<snip>So my feeling is enjoy the car for what it is,
improve the stock engine if you want more acceleration
and don't waste your time messing with bastardizing a
great little car.
clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap
Dave Gebhard
1977 Not bastardized *yet!!!*
----- Original Message -----
From: <trunnell@mindspring.com>
To: <spitfires@autox.team.net>
Sent: Wednesday, May 17, 2000 7:33 AM
Subject: Re: Engine Swapping..longish
Hi,
Just wanted to put in my two cents here. Grassroots
did an article a few years ago about a Spitfire that
they set up for autocrossing at the national level.
When they were done they had a good running reliable
car that would do 0-60 in about 8 seconds. This is
without doing any internal engine mods. the engine was
rebuilt and balanced, but used a stock cam, pistons
etc. Externally they were running dual DCOE 40 or 45
carbs, hotter ign. etc. Basically all the standard
mods. I don't know what the top speed was, but I'm
sure it was faster than 100 mph. In my opinion 0-60
time is what most people refer to when they talk about
high performance on the street, how often do you drive
your spit more than 85 or 90? My car will do 96 mph
top end, with a single stromberg and all the emissions,
but with a hotter cam, higher compression, better ign.
etc.but it is still fairly slow 0-60, this is where I'd
like to see more power. I may eventually follow GRMs
example and improve my ca!
!
!
r so that it performs at that level, if I can get
around the emissions.
While I think the Spit is a good looking car and would
certainly like to see it have more power, I don't think
that it is so beautiful that it is worth investing a
ton of time and effort in installing a different
engine, except maybe in the case of the GT6 engine as
this eems to be the easiest and to me the most
desirable swap. The Spit is a great little classic car
that performs reasonably well and if you compare it to
it's main competition of the day it was technologically
superior in many ways. For example, tube versus lever
shocks, independent suspension, 8 port heads on the
later engines (versus an MGBs siameesed exhaust even on
the last cars), ever look under a Lotus Elan, the rear
end is very similar to a rotoflex GT6. So my feeling is
enjoy the car for what it is, improve the stock engine
if you want more acceleration and don't waste your time
messing with bastardizing a great little car.
Glenn
'76 Spitfire
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