Rat Rod - 1972 MK4 Triumph Spitfire project

dherr said:

 

Looking great! I'm sure you'll get it debugged in no time. And the fall color is just about to turn...

Such pretty cars.

That.looks.amazing. So great to see it out on the road!

So found a local tuner who can help me to dial in the tune on the Hydra engine management system. Meanwhile, I did some playing on Sunday, got the gap adjusted for the crank position sensor and cleaned the sparkplugs and regapped them to .028 which is apparently better for turbo Miata engines. Started right up, and running much better now, but still a long way to go. So figured a road trip down our street and  neighborhood was the next order of business. Did not get out of 3rd gear and probably not more than 45-50 mph, but first impression are this thing will be quite a hoot to drive. Light steering, perfect shifter, and lots of power. As Tim described recently on the Classic Motorsports forum, drives like "a motorbike on 4 wheels". Except in this case, more like 1000cc crotch rocket. I am glad that I did not change the suspension, so it still has the Triumph "feel". The GT6 rear suspension feels planted and the Subaru differential is silent. One thing that is not silent is the engine, it is not loud, but buzzy with the delrin motor mounts, I'll be looking for some Mazda Comp mounts soon. I also will be rolling the front fenders, as they do slightly rub on hard turns, but I knew that was going to be necessary.

Awesome! Progress keeps coming!

I just picked up a Eastwood fender roller. Need to do the fenders on the e28, then you're welcome to borrow it. It's also only about $70 shipped, if you just wanted to get one for yourself. I've heard good things about them. 

That's awesome. I hope you can make it to Carlisle next year.

Thanks Ian, yes definitely will be at Carlisle, would have been there this year, if the car was at the point where it is now. 

Cool. Gives me 6 months to get at least one of my damn cars working again.  

Spitfire has sat for the last two months as I have been distracted by work, the holidays and searching for parts for my TR4A project. But since the next steps on the Spitfire are mainly related to tuning and finishing the interior, I ordered a new convertible top and send out a spare set of injectors for cleaning/flow matching. Got the results back, looking pretty good for this set! Will get these swapped in soon and see how it runs with these "new" injectors.

Please start (or post here) a build thread on the TR4.  I've really enjoyed following along with you on this build, and I have a lot of work to do on my own TR4, so hoping to learn something from your experience, if you're willing to share.

Definitely, will do so. The TR4A was completed from a 10 year frame up restoration in 2000, and then converted to a Rover V8 in 2004 and run for 10+ years, but there were lots of unfinished things. I have learned a lot in the last 15 years, so my intentions are to pull the body off the frame, convert it to IRS with Nissan R200 LSD, CV axles and redo the motor mounts and steering geometry to get it 100% correct. Body is still really great (no rust), so won't need any work, just want to finish the conversion properly and undo some of my work, that I know I can do better. In the meantime, my old web site is still up at http://v8triumph.com/ to see what I did up to this point. But will definitely do a build thread starting this spring, once the Spitfire is on the road and my summer car while I work on the TR4A.

Been working on small details while winter continues to limit time in the garage here in February. I have found all the parts to finish the convertible top and will be installing it as soon as it is warm enough to get a good fit. Meanwhile decided to tackle the GT6 window vents. I like the look and think it gives the Spitfire a better and more weather tight window than the frameless glass of the Spitfire. So took my passenger door apart, identified all the parts, cleaned everything up and reinstalled in the passenger door. As others have said, this is fiddly work, nothing hard about it, but the order of the reinstallation is key. I did grind down the brackets on the window wing where they are inside of the door, as they are wider than the window wing and are very hard to fit with the window scrapers and inside window seals installed. I cut Spitfire door scrapers for the window wings and carefully ground the cut ends to be flush with the wing, I'll seal this with some black permetex to ensure it is water tight. My doors are 100% rust free, which is pretty amazing, but probably due to the car being garaged for 30+ years. Window rolls up and down nicely, I have new door panel and rear panel kit to install that will go in with the convertible top and frame. 

Nice - I need to do that conversion on my Spitfire.  

In reply to dherr :

slick. That looks like it was meant to be. And as you know from driving an NC... those little triangles do make a significant difference in blowby / wind buffeting too. 

In reply to Ian F :

You need to get the P1800 out of the vegetable garden!

Pete

NOHOME said:

In reply to Ian F :

You need to get the P1800 out of the vegetable garden!

 

Pete

Baby steps. Baby steps... 

In reply to Ian F :

Boring. Go big!

Pete

In reply to NOHOME :

Well, I'm going home from NH, so hopefully it'll be easier for me to make time to work on the projects.  Right now, the priority is:

Spitfire

GT6

TDI

camper van

1800ES

Selling the MINI and acquiring another Mini may happen in there as well.

As much as I want to get the Volvo back on the road, it was always going to be a long-term project. 

Back to the Spitfire, after all it is Spring. The big issue has been getting the Hydra Nemesis dialed in so the car is at least driveable until I can get it tuned. It had been running extremely rich and I had to pull the plugs and clean them after several runs. I  then had an issue where the fuel pump was not priming, so chased that down, ended up being a ground issue (surprise) but replaced the fuel pump anyway as it was an old one. I then checked and ran some ground straps/wiring to the Miata harness ground locations to ensure the grounds were good. Resealed the fuel pump in the tank and working great. I used a DeatschWerks DW100 as I did not want to overpower the tank regulator and I am not lacking fuel pressure in the current setup. This thing has more than enough power as I can tell in my test drives. 

So was still running too rich today, so been researching and playing with maps. Finally went back to the original FM stock injector map, calibrated it for the WOT and the Wideband and now we are running with a reasonable AFR and actually have an idle. So what did I do? Test drives down our street of course! 

Building a checklist of what remains, basically cosmetics and misc.

Convertible top, finish interior,  motor mounts (using rover V8 mounts for some compliance), fix some rattles, replace all the light bulbs and test all the lights. Bleed and adjust the brakes. Then it should be ready to go to the tuners for a test and tune. 

So working on that list last week and over the weekend. Got the Rover motor mounts installed, Convertible top started (need another warm day before gluing down the header rail and got all the lights working! Lights were pretty easy, just replacing bad bulbs and making sure grounds were good, this is 90% Miata wiring, so it is just the end points for the lights that needed some work. So nice to have a proper fuse box, relays and switchgear in my old classic!

Goal is to finish the convertible top this week and get the wipers hooked up and then get it over to the shop to see if they can tune it by the end of the month. I really want this ready for the memorial for Charles Runyan up at TRF and for Import show up at Carlisle the following week. So close.....

Looking good!

Yep!  Can't wait to see it at Carlisle! 

Dherr, love your Spitfire! I've got similar interests, building a TR4 with a small block Chevy. For the front suspension, I've modified a pair of TR6 uprights for spherical bearings on the bottom instead of trunions. When I build the control arms, I'd like to go longer, but that would require a narrower rack. I've always wondered how the spitfire front end compares to the TR4-4A-250-6. Do you have any idea what your hub-to-hub width is on your Spitfire? I know the control arms are longer than on your TR4A, so I assume either the track is wider or the rack is narrower on the Spitfire?

Cool, you need to do a build here. Not sure on the width hub to hub, but the specs for a Spitfire show a front track of 49" and it looks like it is the same on a TR4, so not sure this will help you. The suspensions are very different as I am sure you know. Post a picture or two, would love to see your project.