I've been reading all the great build threads about everyone's cars and figured I oughtta try putting something up about mine.
I've owned my TR6 since 1990. My family has a long history with Triumphs, going way back to the late 50's when my grandfather ran a dealership and a small TR race team. My father would tag along with the team to races, eating the sandwiches my grandmother and aunt would make for the team and sitting on the parcel shelf in the back to ride there and back. He later bought a 74 when it was a few years old and I loved riding in that car. It already had rusty panels on it when only a few years old, but I was hooked.
Fast forward to '90. I was in my teens and spotted my car in a barn on the side of the road in the Ozarks while on vacation. The DPO was no where to be found, but his ex mother-in-law wanted that @#$% thing off the property, so my father and I bought it and towed it home after vacation. Fun fact, the DPO was a quarterback for the Kansas City Chiefs, and was a sportscaster on a TV station in KC when I bought the car from him.
We restored the car cosmetically and somewhat mechanically that year and I had it ready for when I was old enough to drive.
Dad took me to my first SCCA autocross a year later and again, I was hooked. About that time, my mother bought a red Miata, and Dad was restoring an MGB, so we regularly went to autocrosses with me driving my 6 and dad driving the Miata or the B.
Fast forward to '96, I got a copy of the Kas Kastner handbook. Anyone who knows Triumphs knows that its a sort of gateway drug or primer on making your Triumph go faster. That year, I rebuilt the motor according to the book, built a custom exhaust for it, rebushed the suspension and put on competition springs with one coil cut out. I could not drive over a speed bump without yanking the exhaust off the collector.
Fast forward again to the 2000's and I went to work for a major engine manufacturer. Working with a bunch of fellow gearheads, a bunch of us would regularly autocross, and I would get invited to drive my 6 at PCA track day events at the local track. Lotsa fun and regularly got schooled by more modern cars. It was about seat time not elapsed time.
Unfortunately, time moved on as did several of my buddies. The 6 had a transmission failure that I could not solve (I actually had solved it but was sold some incorrect parts which caused the issue to appear not resolved) which resulted in the car sitting for about 8-9 years in the garage.
Again, fast forwarding to the past few years, I have the car running top notch, have done a large number of conversions of systems in the car to make them more reliable and drive it regularly. I've been driving the car to watch vintage races down at Road Atlanta regularly as well as some TNIA events.
A month ago, I decided to get off my butt and get out and autocross the car again. It was a blast to get out and run the car the way it should be run. It showed me a bunch of things, mostly that the biggest problem is the nut behind the wheel. However, there are somethings that I need to address in the meantime:
-Front suspension has not been re-bushed in 20+ years and the pics from the last event show some bad camber things happening. (I rebuilt the rear suspension with Goodparts suspension pieces a couple years ago).
-Will likely need to do some minor re-alignment after doing the suspension work above.
-Tires are well past any usable date code thoughts, so new tires are on the list, however I need to address the above first
-I need to send an extra set of rear lever shocks and have them rebuilt and setup with heavy valving for my rear susp setup.
-I'm running the engine on triple DCOE's which I've tuned nicely, however I changed the car over to an electric pump last weekend. I found that the pressure left in the system after shutdown is leaking past the needle/seats (yes, brand new Weber parts) and into the engine. I have a plumbing setup that I'll be installing this weekend that will get rid of this issue.
