As I was saying...
Now that I've finished a few projects, like restoring my MG Midget twice, then selling it once I was happy it was as good as it was ever going to be, and doing the same with an early R53 (BMW) supercharged Mini Cooper S, I now have the space, time and money to finally get on and finish my bonkers Triumph Spitfire based Outlaw 356 Speedster!
So, it's been sitting under a tarpaulin on my drive for about four years, and apart from everything rubber having perished, the chassis has faired pretty well. It only needed a good clean, a lick of paint and replacement of the perished items and it's as good as new. Obviously the fibreglass body didn't suffer from its slumber, while the Spitfire body, well, what's left of it, hasn't got any worse, thankfully. Here's some pics of the body and chassis (I'm afraid they're a bit big as I'd forgotten what size they needed editing to):
You may notice that the chassis doesn't currently have an engine fitted, as I've dismantled and inspected it. As you may recall, it was a second hand engine that I bought when I decided that the Ford Puma engine and Mazda RX8 gearbox combination might be a bit ambitious, and all I'd done to it was replace the head with a big valve one from a Spitfire mk IV and have the camshaft reground to Piper 270 spec. I ran the engine up to break in the camshaft about four years ago, but it hasn't been run since. Now I have a bit more time and money on my hands, I decided that rather than risk running with a used engine, I'd strip it, inspect everything thoroughly and replace all the bearings and anything else that was at all worn.
The good news is that the end float was at the low end of its recommended tolerance, while the crank is in perfect condition, with its main and big end bearings just beginning to show a little colour through their coatings, so ready for replacement.
The not so good news is that when I ran a spare piston ring up and down the bores and checked the ring gap (I don't have a bore gauge), the gap varied enormously as the ring moved up and down each bore, so a rebore and new pistons are required.
After getting quotes in from a few different machine shops, I dropped my engine block, crank, flywheel,, clutch, cylinder head and a set of +.060" pistons off at Ivor Searle Engine Services, who just happen to be about half an hour away from me in Soham near Ely.
Rather than just a rebore, I decided to go a few steps further and they will also be soaking the block in an acid bath to clear the crap out of all the coolant galleries, skimming five thou of the block, twenty-five thou off the cylinder head, shaving around 2kg from the flywheel and balancing the crank, rods, pistons, flywheel and clutch.
That should give me an engine that will spin up nicely and rev smoothly to the red line without losing its cool, while delivering a little more power and torque and better fuel economy into the bargain. The fuel economy should also be helped somewhat by another modification that's being driven by two factors: one - my wife can't stand the smell of petrol that goes with driving every classic car I've ever owned, even when they were new cars, and two - the front carburettor dashpot fouls the inside of the bonnet, so I had planned to cut a hole for it and hide the protruding dashpot under a fake fuel cap. Now I could solve point one above by finding a new wife, but I rather like the one I have and divorce costs too much anyway, so I needed to think of another solution, as I also rather like her accompanying me on my classic travels. The idea I had to hide the dashpot with a fuel filler has also gone out of the window, because it would be offset and I saw these racing Porsches with Fletcher Aviation advertising on their bonnets that only really works with a centre filler cap, and I really want to copy that look:
After a little bit of head scratching, I decided to solve both issues with Electronic Fuel Injection!
Now, I've been buying bits and pieces in for a while, and now that the engine's away I've made a start on putting some components together that weren't designed to be compatible. What I've decided to use for this job is marry up a Spitfire 1500 inlet manifold that's intended for 1&1/2" SU carburettors to a pair of injection throttle bodies from a Triumph triple motorcycle:
As you can see, the inlets on the manifold are 40mm and circular, while the outlets on the throttle bodies are a sort of flat oval that's approximately 43mm wide by 36mm tall. The good news is that the actual size of the two openings is almost identical - if you were to stretch the bike outlet out into a circle it would be about 40mm while the inlet manifold hole is 39.5mm, so they're perfectly compatible - while the throttle bodies, in addition to having a lower profile than the 1&1/4" SU's I had fitted, are also angled downwards a fair bit so will give me even more clearance.
So, today I've started work on the adaptor plates I'll need to connect the throttle bodies to the Spitfire inlet manifold.
Starting with a 200x100x25mm slab of aluminium, I marked up the limits of the openings on each side, then drilled out the area that was common to both:
Then, a great deal of sweaty effort with a selection of hand tools and a Dremel to smooth out the file marks, I have the beginnings of my adaptor plates:
It might not look like much, but with a little more smoothing to aid the air flow and some securing studs, it looks like it's going to work.
Oh, and the selection of 25mm thick alloy might seem a bit of overkill, but it was specifically chosen to solve an issue where one of the inlet manifold stud holes will overlap slightly with another on one of the throttle bodies. With a 25mm adaptor, I can put a stud on each side with half an inch of thread in the adaptor and it's problem solved! Hope that makes sense.
Anyway, it's nice to be back on the forum and I'll make sure my images are the right size from now on.
