Thanks for sharing these pictures and reflections, Youri! It's amazing to see documented what can be done to these engines without transplanting turbos or whole new drivetrains on the car. The little things make all the difference. You know I love to see what you are doing. Thanks for sharing to a somewhat wider audience.

Seeing your bottom end work reminds me I have a block in the back of my garage which deserves some attention some day in the future

I know you will be increasing compression on this engine. I wonder if you could elaborate on the advantages and risk of doing so, and what you will do to avoid detonation and overload of the bottom end?

As the block is still in the machine shop for boring and initial skimming I have put some time in determining the camshaft for this engine.

The powerband of this engine is determined to be between 2500 - 7000 rpm, as the bottom end will not be able to sustain anything higher than that, this means that we can stay below 290 degrees of duration, any more than 290 would be pointless.

Scanning through the profiles I had available to me the JRD Number 1, which was originally designed for Sports 2000. Is a very suitable camshaft. 285 degrees of duration, a tighter LCA at 106 degrees and 66 degrees of overlap will make for a very broad powerband, lift is at 7mm on the camshaft.

Ideal lift is calculated to be between 20% and 25% of the diameter of the valve, as the valve lift of the JRD camshaft is 9.6mm, and the size of the intake valve is 47mm, the end result is a minimum amount of lift required of 9.4mm.

Enlarging the intake valve to 47mm means that the exhaust valve will have to be enlarged as well to stay at a healthy ratio, 85% of the intake results in a 40mm exhaust valve.

The camshaft has been ground out of a new original one and is ready for assembly.

Finally I have found the time to start a topic about the project I have been working on for quite some time, a better engine for my 2.2S.

The objective; 90hp per liter, which is going to be a bit of a challenge, quite some work has been done and will have to be done to get to this number.

I have first started identifying possible improvements to the engine block and rotating assembly, wich have resulted in the following points that have to be addressed:

- The rods are heavy and out of balance, there is quite some difference in weight between the 4 rods.
- The crankshaft is out of balance.
- Oil return path is not very fluid, a lot of obstacles in the way.
- Oil feed to the oil filter housing has a nasty 90 degree corner it has to go through.
- The flywheel is too heavy and not very well balanced.
- Engine block is not stiff enough in the area of the main bearing caps.

First I have started addressing the oil issues, which a die grinder fixed (visible in the attached photos).
I then proceeded to clean up and balance the rods and crankshaft.

In the next installment I will start working on other things on the block that will have to be addressed.

Yay! - I have today (Oct 3rd, 2025 managed to upgrade the forum to version 2.0.19 - which is the newest possible on this o;ld server (due to dependencies on the PHP and mysql versions).

The end goal for this is to move everything to my newer server which is already in place and more or less ready - and THEN upgrade to the latest posssible forum software - which will have a slightly different look, but more on that later. :-)

All the best to all !

Lennart Sorth

I have just logged on Lennart and seen the 'new' Matra Forum, and like Anders wish to congratulate you on it.

We know it is the place to go to, for all Matra owners wherever they are in the world, and has been a great resource for Matra owners all these year.  Long may it continue.

Roy

Back in the old days, tuning ignition timing was a matter of replacing weights and springs inside the distributor and by trial and error on the road assisted by a strobe light, determinng the optimum advacnce curve. When our dear Murena's came out, the there was specialised equipment available for mechanics to test the advance mechanism of distributors to ensure they were within specs. Today, of course, digital is the way forward and you can buy aftermarket distributors with bluetooth interfaces having replaced the weights. Tuning with these devices is best done on a rolling road. The potential is great!

But even in 1981, when the first 2.2 engines were fitted to the Murena with mechanical Bosch and Ducellier distributors, there were some electronic tools available, and these were in fact used on the Murena. We know, since the 2.2 was fitted with a crank sensor connected to the diagnostic connector. It was there for diagnostic purposes as the picture from my "Nachtrag der bedienungsanleitung" for the 2.2 shows. Note the "Geber für Zündzeitpunkteinstellung" and the "Diagnoseanschluss"!

I started wondering, a few years ago, about this sensor. How was it used? Noone I have talked to has seen a device that uses is. So was this just a meaningless item on a feature list? Perhaps! Yet, I kept thinking that it should be quite easy to get a signal from the crank sensor and compare the timing of it with the timing of the ignition signal, measuring RPM and advance.

Well, "Quite easy" turned out to be quite a project.

I have a fully working prototype now and will use this thread to document the way it works and how you can build one yourself. The picture is from when I was debugging my design in my lab. I will post pictures later of it working on my car and details about the design.

Well done! The work you've put into this is VERY APPRECIATED

Yay! - I have today (Oct 3rd, 2025 managed to upgrade the forum to version 2.0.19 - which is the newest possible on this o;ld server (due to dependencies on the PHP and mysql versions).

The end goal for this is to move everything to my newer server which is already in place and more or less ready - and THEN upgrade to the latest posssible forum software - which will have a slightly different look, but more on that later. :-)

All the best to all !

Lennart Sorth

Hi
I have the following Bagheeras:
X35504X107677, year 1974.
The car has been off the road since 1995 as it was replaced by a Murena. The car is complete but engine and gearbox is not in the car but is available. Original color yellow, however now it is red.

X35504X105373
This Bagh had a traffic accident in 1991 with some body damage and the insurance company decided that it was a total damage. The Bagh has not been on the road since.
I got the car for free in 2005. The car is totally dismantled however all parts are available and the chassis is in fairly good shape. Original color white.

Hans

The census/inventory/register says 1832 surviving Bagheera are knowed now, 1055 in France and 778 out of France including 30 in Denmark.

100% of the plant listing saying, chain number, original gearbox and engine number and so on is knowed now.

If someone want to know the original setting of his car just say me the VIN.

Oh wow they're super fast. I more or less have accepted I only have one working window that's super slow 😂
Neat solution with the mp3 player! That's also a great place to put a spectrometer or a graphic equaliser now that I think of it. Your interior looks really nice as well compared to mine 😂