Development
The Stag was developed between 1964 and 1969. Whilst originally seen as little more than a convertible version of the Triumph 2000 saloon, as development progressed the Stag gained its own identity until the final design shared no body panels or pressings with the 2000. The Stag was intended to use Triumph's existing 2.5-litre straight-6 engine. When the Stag design evolved into a grand tourer rather than a more conventional sports car it became clear that a more powerful, more refined engine was needed.
As far back as 1963 the designer of the Triumph Slant-4 engine, Lewis Dawtrey, had foreseen the possibility that the engine design could be 'doubled-up' to create a V8 unit. Whilst at this point the engine had only been produced in 1.7-litre form by Triumph for sale to Saab, the basic design of the engine enabled capacities as low as 1.2-litres to be built. Triumph revived the V8 concept, initially settling on a 2.5-litre engine (in essence two 1.2-litre versions of the slant-4) with mechanical fuel injection provided by Bosch.
Following the take-over of Triumph by Leyland Motors in 1967 Spen King was placed in charge of product development at Triumph. The V8's Bosch fuel injection was running into numerous difficulties in development and King was unable to convince Leyland to divert extra funds to Triumph to solve the problems. Instead, King dropped the fuel injection in favour of twin Zenith-Stromberg carburetors. To maintain the required power output the capacity was increased to 3-litres, which then entailed modification to the Stags other drivetrain systems included the gearbox, back axle and brakes. This relatively 'last-minute' capacity increase was achieved by expanding the bore of the engine instead of the stroke, which explains the Triumph V8's unusual 'oversquare' internal dimensions. This widening of the bore also meant that the water galleries surrounding the cylinders were narrower than originally planned, thus creating the engine's major weakness (see below).
Read more about this topic: Triumph V8
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