The E-Mod Abomination is Back.

After a few years hiatus and an aborted attempt to sell it, the dust is being blown off, the crusty old tires are being replaced and it's time to get this thing back on the road.

If I'm keeping it, a couple of things are going to have to change.

1 - I need to fit in the stupid thing. That's going to mean redesigning the roll bar to move the seat back. It may also mean offsetting the engine to the passenger side a little to widen the drivers foot well. Maybe.

2 - Needs more HP. Probably double what it has now. Reference this thread: 300hp, Small, Lightweight

3 - More tire. Like a lot more tire. In the past, for some reason, I didn't want to cut the body for more tire. Now, it's going under the knife next winter, for 10"-12" wide wheels, flares, bigger fatter rubber.

4 - I would like to make a Nationals Tour and not embarrass myself.

They will not change fast, but I'm a firm believer that a build thread is a good way to document and encourage a build so I'm starting it now.

Ideas and suggestions are welcome.

For now, this is the planning stage. This is not going to be near as cool a project as Loosecanon's MG. I've still got a bus to finish. This is at least small enough to fit in the shop with the A/C on, so I can work on it when it's too hot to mess with the bus.

More to come.

Tires showed up Friday. 225/45ZR13s. This is what it's sitting on now. Even with the 150+- HP it has now, more tire would be nice, but that's not going to be a weekend project.

These will do while I'm learning how to drive again.

I did do some digging around in the shop and pulled out a set of tires Curmudgeon left here.

They are too hard to be any good for autocrossing, but they will certainly work for studying and measuring.

Flares would be necessary.

If I recall the build correctly it is going to be hard to move the engine over any. The engine and trans sit right down in the frame rails with minimal clearance. A 4 cylinder would have a narrower oil pan to ease engine placement, but the bellhousing will probably be just as wide. If you are doing major surgery you could just connect the right frame rails from front to rear without tapering them in the middle of the car like the factory does to allow a passenger.

Lol-10" wide hoosier slicks are hilariously wide.

In reply to MrJoshua:

That funky frame could be a problem. But honestly, it's as floppy as a noodle. I could see a tube frame being built at some point with the body sitting on it. The passenger seat may well be deleted in the interest of weight reduction. The pages are blank at this point other than the backspacing needed for 10" wheels.

MrJoshua wrote: Lol-10" wide hoosier slights are hilariously wide.

Bearing in mind a Spitfire with stock wheels (5" width) can have the tires rubbing the front fenders at 175 width.

Looking forward to seeing this car come back to life.

A little progress has been made.

The in dash tachometer quit working several years ago, and I have never been able to look at it anyways. Since I'm going to be pushing this harder than usual, I replaced the tach with a shift light/tach.

You can see the temporary dash patch. I think most of the dash is going to be going away and be rebuilt as something smaller, more easily read, and lighter.

I also had the tires mounted.

It looks like Hoosiers are a little wider than the same size in Hankooks. That may cause a rubbing problem. The rears tuck up in the fenders some on a hard corner.

Fresh oil, fresh plugs, fresh tires.

All loaded up for two days of finding out if it will still run. Test and Tune Saturday, autocross Sunday.

More pictures and word to be posted next week.

Giddy up!

For 300 HP, maybe use a hopped-up Honda 4-cylinder?

Wait ... how did I miss this?

It was a good day. The added traction of ticky tires is causing a bad stumble in hard lefts. I think the float bowl is dumping raw fuel down the intake. It's going to have to be fixed. Pretty sure that cost me a FTD today.

Seeing all the threads with people that are already out doing test and tunes is really giving me cabin fever. I look out the window and theres still snow.

I am really digging this build, kinda along similar lines to my MGB and this winter our big project was getting those Hoosier 22.5 10 13s to fit. Im interested to see what sits between those fenders eventually, that engine bay makes my MGB look spacious.

In reply to MGS10:

Don't feel too bad about the weather.

This morning looked like this.

Yesterday was sunny and in the 60s. Perfect weather. Today, 38 and raining. The snow line was 20 miles north of us. A convertible, on slicks, wasn't happening, so I gave up and headed to the barn about 9am.

PCA's track day event, 75 miles inland at CMP, looks like this.

Nice car, I look forward to seeing you at Nationals. I wonder how quick the car could be with the stock bodywork? Like if you stuffed the biggest, stickiest tires possible and got it all so dialed in that you could do the whole course almost flat. There are some stock bodied Miatas that set EMod like times, that's why I wonder what is possible.

In reply to loosecannon:

That's an interesting thought. It would make for a narrower car, which could be faster in the skinny sections and slaloms. The biggest issue is, I'd have to rebuild the suspension. I'm as wide as I can get and stay under the bodywork in the rear. I'm almost touching the suspension arms on the inside now and have pretty much zero clearance to the fenders under full compression. There is a little room in the front if I sacrifice some steering angle. I'm close to running into the chassis now.

I don't particularly like the idea of cutting up the bodywork so that's a tempting proposition.

I did manage to find the limits of traction a couple of times this weekend, so more tire would be nice to have.

I just went to the SCCA Solo results for 2016 and counted 2 CSP Miata and 3 BSP Miata that would have trophied in EMod. Here are pictures of some of these cars and they look not too far from stock bodied. I just think that if you can get your car into the trophies without cutting fenders, it would be so awesome. https://perrybphoto.smugmug.com/AUTOXPIX/2016-SCCA-Solo-Nationals/2016-SCCA-Solo-Nationals-BSP/n-BkzGNJ/i-rTkGZ4c/A

[URL=http://smg.photobucket.com/user/loosecannon/media/auto-x/127173947.TIS8H1nS_zpsuyymy9tt.jpg.html][/URL]

[URL=http://smg.photobucket.com/user/loosecannon/media/auto-x/DSC05641_DxO_zpsvmzcezoc.jpg.html][/URL]

Higher on the list than tires is a serious stumble in LH turns. Serious, as in the first time it happened I thought the ignition had died. The afternoon course had a LH sweeper and hard LH turns. I pretty much had no power in the 90s and coasted out of the sweeper. I was .7 seconds off of FTD and I know where that time was lost.

I'm scratching my head on the problem at the moment. I think I'm dumping raw fuel from the float bowl down the intake. I had previously added a baffle to the float bowl that seemed help the issue, but the added traction of new tires has made it raise its ugly head again. With temps in the 50s, the traction available on a 90 degree day should be amazing and exacerbate the problem.

So, do I attempt to fix the carburetor again? Do I spend the money to EFI what I have? Do I go ahead and move forward with a engine swap? Decisions, decisions.

I"m heading out to the shop now to pull the top off the carb and see if an epiphany happens.

If it is the fuel sloshing (a good possibility) then you could try a lower float level or stick a piece of hose over the vent tube to make it taller. Chances are the vintage race guys have experienced the same problem and will have a solution. Maybe it's just a wire grounding out in left turns?

In reply to Toyman01:

What kind of carb is it?

Maybe this motor is your 300 HP solution ...

https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/reader-rides/8755/

Even with the 'stuff' hanging off it, size and weight are Spitfire friendly.

This past weekend was used up helping my father, so nothing happened on anything for several days.

The box of carburetor parts from the Netherlands hasn't shown up yet, so that part is on hold.

In the interest of weight reduction and visibility, this happened this afternoon. Including the dashpad, that's probably 25+ pounds off the car. The visibility advantage should be huge as well.

More to come.

I tossed all the windshield parts on the scale. It comes to a little over 30 pounds.

Next on the block is the headlight assemblies. Total weight is right at 15 pounds, but I've run into a small problem. I was hoping someone made aerodynamic, plastic, covers for the headlights, but I can't find anything. I'm also looking for a fiberglass hood and trunk lid. Anyone have any leads on those? They would be appreciated.

There was a Spitfire leMans bonnet with perspex headlight covers available, but it's more involved than you want. http://www.triumphspitfirelemans.com/phdi/p1.nsf/supppages/3409?opendocument&part=4

I have the Sebring covers on my MGB (from Moss Motors) but I can tell you that unless you plan on running the big spoiler on the back of the car, the headlight covers are no benefit