WOW! This thing is great! I have had it in for almost three weeks now
so I have good idea of day to day driving with the thing.
First though, let me start with the installation:
As you all may know, the kit came from Vintage Induction Systems and is
suppossed to be a bolt-on type of kit. Well, let me say that I thought
it wouldn't take as long as it did, but my mechanic (Dean Houston of
British Sportcar Works) said he thought it took much less then he
originally planned to put into it. The installation is fairly straight
forward. The three main problems I ran into were in the fitting of the
thing. Two pieces in particular did not fit as planned. The mounting
bracket for the tensioner belt and the by-pass tube to the airbox were
both about 1/8 inch off. That meant both had to be grinded down. I
haven't been able to get a hold of Pete Boucher of VIS yet, but it looks
as if maybe Eaton shorted the side housing of the blower (or Pete just
happened to be off on this kit exactly the same for both pieces. The
other problem was a missing throttle linkage piece Dean Houston had to
make. It should have been in the kit and wasn't. Also, we needed to
fabricate a heat shield to go between the exhaust manifold and the blower
by-pass valve itself. Pete stated that we could skip this, but that most
who had, melted the by-pass valve due to heat. (He does include an extra
in the kit!) We were also missing the sneeze valve instructions but
figured it out by staring at the engineering diagram that was sent along
with a set of pictures. All in all, with carb rebuild, about eight hours
of work.
The carb came from Joe Curto in New York. It is a cross between an
E-Type and Healey HD-8 (that is the two inch) carb. I think the float is
Healey and the body is Jag. Basically, the pieces must all be vertical
when mounted to the blower assembly. Like the old ZS carbs that came on
the 6. I don't remember which needle is in it right now. I have the 3
1/4 inch K&N air cleaner on it from ADC in California. We cut our own
back-plate from a blank they sent me. Get the air cleaner! I put the
old smaller K&N ZS cleaner on it as a stop gap. That really restricted
the performance. I was shocked at the increase when I put the new one
on.
Forget your washer bottle with the big air cleaner. It looks like it
will fit if you drill two new holes to move it toward the fender. I
haven't done that yet.
Driving Impressions:
WOW! The power band has shifted up to the 3300 to 4000 range now. In
first gear there is not much difference. The gearing just doesn't allow
it. Second, some difference, but not much. (At least I don't notice it,
it may run through the first two gears faster, but I really didn't ever
floor it off the line before) It is when you hit third or fourth that
thing really kicks you. It isn't a Vette, but if you are used to the
normal 30 year old Brit car, WOW! There is a slight turbo like lag (due
to the by-pass value I think) but then, it really kicks in and
accelerates you past traffic. Practically, I don't worry about passing
or merging anywhere anymore. For instance: I was heading up I-95 one
night at about 75 in fourth with the overdrive on. I didn't down shift
or switch off the overdrive, just stepped on it to catch up to the
Mustang I saw up ahead. I caught the pack quickly (I mean quickly) at
over a 105 mph. The blower was still pushing with 1500ish RPM left and
going strong. Suprised me! At idle around 900rpm, you get a slight hiss
from the system. If you didn't know the car, you probably wouldn't pay
attention to it. Toasting Miatas has never been this much fun (OK,
guilty, I've done it in town and on the highway)
Quantifiable results:
NONE. Sorry, three problems running the G-tech to do it. One, several
steady temp days to get accurate readings. Two, time to put the old
carbs back on. Three, I haven't tuned the new system yet. I still need
to tune the carb and mess with the timing some more. Also, VIS sent two
pulleys. One slow and one fast. I have the slow one on right now to get
used to the system. Before I put on the fast one (the smaller of the
two) I need to get a PSI gauge for the car to see what it is doing. So,
I need to run three timing tests in all. I'll get to it eventually and
let you know. But even without the cold hard numbers, it makes a hell
of a differenece.
Total Cost so far: 1050 for the blower, 500 for the rebuilt carb, 700
for the VIS kit, 300ish for labor and fabrication.
Worth it? Hell yes!
Joe Burlein
72 TR-6
Melbourne, FL
Real cars are designed to carry only two people, anything else is just a
bus.
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