James Carpenter wrote:
>
> >Well, the concensus is that I need a full rebuild on my Spitfire motor. I
> >thought that this might be the opportunity to drop something less
> >troublesome in. What would be the easiest non-Spitfire motor to fit into an
> >'80 Spit? I know that the purists on the list may flinch at this, and I
> >will definitely keep my old motor in case I should choose to retrofit it
> >one day.
>
> First off, I have noproblem with cutting out the 1500 motor and putting in
> somthing more potant than you can tune the 1500 to. I have looked into this
> myself.
>
> I would say that fitting any other motor for an easyer life would be
> missguided, more power mabe, but you can cheaply get all the work done on
> you 1500 motor, and not have to wory about it for 70 thousand mile, more
> with an oil cooler. I would hate to think of the work involved in swapping
> the engin, and your not ganteed to get any better relyability. After all
> you will need to completly rebuild the engin your going to put in to give
> you any advantage.
[...good information snipped ...]
>
> Now, I have looked at swapping the engin for somthing different in my car.
> Toyotat 'T' serise is an option, as is the Triumph slant for, or Triumph
> '6'. Small sized, small capacity RWD motors are now getting like hens
> teath. Quite simply they dont make them, the bigger V8's and the like need
> Major body work brake drive chaine, chassis and suspension work. Any small
> RWD engin sutable for fitting in the spit will not be a very modern design,
> mabe early 80's at the latest. Even thoes engins can be considered
> unrelyable compaired to modern standards. Even these will have there own
> pit falls, some of which you will be the first to discover becaus they will
> never have been run in the same environment before. The relation of the
> 1500 was first fitted to a car in the early 50's, it's had all its problems
> ironed out. The ancilerys is mabe another mater.
>
First of all, I agree with james. If you invest the same amount of
effort
into building a nice spit motor as you would in a swap, you should
have a car thats plenty reliable, and has enough power to cruise
on the freeway (motorway). There is no such thing as an easy
swap. (Well, a spitfire tub onto a complete GT6 should be pretty
easy, assuming you have a GT6 and spit.)
As for small RWD engines, there are still a few.
You could go for Mazda miata (mx5 in other countries), or mazda RX7,
or the Nissan SR20DE(t) that is used in the non US market 200 sx
(Aluminum 2 liter, optionally with turbo!) The 200sx outside the US is
like
our 240sx (thus RWD), except it has this motor. In the US, its only
available
in a FWD configuration, in the sentra SER and US 200sx.
The toyota 22Rs have proven over many years, but they're a little
large for a spit. If you want to go that route, you might as well
go for a V6. Dan masters site (http://members.aol.com/~danmas) has
links to a couple of nice V6 and V8 spits , as well as one using a 2L
mitsubishi turbo motor (I'm not sure what car that comes out of).
All of these swaps require significant engineering, but so does
building up a stock motor. The difference is that building up motors has
been
well defined over the years, wheras with engine swaps, you're more on
your own.
If you really want to go nuts with engineering, you can do what I'm
doing and
convert a FWD motor to RWD. The motor I'm using is a 1600 cc DOHC, multi
port
EFI from a 90s nissan sentra. It comes with about 110 hp stock. It is
actually a cousin of the nissan A series motors, so it is possible to
connect it to the RWD tranny from a datsun 210 (with some adaption).
This
gives me a 5 speed, and connects to the rear with a custom drive shaft
(which is easy to have made). This is definatly not an easy swap.
> Last August I was looking into the same choice you were, and quite honestly
> the easyest rould by far was rebuilding the 1500, then tuning it to get
> somthing like 95BHP from it. Which I think is reasonable for a car
> weighting .8 of a tone. I'm now 3000 miles in on that engin, and its
> started to run like a dream, apart from problems with ancilerys, and things
> I could not aford to touch.
>
> Mabe not what you wanted to hear, but you did say what would be the easiest
> engin, in the long run I believe it will still be the 1500 motor.
>
> James
--
Reed Mideke rmideke@interbase.com
|