Worldly Scions,
Tom O'Malley wrote:
[...]
> >Meanwhile, we can probably get some idea by looking at the specs.
> >Your 1500's with dual S.Us and 9.0 to 1 compression are rated at
> >71BHP.
> >Our 1500's <ex '76> with single strombergs and 7.5 to 1 compression
> >are rated at 57 BHP. <sniff>
To which Richard Jackson replied:
> Oh, so YOU got the Diesel version eh!!!! :-)
>
> 57Bhp, that's less than my 73 MkIV 1300, either 61, 63 or 67Bhp, depending on
> which roadtest you read. NOW THAT IS GUTLESS!!!!!!! :-)
It gets worse :-(
According to Robson's book; 57HP was the spec for 73 & 74 US Spits.
In '75 the air pump & EGR valve was added. No HP figure is mentioned,
but we can assume it went down. For '76 the CR reportedly went up
to 9:0 to 1 but, Robson writes; "Power outputs no longer officially
quoted." for this and subsequent years. This is interesting (to me
at least). If there was an increase in HP for '76, BL didn't make
it known.
My Bentley manual (for 75-77 model years) lists a whopping *53HP*,
presumably for all three years. There is little other published data
on later year Spit HP. I wonder why? ;-)
This latest emissions thread has spun in some interesting directions.
The concensus seems that _most_ of the emissions devices were not
detrimental to the power output of the car. Removing them only gave
the illusion of better performance.
I think another reason they are (were) removed is that they tend to
fail gradually, causing poor running and other performance problems.
This goes unnoticed at first. When it gets bad enough to be a real
problem, the "fix" is removing the EGR etc. This produces an apparant
increase in HP. This is exactly what the local LBC expert garage did
to my car in the early '80s when I took it to them because it wasn't
running right. No-one inspected cars for emissions related stuff in
NC back then.
Bob Sykes & '78 (diesel) Spitfires
(One of which passed the annual "sniff" this morning)
|