Bristol Tii and the pursuit of an ideal 2002 road car

[Turn3 Garage]

In the spirit of the many excellent build threads here on 02FAQ, I wanted to begin unraveling our journey with this 1974 2002Tii. This car is our first in-house build at T3G, and we hope the beginning of a much longer exploration into the 02, it's contemporaries, and the community that keeps them alive.

Preface:

I've always been enamored of cleverly modified restorations. As a kid I watched my father and uncle transform rusty old Jags into proper racecars, concours restorations, and refined streetcars. That last category of builds was always my favorite: the cars that combined lessons learned from racing, the exacting quality of concours work, and a freedom to adapt the details for the driver's needs and taste. At the root of my car mania there's an XK120 drophead: tarted up like a period rally entrant, with mechanicals and electronics that clear the way for pure driving satisfaction.

 

But old British cars aren't easy to love. Their engineering is often perplexing, their lifespan not naturally long. They tended to get a few things very right, and all the rest of it good-enough. For a whole host of reasons, as I got older and sought out my own cars, I was drawn to the light of German Engineering™️. When I arrived, they gave me a job. Fast-forward through a decade in other people's workshops and here I am: a shop of my own, some classic BMWs, and a long list of ideas.

The Car:

We found the Tii on BRZO... I like a CA car, and this one looked unmolested but just shabby enough. Fortunately I knew @RacingAli and called for a favor, the car was local to him, could he check it out? Of course he knew Max @Coastalcrush408 the owner, and we knew from there that the car was as advertised. Max had dragged it from a shed in NorCal where we believe it sat since 1980: she was all there, minimal rust, a wrinkled fender, and big ol' 8-track. Those guys worked together (thanks again) to get the car loaded and shipped out to us. She arrived in Oct 2018. 

These pictures are from my garage, before the workshop, where we began disassembly in Nov 2018. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 1, 2020 by Turn3 Garage

[Turn3 Garage]

Max had informed me that the engine was frozen up. If we had any luck rotating it, we would have made some effort to get her running before teardown. This wasn't the case, so we moved forward stripping the car. Late Nov we moved into our space, and began the process of building out the shop while the Tii waited patiently.

We picked up the E9 in December and took some obligatory xmas family photos. After the holidays, the drivetrain came out and the Tii was mounted on the rotisserie.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 2, 2020 by Turn3 Garage

[Swiss 2002Tii]

What a great pair!  Keep on keepin' on!  Bristol... my first and one of my favorite colors!

[Turn3 Garage]

13 hours ago, Swiss 2002Tii said:

What a great pair!  Keep on keepin' on!  Bristol... my first and one of my favorite colors!

 

Thank you!

P.S. would love to see some photos of your Turkis CSi ?

[Swiss 2002Tii]

My pleasure!  I find cameras often have difficulty capturing Turkis.  It's highly variable depending on camera, light, clouds, etc.

 

Wow!  I just took a closer look at the engine build on your Bristol... A  Tii/Alpina/M3 hybrid?  WOW again!

Do I see individual throttle bodies hiding under that Alpina air box?  And modern individual coils from an S14 or later powering the plugs?

Man, please let us know what this M10 puts out on a dyno when you're ready. The Bristol paint is looking great!

 

 

Edited February 3, 2020 by Swiss 2002Tii

[Turn3 Garage]

Stunning! I agree it is a challenge to capture, so so pretty in person. I love the difference in tone from photo #5 to 6, shade to full sun ?

 

Oh yes this car is nearly complete, she needs to be ready for a debut in late March at Sebring. I'm working now to wrap up details!

I'll be adding chunks of the build process as I find time to post in the evenings. Here she is as of last week.

 

Edited February 3, 2020 by Turn3 Garage

[Turn3 Garage]

22 hours ago, Swiss 2002Tii said:

My pleasure!  I find cameras often have difficulty capturing Turkis.  It's highly variable depending on camera, light, clouds, etc.

 

Wow!  I just took a closer look at the engine build on your Bristol... A  Tii/Alpina/M3 hybrid?  WOW again!

Do I see individual throttle bodies hiding under that Alpina air box?  And modern individual coils from an S14 or later powering the plugs?

Man, please let us know what this M10 puts out on a dyno when you're ready. The Bristol paint is looking great!

 

 

 

Ha yes we're pretty far down the rabbit hole with this induction system! I had planned to address this later in the build thread but since you asked, here goes:

This is the original #s matching M10 top to bottom, fitted with her original KF pump pushing fuel to new injectors in the factory intake manifold. That manifold mates to a tubular adapter manifold carrying 45mm ITBs. Those ITBs carry secondary EFI injectors upstream of the MFI set: these supplement fueling as required. We adapted the stock linkage pivot assembly to actuate the ITBs, with a cable replacing the connection from pedal to motor. Now she's a "twin injected international" ?

EFI fueling and that coil-per-plug ignition is controlled by a modern standalone system, signaled via crank and cam triggers built using commonly available Ford EDIS parts, and receiving data from TPS, IAT, Baro, ECT, FP, OP and OT sensors. The ECU receives O2 data via CAN line for closed loop control. Dynamic timing provides lots of benefits, including idle control and stabilization, working in concert with an E30 IAC valve. We can also operate with blended TPS/MAP control, which improves idle, tip-in and part throttle conditions. Oh and we can manage our cooling fan via pulse-width modulation for fun.

 

The ITBs breathe through Kooglewerks cast intake elbows and his handsome recreation of the Alpina A2 plenum. This is ducted to an airbox mounted beneath the coils, which pulls fresh air from behind the grill through a hole we placed in the front panel beside the radiator.

 

Retrofitted ITBs are often a compromise setup, and we wanted to develop something that really added to the driving experience across the board. The system had to cold start, idle, and behave at all times, while also providing more power, better response, and that killer induction howl. It's resulted in a pretty crazy system, but IMO no crazier than the cost and difficulty sourcing an Alpina ITB setup with the necessary pump and hardware. Plus we've gained a much better ignition and idle control system.

 

Obviously this would have been easier if we took the MFI out of the equation... but as @Forrest_KoogleWerks says you gotta “keep a tii a tii”, so here we are ?

The setup you see here is V2 and we're headed back to the dyno this week for tuning. During previous testing she put down 138hp to the wheels and I believe 134 lbs/ft running an earlier, less intelligent system (distributor ignition, less sophisticated FI module). I wasn't satisfied with the idle quality and manners of that setup. Those issues were resolved with the current system and I think the crank trigger ignition and higher resolution mapping will gain us some more power. I'd be happy in the 140s at the wheels with this mild cam, and 10:1 91mm bore. Our goal with this is optimal driveability, and good torque delivery vs. peak power.

However, all this development work has me itching to apply the lessons learned to a turbocharged M10... maybe soon!

If you and other members are interested, I could start a seperate thread about this ITB system development. It was a project within a project!
 

 

Edited February 4, 2020 by Turn3 Garage

[Swiss 2002Tii]

18 hours ago, Turn3 Garage said:

If you and other members are interested, I could start a seperate thread about this ITB system development. It was a project within a project!

I'd say that blog could inspire a lot of future ITB projects!

[iinca]

love the Bristol. Beats the feet off Sinnabrauntinsteiger'

 

Consider a Blue Tooth 123 programmable ignition...

Edited February 4, 2020 by iinca

[Turn3 Garage]

3 hours ago, iinca said:

love the Bristol. Beats the feet off Sinnabrauntinsteiger'

 

Consider a Blue Tooth 123 programmable ignition...

Thank you! 

We actually used a 123 early on. I think it's a great solution for folks running a more stock setup. The crank-trigger system with modern coils offers a lot more tuning options.

P.s. I lived in Santa Cruz county ( Boulder Creek) years ago. Right off Hwy 9. Boy do I miss those roads. The rest of it's pretty nice too! Want to get back out there for some rallies soon. I know you have a great 2002 meet in the Bay Area every year as well. Hope to meet some of you northern CA guys in the not too distant future. 

Edited February 5, 2020 by Turn3 Garage

[Turn3 Garage]

With the chassis on the rotisserie we moved on to the motor. It was frozen solid. Things were pretty crusty on the exterior, and once open it was apparent water had entered the cylinders at some point in time. Months prior Max had attempted the ol' MM oil trick (or trans fluid? I don't recall) hoping to soak down the bores and maybe free them. It was all still sitting on top of the pistons.

 

In the end we were able to drive the pistons out from beneath. They weren't pretty, but we crossed our fingers and boxed the motor up to transport to our machinist, hoping the bores on this numbers matching motor would clean up. We are lucky to have a great local engine builder who's been doing M10s for vintage racing for many years. He stays quite busy, so we dropped off and started the clock while carrying on with other work.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 5, 2020 by Turn3 Garage