I'd be interested to know how it drives with the gaz gold setup.

Is it your first TVR?

[Craig]

Yeh this is my first TVR, and I agree the mechanical grip doesn't feel to be amazing however there's room for improvement especially with a few small tweaks of the current suspension... However, I've got an e36 for track use so I really don't want to go turning this car into a track car.

I’ve mentioned to a few that when I got the car, first day of ownership wasn’t as smooth as it could have been, so here’s the story;

When bringing the car home I noticed the water temperatures were a little erratic at times and reading a little on the high side. Previous background info on the car brought up the fact it might need a new water temp sensor which feeds the gauges, however I wasn’t convinced.

First port of call was to bleed the cooling system, and although there was a minor bit of success this had not cured the issue. After an extended test drive I noticed a faint wisp of coolant under the bonnet.

http://www.cmpracing.co.uk/uploads/tvr_t350_6.jpg

Now this can be common... not just because it’s a TVR, but because the cooling system doesn’t have an expansion bottle so in higher temperatures if someone’s slightly overfilled the coolant, the coolant rises up the tower (where the blue cap is in the picture below) through expansion then it can self level itself all over the engine and floor, great design!!

http://www.cmpracing.co.uk/uploads/tvr_t350_7.jpg

I wanted to investigate further and ran a series of temperature gauges both infra-red and physical, this showed that the water temperature in the block and heater matrix was higher than that leading to the radiator which seemed strange. After a short while, and lots of panic that I’d have shagged the engine by running it hot, I decided to whip the thermostat out and test it in a pan of hot water.

http://www.cmpracing.co.uk/uploads/tvr_t350_8.jpg

Sure enough, the thermostat was goosed and wasn’t opening so I fitted the housing back onto the car and filled the cooling system with boggo water to see how its temperature management was this time round. Perfect, the car maintained temperature there was no fluctuations in the gauge and the fans were clicking in and out at the right temps. A new thermostat was ordered at a great cost of £18.44, £8.50 of which was postage. Upon its arrival it was promptly fitted and the cooling system was flushed through and re-filled with Silkolene Pro-Cool.

Now the car was running fine it was time for my first real drive, I took it to Specialist Cars of Malton’s Breakfast Meeting which raises money in aid of the North Yorkshire Air Ambulance. The car ran fine all the way there, and back... it’s a real hoot to drive and gives massive smiles both when on it or just cruising at steady speeds, here’s a few more pictures of the car after the drive out sat waiting to go back in the garage!

http://www.cmpracing.co.uk/uploads/tvr_t350_9.jpg

http://www.cmpracing.co.uk/uploads/tvr_t350_10.jpg

http://www.cmpracing.co.uk/uploads/tvr_t350_11.jpg

http://www.cmpracing.co.uk/uploads/tvr_t350_12.jpg

[toplad]

Good read :thumbs:
It's still one of the best looking cars

I came close to buying another a few times, but was always disappointed on the test drives

[AlexGTT]

Lovely car Craig. :smokin: Congratulations. Look forward to seeing and hearing it.

[Eduardo]

Looks really good!!!!! I love the TVR Sagaris too !!!

Eduardo.

[rstoughy]

Very cool looking car Craig :smokin:

[Craig]

Update, well kind of.... more like an ‘ooh it’s looking good, get a snap’ picture update as if I’m honest I’ve not had much else to photo on it yet and not much work has been carried out since the last update.

Actually tell a lie, the boot solenoid, stereo and 12V stopped working... simple fuse job (Number #11, 20A fuse to be precise) took all of 30 seconds to fix and if I’m honest I think a dodgy Chinese phone charger may have been the cause, my fault!

Anyway, heres a few pictures of kinky Trev during a play date with a German fraulein!

http://www.cmpracing.co.uk/uploads/tvr_t350_13.jpg

http://www.cmpracing.co.uk/uploads/tvr_t350_14.jpg

http://www.cmpracing.co.uk/uploads/tvr_t350_15.jpg

http://www.cmpracing.co.uk/uploads/tvr_t350_16.jpg

[mattCSLnut]

That's a distinctive looking nature's hump in the distance :whistle: and I'm not talking about kinky Trev's dairy ass :gayfight: ;)
Looking :smokin: Craig but you're letting the side down by not photographicaly documenting the fuse change over ;) :hahaha:

[sailorbaz]

WOW, bit of a change but have to say, impressive penis extension Craig! :hahaha:

I had a shot of a Tuscan a few years ago, Christ thinking about it a good few years ago now, I had my first E36 M3 at the time, anyway.... I had a shot of one and boy it was an event. The noise, the torque and the sheer lack of grip made it very interesting. And it on a nice dry day too.

Some craic though, could be very good fun but think it would get tiresome. Good luck Craig, :thumbs:

[AlexGTT]

That's looking very naughty Craig. I like.:smokin:

[toplad]

Did you have a play with the cayman in the tiv, I would have thought it would be very tricky to keep up with the porker on anything other than straight road in the tiv,

[Craig]

Small update, more on my thoughts rather than physical progress; I’ve been pondering over the handling of this car its chassis has huge potential but as it stands there’s a few things amiss. As the weather hasn’t been ideal I’ve done more reading than driving and have come to the conclusion the car is going to need a few things to get it to handle as I want it too.

First up, bump steer as it stands the car is a little un-easy on bumpy B-roads so going to take a look at this and if needs be I’ll space (or move) the steering rack accordingly to try and minimise the amount of bump steer the car has, this should help on the rough country roads.

Next is the spring rates, its currently running 400F/325R I’m thinking of running the front springs on the back and ordering a set of 450’s for the fronts, this will give me 450F/400R and is one set up change that has been advised and after a few minutes of research seems that is actually used by a few T350 owners.

Once all this is done, I can play around more trying to find the ideal damping set-up for my needs, also further tweaks will be made to the rear anti-roll bar if needs be too, I’ve been given the heads up the ideal modification for this too.

On a different note; Silver or Anthracite? I’ve started to add my own little personal touches to the car but can’t decide whether to leave the wheel colour be or change it.

http://www.cmpracing.co.uk/uploads/tvr_t350_17.jpg

[CraigMillwardCroft]

So the wheels are SG or SB for an option :thumbs:

[Craig]

Best make them SG since we all know SG is faster!

[CraigMillwardCroft]

:hahaha::hahaha::hahaha: :bigcry:

[shane@mbtech]

Anthracite for the win

[Streetwise Hercules]

Look so much better as they are.

[Craig]

It's pretty much a 50:50 split between people, I'm swinging towards leave it silver for now mind!