Lightweight Interceptor - is this truth?

[Pymmie]

Thanks for the update.

Guessing you are Duncan Davis. The keeper of this vehicle.

Did you mention to Max Chilton (not Chiltern) the dyno print out is around a decade old ?

I was always told that BHP sells cars but Torque wins races.

Please tell us more about FOS23. Have you an invite by the Duke to run up the hill or will you be paying a five figure sum for the privilege?

I remember you saying on social media that you were talking to the legendary Derek Bell about driving at FOS23. How are negotiations going?

It’s a tight hill climb for a 55 year old car with live axle / leafs to handle.

Would be good to see some verified footage/figures from your airfield runs. Being an open forum with an excellent search button this will always be a good reference point for Jensenites to go to…

John P

[Chris_R]

The car was a huge talking point at the FOS this year making 4 years of extremely hard work more than worthwhile.

I have to agree on this comment. It was parked in the Performance Parking area which is inside the show area just above the F1 and other paddocks along with a good number of modern high performance cars but this was the one where the most people stopped to look and talk, and listen when it was started.

[johnw]

It’s a tight hill climb for a 55 year old car with live axle / leafs to handle.

Preparation and practice must be key. There are negatives with modern IRS setups under extreme power.

This CV8 team make a nice job of some twisty bits...
https://youtu.be/-n5kJzFPKFA
Two minutes in here, you see a puff of dust after a tight corner. Corrected so quickly you might miss it as a spectator if not for the dust.
https://youtu.be/qt51sds9EGc

[InterceptorGTR]

[/quote]
I have to agree on this comment. It was parked in the Performance Parking area which is inside the show area just above the F1 and other paddocks along with a good number of modern high performance cars but this was the one where the most people stopped to look and talk, and listen when it was started.
[/quote]
Cheers, the week leading up to FOS I was working between 14-18 hours each day. The day before the first day my partner of 13 years cruelly dumped me yet I smiled all weekend finally realising what I had helped to create, an achievement of epic proportions. I have an engineering background yet didn’t even know how engines fully worked 4 years ago.
I’m now working on a second Jensen Interceptor and a Trident Clipper V8 which we purchased last week.
The Trident is so easy to work with compared to an Interceptor. Every single thing I did to the Interceptor GTR was impossibly difficult.

I read an earlier comment about seeing the car actually do something fast. We are now at the stage of making minor alterations and tweaks, including rewiring the NOS system to make it permanently active now we have retired the car from the public highway. Once this is done we can take the car to Tangmere Airfield in Chichester and see what happens. There is a chance of this happening in September but if not we will have to wait until next spring.
In the meantime I will be turning the Ex Jensen Club secretaries Silver Jensen Interceptor Mk2 into an original 383 engined beast making up to 2,000HP after turning it into a 496 Super Stroker with water methanol and 2x 450HP shot bottles with all jets drilled out 38-50% wider. When done right, water methanol alone can add up to around 25% more HP. No monstrous hood scoop this time, just a subtle bubble to allow for the twin carbs and the ram air coming in under the front of the car.
The engine on the Interceptor GTR makes 630HP out of the car. I’ve attached the dyno sheet given to me by well known Goodwood / Silverstone engine builder Dave Milan.

[InterceptorGTR]

Thanks for the update.

Guessing you are Duncan Davis. The keeper of this vehicle.

Did you mention to Max Chilton (not Chiltern) the dyno print out is around a decade old ?

I was always told that BHP sells cars but Torque wins races.

Please tell us more about FOS23. Have you an invite by the Duke to run up the hill or will you be paying a five figure sum for the privilege?

I remember you saying on social media that you were talking to the legendary Derek Bell about driving at FOS23. How are negotiations going?

It’s a tight hill climb for a 55 year old car with live axle / leafs to handle.

Would be good to see some verified footage/figures from your airfield runs. Being an open forum with an excellent search button this will always be a good reference point for Jensenites to go to…

John P

Hi Jonathan, much better to talk here than Facebook
Yes Max knows this about the engine.the project was started in 2010 and put on hold until 2018 when the car arrived at my farm in Chichester. (I have to stop spelling Max’s name wrong lol) I had never seen the sheet until a short time before FOS 2022. Dave Milan was doing some house cleaning and found it so I got him to send me a copy. Even though he is not a fan of Tim Dave told me that everything that he did with the engine build came from Tim and Dave kept telling him it would not work. Dave tested the engine with Richard Knight who I think builds Ford engines and Richard was also gobsmacked by the result. I guess Max was more interested in the engine with him being an ex Indy driver whereas his father was more interested in the Interceptor all round as he owns a MK3 (if I remember correctly) Interceptor. Max’s conclusion is that I am f****** mad to drive it anywhere.
The torque is just ridiculous, the first time I drove the car fast up to 70mph I came off a roundabout on the A27 at 35mph in 4th gear and put my foot down about 1.5inches and I still don’t know how to describe what happened as it was all so instant. Thought I was about to have a heart attack, scared the living s*** out of me. I’ve only done that three times and driven the car 250 miles on the public highway. I went out late at night without the bonnet on to lose the Ram Air. Then went out with the Ram Air with the same test and I could feel the car wanting to go faster and faster which for me felt like a jet plane cutting through the air. Then back out late at night down the A27 with the H-Pipe system wide open and it felt like I can only describe as being inside thunder. Go fast around a corner and the car would kill you because the front end would not turn. The back end is remarkable in the way it holds onto the road The tyres, bulge to bulge, are 14” wide. There are two clamps around each of the leaf springs (thanks to Uncle Tony’s Garage on YouTube). I made an air piston ram system for each side of the rear axle in line with leaf springs that attach inside the flat part of the inner back side of each wheel arch (this taught me how to weld) and both joined together with a bespoke tie bar to stop any rear axle twisting.

FOS23
On the Friday of FOS22 one of the event organisers came to view the car and get to the bottom of the 3,000HP figure as it was being discussed on the radio, over the tannoy system, Red Bull, Ferrari, Porsche mechanics and many more. This is the guy that sent the Goodwood photographer up the the GTR to take the photos for their Facebook post about the car.

He asked me if we would take the car up the Hill Climb next year and I said yes but with strict conditions.

These are no NOS and all NOS fuel line solenoids disconnected with the 6 extra lines detached from the carb NOS spacer plates and blocked off. This is because in a NOS system it is the added fuel that makes the whole thing so dangerous and if anything goes wrong can go off like a bomb. We have three dual fuel jets with the jets drilled out 38% wider than recommended.
No NOS specialists in this country would help me put this together and Nitrous Express said they had not done this before.
No foot to the floor unless doing donuts outside Lord March’s house.
No going fast around corners.
Can go fast up the last straight and proceed with extreme caution.
Driver must car test at Goodwood Race Circuit.
We cannot take the car up the Hill in any type of record attempt as the chances of creating a total disaster are too high.
The driver must be a Le Mans winner and be able to drive the car in parade mode.

The Goodwood guy smiled at me and said, “We’ve got plenty of Le Mans winners here”.

Is that an invite? I have no idea and time will tell.

The MK2 Interceptor I’m working on now will go around corners. First I need to finish it by next years members meeting and if all is good then we have the potential to showcase the GTR up the Hill and just maybe floor it up there in the MK2.

I only met Derek once in 2009, he has a house in Chichester where I live and my ex GF knows him very well as she dated the LEC F1 driver David Purley so has known Derek for a long time. I inherited my farm from my disabled friend whom I cared for until he died. 20 years ago he had a disabled charity here and Derek was the patron. On top of that, my ex’s neighbour is Gregory Percival https://gregorypercival.co.uk/
Derek and Gregory have a shop stall at FOS and Gregory had an emergency this year and rushed off to Kent so they never had the stall there. I didn’t find out until Saturday night and spent way too much time looking for them (facepalm).
So if I get an invite the insanely competent people at Goodwood will make it all happen the best way possible.

Footage.
Yes, in all the 250 miles I didn’t film from inside the car and I wish I had done so. TBH you don’t just get in the GTR and drive off. It’s like checking an aircraft before flight, few light nerves and the realisation of the responsibility whilst putting on the race gloves. Without the race gloves the steering wheel has moments of leaving your hands for dust. Now I know why many of the older race drivers had massive chests and shoulders. 10mph around roundabouts is like wresting an elephant.
My friend filmed us driving into Goodwood through the tunnel on his phone, the quality of the footage was not high so I didn’t want to use. I’ll quite happily post it here if he still has it and will find out if he took any more. The footage filmed in front of the farm only has the GTR moving between 35-40mph.

Cheers.

[VFK44]

LEC F1 driver David Pearly

David Purley

[InterceptorGTR]

LEC F1 driver David Pearly

David Purley
[/quote]

Thanks I did it again!

[InterceptorGTR]

Thanks for the update.

Guessing you are Duncan Davis. The keeper of this vehicle.

Did you mention to Max Chilton (not Chiltern) the dyno print out is around a decade old ?

I was always told that BHP sells cars but Torque wins races.

Please tell us more about FOS23. Have you an invite by the Duke to run up the hill or will you be paying a five figure sum for the privilege?

I remember you saying on social media that you were talking to the legendary Derek Bell about driving at FOS23. How are negotiations going?

It’s a tight hill climb for a 55 year old car with live axle / leafs to handle.

Would be good to see some verified footage/figures from your airfield runs. Being an open forum with an excellent search button this will always be a good reference point for Jensenites to go to…

John P

Hi Jonathan, much better to talk here than Facebook
Yes Max knows this about the engine.the project was started in 2010 and put on hold until 2018 when the car arrived at my farm in Chichester. (I have to stop spelling Max’s name wrong lol) I had never seen the sheet until a short time before FOS 2022. Dave Milan was doing some house cleaning and found it so I got him to send me a copy. Even though he is not a fan of Tim Dave told me that everything that he did with the engine build came from Tim and Dave kept telling him it would not work. Dave tested the engine with Richard Knight who I think builds Ford engines and Richard was also gobsmacked by the result. I guess Max was more interested in the engine with him being an ex Indy driver whereas his father was more interested in the Interceptor all round as he owns a MK3 (if I remember correctly) Interceptor. Max’s conclusion is that I am f****** mad to drive it anywhere.
The torque is just ridiculous, the first time I drove the car fast up to 70mph I came off a roundabout on the A27 at 35mph in 4th gear and put my foot down about 1.5inches and I still don’t know how to describe what happened as it was all so instant. Thought I was about to have a heart attack, scared the living s*** out of me. I’ve only done that three times and driven the car 250 miles on the public highway. I went out late at night without the bonnet on to lose the Ram Air. Then went out with the Ram Air with the same test and I could feel the car wanting to go faster and faster which for me felt like a jet plane cutting through the air. Then back out late at night down the A27 with the H-Pipe system wide open and it felt like I can only describe as being inside thunder. Go fast around a corner and the car would kill you because the front end would not turn. The back end is remarkable in the way it holds onto the road The tyres, bulge to bulge, are 14” wide. There are two clamps around each of the leaf springs (thanks to Uncle Tony’s Garage on YouTube). I made an air piston ram system for each side of the rear axle in line with leaf springs that attach inside the flat part of the inner back side of each wheel arch (this taught me how to weld) and both joined together with a bespoke tie bar to stop any rear axle twisting.

FOS23
On the Friday of FOS22 one of the event organisers came to view the car and get to the bottom of the 3,000HP figure as it was being discussed on the radio, over the tannoy system, Red Bull, Ferrari, Porsche mechanics and many more. This is the guy that sent the Goodwood photographer up the the GTR to take the photos for their Facebook post about the car.

He asked me if we would take the car up the Hill Climb next year and I said yes but with strict conditions.

These are no NOS and all NOS fuel line solenoids disconnected with the 6 extra lines detached from the carb NOS spacer plates and blocked off. This is because in a NOS system it is the added fuel that makes the whole thing so dangerous and if anything goes wrong can go off like a bomb. We have three dual fuel jets with the jets drilled out 38% wider than recommended.
No NOS specialists in this country would help me put this together and Nitrous Express said they had not done this before.
No foot to the floor unless doing donuts outside Lord March’s house.
No going fast around corners.
Can go fast up the last straight and proceed with extreme caution.
Driver must car test at Goodwood Race Circuit.
We cannot take the car up the Hill in any type of record attempt as the chances of creating a total disaster are too high.
The driver must be a Le Mans winner and be able to drive the car in parade mode.

The Goodwood guy smiled at me and said, “We’ve got plenty of Le Mans winners here”.

Is that an invite? I have no idea and time will tell.

The MK2 Interceptor I’m working on now will go around corners. First I need to finish it by next years members meeting and if all is good then we have the potential to showcase the GTR up the Hill and just maybe floor it up there in the MK2.

I only met Derek once in 2009, he has a house in Chichester where I live and my ex GF knows him very well as she dated the LEC F1 driver David Purley so has known Derek for a long time. I inherited my farm from my disabled friend whom I cared for until he died. 20 years ago he had a disabled charity here and Derek was the patron. On top of that, my ex’s neighbour is Gregory Percival https://gregorypercival.co.uk/
Derek and Gregory have a shop stall at FOS and Gregory had an emergency this year and rushed off to Kent so they never had the stall there. I didn’t find out until Saturday night and spent way too much time looking for them (facepalm).
So if I get an invite the insanely competent people at Goodwood will make it all happen the best way possible.

Footage.
Yes, in all the 250 miles I didn’t film from inside the car and I wish I had done so. TBH you don’t just get in the GTR and drive off. It’s like checking an aircraft before flight, few light nerves and the realisation of the responsibility whilst putting on the race gloves. Without the race gloves the steering wheel has moments of leaving your hands for dust. Now I know why many of the older race drivers had massive chests and shoulders. 10mph around roundabouts is like wresting an elephant. So filming was always the last thing on my mind.
My friend filmed us driving into Goodwood through the tunnel on his phone, the quality of the footage was not high so I didn’t want to use it. I’ll quite happily post it here if he still has it and will find out if he took any more. The footage filmed in front of the farm only has the GTR moving between 35-40mph.

Cheers.

[Pymmie]

The problem you will always have Duncan is that everything is ‘theoretical’ & not proven yet.

Theoretically if I were to buy an Interceptor shell and buy identical parts inc. a decent 440 rebuilt by a specialist (Dunc Watts or similar) then if lighter than yours it should be that bit quicker !

The fastest known Jensen is Ian Northeast’s C-V8 at around 145mph. How comes you ask , well it’s been officially measured on a mile both ways within a determined time.

I personally have been a bit quicker in one but again I have absolutely no proof, and that’s my point.

Once you have proof , you will have a car that will get talked about for all the right reasons…

John P

[InterceptorGTR]

Hi, I have never disagreed with the theoretical side of this car. Goodwood want to see this too. For an engine builder to build a more powerful engine than this one you would have to design it all yourself and tell them exactly what to do with it.
We have new engine builders currently putting together a 383 stroker (496) for the Mk2 Silver 1971 Jensen Interceptor. This will have 2,000 HP with water methanol and 2 x nitrous tanks. Without the NOS the natural aspiration will be somewhere around 700 to 750HP. Twin carbs, H-Pipe, 4” exhaust and rear arches with huge tyres and wheels.

This will be the demo car and if I crash it then so what.
I will try to finish the car before next years members meeting and if so the car will be parked on the Lavant Bank during the event. If it’s not ready then I’ll just take a different car for each day as I’ll do for next years FOS.
At FOS 2023 I will show the Trident Clipper on the Thursday in Performance Parking West, the Silver Jensen on the Friday, the Viper Venom 600 on the Saturday and the Interceptor GTR on the Sunday. If we are entering the Hill Climb next year then this will change and we will do the Hill Climb if the MK2 is 100% ready and fully tested, if not then we will have to just wait until 2024.
So as a demo car we can have lots of fun with this but only in naturally aspirated mode, yes we will do the nitrous tests on all of the cars but I can’t see this happening until 2023 at the earliest when we could take all of the cars to an airfield and test them all together.
I still have permission to use Tangmere Airfield whenever I like but have to take the cars there on trailers so finishing the MK2 Interceptor is a priority as this will be our road car and we will even let people take it out for tests and videos as long as the insurance allows, no problem.
Also we very much like your idea of drag racing other members cars at a fully organised event, safety must be a priority. We can even let some of you have a go in the car to experience this yourselves.
I took one of the Goodwood racing instructors out in Killer (GTR) and he freaked out with lots of swearing. If we do this I’ll also bring along the GTR but no racing in it. Please remember that I am not the main owner of these cars, just the keeper and part owner making me fully responsible for anything that happens to them bar the MK2 Jensen which is now our official Demo Car. Hope this clarifies a few things and maybe we can all move this forward somehow together, best regards, Duncan.

[InterceptorGTR]

Hi all, still working hard to get the Interceptor MK2 ready by this years Goodwood Members meeting or at least by the FOS. The 383 small block is now finished and the engine dyno test came in at 640BHP and they think it can be pushed on the next test to up to 680BHP. Possibly the most powerful 383 in existence right now unless anyone has heard of one more powerful. I enclose a copy of the first dyno test which was done last Wednesday.

[johnw]

Just to be clear is that a 383 Mopar block stroked to some larger capacity?
Good to see the progress. Hope the other work on the car is going to plan too.

[felixkk]

I'm really hoping that this car isn't street legal and that this car won't be used on public roads...

[johnw]

I'm really hoping that this car isn't street legal and that this car won't be used on public roads...

He has you worried does he Felix? I don't think he will be heading to Switzerland. The German autobahns might be calling though at some point.

[felixkk]

He has you worried does he Felix?

I'm wondering what the people organizing the hill climbs over here would do if that car showed up.