As the owner of a Cerbera Speed Six, and someone who’s owned 8 TVRs, I can tell you the main reason that the engine went wrong; cheap parts. TVR were using conrods and finger followers made in India from poor steel, which led to many issues. I’ve actually spoken to people at the factory who worked on/designed these engines (John Ravenscroft being one of them). I’d also add my Speed Six is now on 71k (bought at 31k) and has done multiple track days and been driven HARD. It’s in fine fettle, and producing within 6bhp of factory claimed BHP. In summary, the Speed Six is fine if it’s made with good quality parts.

When de-engineering the design of an engine to reduce production-costs results in huge costs in rectifying faults & warranty-claims! The term for this is 'Death By Bean-counter', but in this circumstance it was the TVR brand itself that they almost killed off!

TVR is one of those cars that I'm just glad they exist! The cerbera is a stunning car to look at! I knew that TVR engines weren't known for reliability, but this is the most detail video I've seen on it. Straight 6 engines are known for low vibrations, but not when TVR makes them :) Great video, thanks!

My TVR's previous owner had a engine rebuild. They even put ceramic exhaust manifolds on, which was very nice of them. It's an awesome sounding and powerful machine. Very special to drive.

I have a 2004 TVR Tamora fitted with the 3.6l Speed 6 engine. 31.5k miles and nearly 20 years later and its working perfectly well. This was an engine that was under less strain than the 4.0l engines and built with better quality components and crucially its been extremely well looked after by every owner from new. Granted now engine rebuilds are pretty commonplace but for ever story saying how unreliable the engine was there are stories out there saying the opposite. Only those with issues have any strong voice, those without just kept quiet, after all why should they make a fuss if everything was working well for them. They do take more servicing than many engines but after all its got its roots in racing, the Merc Project One is much the same but many go nuts for it all the same. I love my Tamora, its been a lifelong dream of mine to own one after lusting for after one for 14 years. It really doesn't disappoint and its much more special experience than anything else with a similar value. I genuinely wouldn't swap it for anything even 4 times the price coming from Italy, Germany or Japan. The only car that couple possibly replace it is another TVR, a Sagaris.

The cheapest way to do anything is "properly". Unfortunately, so many people don't seem to realise this and end up saddled with enormous rectification costs. As a general rule, fixing a problem is ten times more costly than doing it correctly in the first place.

I swear people have had to have engine rebuilds at like only 20k miles on those TVRs. The other rivals such as the 2JZ-GTE and the BMW S50 could be good for 300k miles if taken care of properly. Being a British person, it just annoys me how the UK manufactures produced such unreliable cars compared to everywhere else, even to this day. At least the Jaguar AJ6/XJ6 was a solid, reliable inline 6.

I spoke with one of the designers of the Speed 6 about the initial problems with the engine, so much more reliable than listening to second-hand anecdotes. His job was to see what went wrong with the engines returned to the factory. He said in his time, there until Smolenski sacked him after the takeover, he had not had a 3.5 Speed 6 returned. I knew one chap who had four Speed 6-engined TVRs and he'd never had a an engine problem with any of them, all 'T-types'. He was fed up with people calling him a liar. I've driven every TVR from the Wedges onwards. I've driven every Sp6-engined car. I've also driven a number of six-pot cars, and owned a few. The Sp6 was the best of the lot to drive behind. It was a thrill, even just to poodle around town. Opened up, it was awe-inspiring. Someone on here compared a Sp6 to a BMW. Really? The cars are totally different. When I drove my TVR around Brighton I would get waves from strangers. I’ve had umpteen people, pedestrians and drivers of other cars, once on the M40, ask me to ‘rev it up, please’. How many people would wave to the BMW? A rhetorical question of course. We all know. A drive in any TVR is an experience you don’t forget. I doubt I could remember most of the BMWs I've driven. The T350 and Tamora were wonderful cars to drive - made me feel like a good driver, and that ain’t easy - and also were reliable. I was reporting on a TVR dealers, talking to the mechanics. They’d been around a bit, mainly high performance cars, Ferrari and Porsche in particular. I don’t want to knock any make of car, but the myth that Porches are ultra-reliable is just that. Their trick was customer service, something TVR knew little about. A Porsche came in with a RMS failure, quite common at the time, came in under warranty. The chap was going on holiday the following morning, ferry booked and everything. He turned up the following morning, suitcase and girlfriend in hand, and they caught their ferry. Not a TVR experience. As for Ferraris, well just don’t ask. TVR is an enthusiast’s car. You give up a bit for that, but you gain so much more. I had mine for nine years. The only thing that had to be replaced outside of services was a rear calliper, the handbrake mechanism failing. I lived next door but one to a woman who drove the ultra-reliable Honda S200. Don’t believe the hype. She had a few problems with it. And don’t believe those who don’t really know what went on. I was there. I wrote about TVR in those days. I spoke with people at the factory. I knew the designer of the Sp6. The engine is not why TVR failed. It was sold as a going concern to someone with no interest in keeping it going. A tragedy, as are rumours.

Its good to see Dave getting some credit for all the work he put in

I have a TVR with a straight six, not used as an every day car but I’ve had it for thirteen years. 55K on the clock with no engine problems.

Reminds me of GM when they commissioned Detroit to build the 6.2 Diesel V8, and after all was said and done GM cut the budget resulting in Detroit having to use subpar quality materials that the original design was not based around. This caused the 6.2 and 6.5 diesels to be the biggest hunks of shit around with their only plus being great fuel economy. Had GM stuck to the original plan, the 6.2 and 6.5 would’ve lived up to its competitors (Cummins 5.9 and Ford IDI 7.3) and possibly have surpassed them.

I’ve been waiting for this one, i see why, you obviously put allot of research into it. It was really interesting to watch. Could have been a great unit. Got to love the cerbera v8 though❤, it decimated everything for a while. The race clarkson put together springs to mind first. Cheers 👌

Brilliant video as always! In Germany, we do things differently. The engineering department gets a budget price more than which the engine is not allowed to cost in production. Every development stage gets costed in accompaniment, but it's up to the chief engineer alone to meet the target production cost. So all modifications are in the hands of the project engineer from start to finish. Voilà.

I'd love to learn more about the lancia triflux engine. Pretty obscure but the design interests me. Maybe you can dig up some info on it. Keep up the great work! Thank you

I (and many more, especially in the TVRCC) would LOVE to get hold of those documents from David at RND.

It wouldn't be British if it didn't have major design flaws. An acquaintance who was a marine diesel engineer once told me how one of the British diesel manufacturers (Lister I think) marketed a counter rotating engine to pair with their regular engine for twin engine installations. The counter rotating version just had a mirrored cam shaft - they did not redesign the camshaft chain drive to run in reverse . Just removed the chain tension mechanism and didn't use one.

Wow! I didn't know ANY of this...what a shame. I'm always drooling all over those extremely good sounding Sagaris. 😅 It seems like it could have been a fantastic engine.

The “lowly” FIAT 1.4 petrol and 1.3 diesels use a one piece aluminium bearing carrier under the cylinder block. Top half shells go into the cast iron block. Bottom half into the aluminum bearing cage. It’s extremely strong replacing numerous bearing caps with one larger item. The diesel is a twin cam 16 valve unit. Not bad for a “ basic” engine.

I think this is a good example of why you should not ever cheap out... especially when it comes to engineering a something with such tight tolerances... SMH, TVRs are so so cool but my goodness many of them are an ownership nightmare. Thanks again Visio for providing such a deep dive into some of the engineering of this motor.

Well done Visioracer, I was prepared for another video trotting out the same old rubbish about TVR but there was some great new angles and properly in depth analysis I'd not seen before. Great to hear Dave Davis getting a little credit for his expertise too. Not met him personally but we have mutual friends who hold him in high esteem. I would just say the story seems a bit pro-Melling and I think there was probably responsibility on all sides for good and less good aspects of the project.

Brilliant video, the best I've seen on the Speed-Six so far.

I really enjoyed this video, Mr Visio at his best. You have the knack of understanding engine engineering and explaining it clearly to us interested unqualified amateur engineers like most car/engine enthusiasts. Where will we all go when our transport is powered by whirring washing machine motors? They have no soul.

The most powerful naturally aspirated 6 cylinder engine ever made, that is NOT a failure! Its a massive win for British design

“Amazing design, cheap build” is the sad curse of 99% of British engineering sadly

Great video. I wonder how many of these 'flaws' can be rectified and the engine taken back to Melling's original design.

Great car with issues. You really make a good job with your videos 🙂

Excellent video buddy a real treat for true car enthusiasts

Great video, I can‘t wait that you make a video about my ajp speed 8 engine.

Good job...love the videos keep them up❤❤❤

finally an episode i can share my old school bandit with, the finger cam followers! 🐱👍🏿

It seems that TVR have had a bad ride with some of the information on this video. The lack of oiling on the exhaust camshaft was actually a design fault by Melling. It became immediately apparent on running the first engines that the exhaust cam failed due to lack of oil. This was traced to the OE designed oil ways passing between the exhaust ports. This causing the oil to be cooked before getting to the cam. It was this design fault that led to to the bootstrap fix of oiling from the inlet side of the head. There were many design faults fixed/worked around by TVR just to get the engine to actually Run initially. Personally from my own experience with this engine I would say Melling was out of their depth or financing or both designing a production engine.

Very good video - as always. Though I haven´t the money for those cars I everytime dreamed of the TVR 6-Cylinder. Thank you for the enlightenment.

Brilliant detail in the story of this quirky TVR engine!

I love the sound of a straight 6!

Before I watch this I'd like to mention that the carmugun podcast called this the best sounding straight 6 of all time, Jason cammissa podcast great channel here

This is what happens when people who are unqualified are allowed to modify the designs of legitimate automotive engineers. This is not unlike what happened at GM when bean counters were given their say in the design of the original 5.7L V8 diesel and basically killed all North American consumer interest in diesel engines for the next 10 years.

Basically some engineers did a great job designing an engine to meet TVR's brief, then TVR saw their results and instead thought; how hard can it be if these guys can do it? The answer is very hard if you don't have a clue about engineering, its literally the reason why they hired a specialist engineer in the fire place! Then they actively chose to ignore their facts and just do whatever and sabotage their own car through negligence and incompetence.

This sounds like an advertorial for Al Melling. TVR never made any secret of the fact that they were unhappy with Melling's design and they made a number of changes to it. I personally owned 3 TVR's with Speed 6 engines from new (Tuscan, Tuscan 2 and Sagaris). I always followed the advice I got from John Ravenscroft about warming the engine oil to 40 degrees before opening it up. On a cold day that could take a very long time indeed but I always did it and I had no issues. John's advice to "drive it like you stole it" once warmed up was also adhered to. A Speed 6 at anything close to full chat is a sound to behold. I believe that one of this issues, especially with earlier Tuscan's, was that they were bought by yuppies that were used to 911's and treated them the same. They hammered them from cold and were then surprised when they had issues. I was at HHC early one cold morning dropping off my car when a guy was picking up his Tuscan from service. He literally got in the car and revved the nuts off it from cold before roaring off. Not an isolated incidence I'm sure. The S6 was a hand built engine and needed to be treated as such. I would still have my Sagaris to this day if I had not moved to the USA.

My current 2006 TVR Tuscan Convertible, I bought in 2009 on 32k miles, is on 87k miles with no rebuild. Post 2004 engines were improved upon with 2005 and 2006 engines being more reliable. My first Tuscan Mk1 had a factory rebuild at 35k miles and needed a rebuild again at 70 (when I bought it). This time it was done by Str8Six where decent materials were introduced. Both cars saw many trips across to Germany and down to Spain and Portugal. Apart from the two Tuscans I've had 2 Chimaera's, a 4.2 Cerbera and a Tasmin. I Love TVR's.

yo what do you think about Audi AKF engine from 2000-2002 audi A8 3.3 tdi? should i go for it or its a bad idea? im mainly focused on engine/transmission only

British engines - yerrg. We had constant valve train oil starvation in our Hillman Minx. Turned out the "engineer" had specified a ball seal in the oil feed elbow coming from the pump to the rocker arm. Yep, the ball fell out. The point of that design was never apparent, as the 90 degree elbow was, from memory, 3/8" each end. We didn't lose much use of the car because of it though, because the Lucas electrics meant it hardly ever ran anyway. We bought Fiats for reliability after that - yep, you read right. Fiats were more reliable than any English car.

Amazing video

So did anyone ever offer aftermarket re-engineering to the original spec?? I'd love to drive a Tuscan with the engine built the way it should've been. My guess is that the unit was was intended to be a bit of a rev-happy unit just like, say, a Honda CBX.

The 1991 GSXR750 was the only oil cooled model to have finger followers

My dream car was a TVR with the speed Six, I thought it was just a high-strung car that needed careful maintenance. What a disappointment it was when I dug deeper and learned that they ruined the Melling design for cost savings. Now, I'd be very happy to get my hands on a Tamora with no engine and swap in an RB26.

Great video.

I'd love to import one of those cars here to Canada since they never came over to North America

Imagine TVR toke a lotus route and get engines from Toyota and used the jz engine or 7m engine they would of been a legend

Keep it up Bro

TVR's styling was truly bonkers. Its a pity the original Speed Six engine design was never given the chance to be just as crazy.

Still cooler than A small manufacturer buying parts of the shelf.

that red car at the end was my fav to drive in project gotham racing.

It is kinda crazy what they were doing and why those cars could be so fast. They were making near 400hp back then and at that weight (2400lbs/1100kg) it would only need 500hp to have the same power to weight ratio as a Dodge Demon.

Fascinating video! This is an extraordinary example of just how idiotic it is to allow a company's accountants to have any influence on the design and engineering of anything. It looks like they started with a very good, sound engine design and then proceeded to ruin it by making fundamental changes for reasons of cost. I wonder how much money TVR lost on warranty claims and repairs to their faulty engines compared to how much it would have cost to build the engine properly in the first place.

Sounds amazing. Looks, unique. Goes like a bat on fire. Short life. Enduring legacy of failure. I own a 1989 Suzuki Katana 1100. The family the valve train architecture is founded on. 1127cc. Redlines at 11, 400 rpm. Finger followers. Oil sprayers. Screw type adjusters. As amazing as the Tvr motor is disappointing. Bean counters ruin everything.

They sound so good

I know a few people that had several new TVR, Tuscan and T350. Flawed but amazing cars. Such a huge loss. Too many automakers just play it safe and produce generic boxes. TVR did things differently, not always right or the best but amazingly cool and still desirable.

Let's goooooo!!! 🔥

Cerebra is dream car. Especially in that pearlescent blue/purple. Basically the Viper on LSD

It must be a nightmare engineering this work of art engine and seeing them destroy your design with cost cutting bs.

3:17 So how the hell do you adjust this? Remove the valves and grind the stems like a lawn mower engine? The finger followers on the Suzuki GSX1100 had screw adjusters on each valve (each follower actuated 2 valves)

Cerbera 4.5 owner for 11 years. Now on 87,000 miles without a rebuild. Doesn't smoke or use oil and howls like a banshee. TVR engines aren't all bad. However, electrics ...... don't get me started!

That na six cylinder made some serious power such a shame they cut corners

It is an awesome engine and all of the flaws have been resolved. I don't consider it a failure at all.

They should at least went with a cast steel crank, if not a forged crank, a cast steel is not going to cost anymore than a cast iron crank, not quite as strong as forged, but a fair bit stronger than the iron! The bean counters can dry up a wet dream! ✌️

It's still gorgeous machinery.

If you get your engine rebuilt by Dom Trickett at TVR Power then its completely fine

That was my favorite car in Gan Turismo.

You will have a better idea than I would as to wether these issues are fixable to your average petrol head. The main issue I assume being the oil supply to the exhaust camshaft. I also wonder how many had real world issues from a cast iron crank? 🤷‍♂️

When you consider how tiny tvr was it was amazing they ever mad their own engines at all, and anyway the ajp v8 was brilliant, and the speed 6 motor has alot of potential

Is there anyone out there blueprinting & up-engineering these? A refined one would be a hell of an engine. S54 vibes.

It's sad because it's an absolutely amazing sounding motor......which is a ton of fun to drive.

Still better than the Tasmin 200, it's a TVR Tasmin with Ford Pinto enginel, was very popular in Singapore and was made so the price could be under 10,000 Pound Sterling, it was 9,997 Pound Sterling iirc.

That's the whole TVR story in a nutshell; great idea, poor execution 😕

Sagaris is still my dream car

Excellent video. Well done. TVR didn't know what they were doing. Sad end.

How do you destroy an English automotive company? Make them develop their own engines. Gets 'em every time.

Might also be that the engine had such a high compression ratio that it was impossible to turbocharge. That alone already puts strain on a reliable engine, so I can imagine how much it would strain an unreliable British-built engine.

It's so dumb sounding. Cutting corners like this in a race inspired luxury sport car.

Speed 6 engine is one of the sadder cases of 'what could have been'

Trevor should have stuck with Ford V6 engines!

Reminiscent of an old dodge slant six. I understand the lean is for hood clearance.

ngl i wish they brought back an i6 tvr, maybe using a bmw b58 like the supra, or the new Mercedes turbo i6

Always fun when production diverges from engineering, then bitches when parts don’t fit.. then the sales guys get complaints from customers and blame engineering too. When everyone should blame the ACCOUNTANTS!

Top viseos. But try to say “however” and not “howether”

👍

I enjoy old British tech And machines,

TVR WHY!? WE WERE SO CLOSE TO GREATNESS.

❤

Now if some capable lad could remake the Speed Sickth engine to the original design or at least modify one to spec...

Tvr should have went to Jaguar and asked to use their 4 litre block and put there own components on afterwards, would have saved a lot of development money that could have been invested in reliability.

RIP Peter Wheeler 1944-2009

I've never liked TVR. They have that uncanny design where they look like they should be beautiful but it's not cohesive and they messed it up somehow.

Shame. TVR is/was my probably my favorite British car brand, and I really want to get a British coup/sedan with an inline 6 one day.

TVR should have closed their doors decades back, when owners having to replace the frame due to rusting out issues, etc...

Itbs, trick low friction pistons, forged connection rods, 4 valve GSX-R style aluminum head, dry sump oil and freaking 2 bolt mains with a standard iron crankshaft poor oiling system and various other penny pincher changes that ruins good things...there should be a point in production where penny pinchers continue with theirs and gets produced and the real engineers continue along their path and make it an optional package....I bet it would end up costing 600 or 1000 more to produce and the company would try to charge 18000...and that folks is why we never get anything good anymore...if they sold them at cost when people find out!!!! They will sell so many they won't be able to keep up...the car could suck but if it revved to 9000rpm and made awesome numbers but only cost an extra 1500 bucks???!!! They will sell millions of cars... people wouldn't care if it came with mismatched Chinese tires and a pink paint job....y'all know it's true....

This was a great design is they would have done the original design with billet crank and cams

This is what happens when you deal with cost cutting cretins. For a luxury sports car manufacturer it's fatal.

Being built in A shed didn't really help TVR

Great video. I bet a bunch of poor management decisions eventually lead to this. No wonder TVR is a dead company.