The book's maverick thrust in 1986 was to show how the tuning specialists had all got it all wrong, and that ever since the cars left the production line, tuning the 6 cylinder "SAH" style, and by inference all subsequent ways, inc those of Kastner in the USA were a complete failure.
The essential substance of that book over the following 15 years were digested by the specialised trade, and the exhaust design outlined, became the de facto standard for both road cars and racing the TR5 & TR6.
This was almost entirely without any recognition of the designer's large contribution to the increased horsepower.
Gareth's new book, revising & reproducing many elements of the first, takes issue yet again, with the same motor trade in his usual hard hitting style.
Classing most of the aging products sold today, "a result of spin & lies", he sets out this time, to show how over the years, yet again, not only have vendors sold products that simply don't work, but knowingly market them even more arrogantly as "sheer engineering genius", with power figures based more on "yarns woven in smoke filled pubs".
His theory, backed up by masses of hard graft, and plenty of real data, shows how the popular ideas of tuning Standard Triumph engines don't add up.
Significantly he points out, how a failure to understand the connection between valve flow, valve lift, and cam profiles lead to the selling of woefully mismatched tuning parts for the Triumph engine.
He points out somewhat unsuprisingly, but, disarmingly simply, how although the mini A series engine thrives on masses of valve lift, the Ford X-flow on small lift but large duration, the Triumph engine for simple design reasons, needs a totally different approach.
Alarmingly he also points out, the main reason for all this, is vested interests in the owners clubs, disinformation, lack of basic skills, and plain confusion between what has become unquestioningly accepted over the years as "valves for minis", & "camshafts for Fords", all bodged together.
This he terms rather unflatteringly, "pub and club twaddle".
Simply put, this means pretty much all the parts sold are consigned to his charming description, "useless junk", due to the Triumph tuning parts deriving from 2 totally dubious sources, and largely unquestioned ideas.
The reason why he feels he can be so certain of this, is because he studied original Triumph camshafts, such as the works Le Mans profiles, with the designers, in some detail. This was in an effort to try to reproduce how they work, and improve on them, as early as the mid 1980s.
The conclusions are a breath of fresh air.
Instead of recommending products from any of the 3 or 4 main "specialists", he set out in his usual maverick way, to redesign and produce his own, then show how and why they work infinitely better.
The risk of course, in doing all this, is the new book, not only would make no money, like the first one, but would end up as a vast drain on resources.
Everyone knows development costs money & very few are prepared to pay for it.
Gareth, is more aware of this than anyone else.
Even during the preparation of the new book, some $20000 USD of new spare parts got stolen by an unscrupulous member of the TR club, never to be seen again.
However, just like for the first book, he deliberately chooses an informative style, eschewing a commercial & "selling parts" speel, for the more risky approach, which as he knows is prone to being copied, emulated, and even stolen without any regard for the Author's work.
His simple answers to that are, straight up and definitive.
"You can't do everything,- there's in any case such a growing skills shortage,- If you want it all to work properly, you know where to ask"....
as well as..
"If you want it doing properly DO IT YOURSELF"!
This book goes a good way to show how, "to do it yourself successfully", as the combination of the economic slump of 2008, heavy price rises, & retirement of qualified people shuts down all the experienced workshops that could do this work.
Below is a more detailed review of some of the key elements using photos which for space reasons could not be included in the printed book. (coming)