How our Ro-Spit spent its summer vacation Nov 8, 2001
The Ro-Spit has spent the summer with Steve Eckerich in North Carolina, autocrossing and receiving some more sorting. As we are planning on adding a turbocharger this winter, we wanted to further fine tune and strengthen the rear suspension and driveline.
To this end, after careful testing, we realized that we were getting excessive rear camber change because the upper locating link is mounted to the differential itself. This differential is mounted in the original factory Spitfire rubber mounts, which were flexing under the high-g loads attributed to autocrossing. Steve re-engineered the rear suspension so the upper locating link now mounts to the frame instead of the differential.
At the same time--to take the added horsepower of the impending turbo conversion plus our new wider Panasport wheels and Hoosier tires--Steve redesigned the rear hubs and carriers to accept larger Mazda Miata hubs and bearings. Our old GT6 roller wheel bearings have now been replaced with super slick and much stronger Miata sealed wheel bearings at the rear.
We also weren't completely comfortable with our GT6 stub axles, as they were quite thin after machining them to fit the spline of the Mazda RX-7 half-shaft. To fit these new Miata hubs within our Fiat X 1/9 rear disc brake rotors, we only had to slightly machine the hub around the outside.
Initial testing has shown this to be a far superior setup, but we will test further and continue coverage of this project in the magazine shortly. Our plans for 2002 include further autocrossing, drag racing and ultimate victory at the Beech Mountain Hill Climb.
Land Speed Racing Jun 24, 2002
We knew we were in for a different kind of experience when we signed up to race with the East Coast Timing Association, which specializes in Land Speed Racing-the type of racing that made the Bonneville Salt Flats famous. We started to realize just how different the event in Maxton, North Carolina, was going to be when we called for directions.
We had driven to Maxton to run our Ro-Spit project car at ECTA's March 23-24 event. We had been itching to see how fast the Ro-Spit was in a straight line; besides, we figured it would be a great way to reintroduce this amazing car to our readers.
Since we had been dealing with ECTA's Keith Turk, we gave him a call on the cell phone: "Keith, we're just coming into the town of Maxton, how do we find this place?" The high-strung Turk quickly replied, "Dude! Just go to the next exit, I'll meet you there-you'll never find this place on your own!"
We were soon trundling down one of North Carolina's two-lane roads following Turk, who was towing his 200 mph Camaro. Our anxiety increased when we turned off onto a little dirt road in the middle of nowhere. "This guy is going to take us out in the woods and shoot us," we thought. But as we rounded a corner, we entered a huge, old air base littered with broken-down jumbo jets. We drove into a little paddock area that looked like some kind of surreal autocross site that had built just for a Hollywood movie. Everything was this close to normal, but something was off.
That's when we realized that the participants, and the toys they were playing with, were very different. It was as if somebody had said, "instead of just driving around the cones today, let's all try to go 200 mph in a straight line."
Another layer of sensory confusion was added when we got out of the motorhome; the only thing we could smell was onions. "Weird smell for a race track," we thought. Then we looked around. Onions were growing all around the entire air base. We were in the middle of what looked like the world's largest onion field. Thus began our first foray into the wacky, wonderful world of land speed racing.
Top Speed in the RoSpit:
Rennie Bryant was to handle the driving chores. He was chosen for this project because he was crazy enough to drive our car that fast, and because he had been bugging us for two years to try this sort of racing. Please bear in mind that the Ro-Spit was designed, tuned and geared to get around an autocross course quickly. No thoughts at all were given to top-speed gearing or aerodynamics.
Still, on its first pass, the little yellow screamer ran 125 mph. Not bad for a Triumph Spitfire. With just tire pressure adjustments and some duct tape to smooth the aerodynamics, we managed to set a record in E/FMS (E Fuel Modified Sports) with a pass of 131.46939 mph.
Unfortunately, the Ro-Spit's gearing had us right at the bottom of fifth gear coming through the traps at the end of the nearly two-mile pass. Leaving it in forth gear had us turning nearly 9000 rpm at the traps. Since peak power for the Ro-Spit is at about 7000 rpm, neither situation was ideal.Experienced racers on site told us that if we had fitted a hardtop and installed larger rear tires, we would have crossed the traps in fourth gear at about 135 or 140 mph.
Just wait until next time.
Perfection Jul 23, 2002
We finally have our Ro-Spit rear suspension working perfectly. We will have a full report by the end of the year in the magazine. We are currently writing up the (rather long) story and doing some final sorting with tires and settings. In the mean time here are a few photos to wet your appetite.
To prove our point, at a recent autocross event, we set FTD by more than 1.5 seconds while still on our five year old Yokohama AVS street tires!
Progressing nicely Jan 23, 2003
Project Ro-Spit has been progressing over the past few months and will appear in the March 2003 issue. Over the Christmas holiday, Rennie Bryant, Steve Ekerich and Charlie Shatzen of Mazcare helped us with a host of improvements. First up was the installation of a new Electromotive Tech III fuel injection system to replace the Tech II system on the car.
The main reason for the change was to add staged injectors. The two 72 lb. per hour injectors are so big on our normally aspirated Mazda 13B rotary that we can't slow them down enough to avoid a flat spot at low rpm. With staged injectors we will run smaller primary injectors and then keep the big ones for a good upper-rpm wallop. At the same time, we also installed a beautiful new internal fuel pump kit from ATL. This kit took weight off the car and by moving the fuel pump into the fuel cell, neatened up the trunk area a bunch.
Speaking of weight, we are also revising the exhaust system to something lighter, using Borla pieces and we have gone to a smaller, lighter battery in the trunk. All in all, combined with a lighter fiberglass nose, we should have our Ro-Spit right down in the 1500 pound area, which is proper fighting weight for SCCA E Mod autocrossing.
Diet and exercise Sep 15, 2003
Our Ro-Spit has been on another diet. This time the all-steel nose has been removed and a fiberglass nose from Japco Raceglas has been expertly painted and fitted by The Body Werks in Holly Hill, Fla. Adapting racing fiberglass parts to what is essentially still a street car is no easy job. We needed expert help and we got it.
The Body Werks owner, Tom Prescott, is a wizard at this daunting task. He expertly glassed in a metal brace underneath the trailing edge of the hood. This strengthened the hood and allowed him to permanently bend the hood slightly to perfectly line up the hood with the cowl.
When the cutting, trimming and painting were all done it was time for a weigh-in. Previously, our Ro-Spit weighed 1735 pounds with nearly no fuel. With our recent round of modifications the Ro-Spit now weighs 1630 pounds with a full tank of fuel. LF (422) RF (463) LR (382) and RR (363). With a driver in the car the weights are way closer to even both side to side and front to rear.