Engine transplant options for Spitfire?

[spartacus]

A mate of mine has a Triumph Spitfire, MkIV I think, and he is looking for any ideas on what engine he could replace the Triumph 1500 with that without having to modify the chassis or bulkhead that would produce significantly more BHP than the original lump and was lighter? obviously engine and gearbox mount changes would be expected.

Alternatively does anyone have any ideas about supercharging?

[moosetvr]

You can drop in triumph straight six, using GT6 brackets, gerabox etc and this will give more power straight away, but compromises handling due to extra weight up front.
Alternatively tune the current engine and you can get 120+bhp with no weight gain at all. I will be selling my stage two 1556cc engine and twin 40 DCOE webers soon on a famous internet auction site .
Other way is too reduce wieght, speed is all about power to weight ratio's. Fibreglass bonnet, boot and doors will strip weight, making a standard car faster.

[AJLintern]

Check out Davesideways' Crazy Spitfire blog to see how he's fitting a 1.8K series to his lightweight Mk3 Spit

[Olav Bergman]

Ford v6 2,9 cologne fuel injection with ford N-type box?? 170bhp
It's used in tvr S-series
It should fit according to me...worth a try?
See http://www.britishv8.org/Triumph/BarrySchwartz.htm (2.8 is almost same but shares ports)

(It would make the car leathal though :-)

Olav
78 spit
89 tvr S

Edited by Olav Bergman on Wednesday 17th October 15:21

[spitfire-ian]

This one's just daft

[Yertis]

spitfire-ian said:

This one's just daft

That's not the first time that's been done either. A good friend of mine did the same with a highly tuned Rover 3.5. Very well engineered, cossie back axle, the works. I drove it once or twice. It was overpowered to the point of being almost undrivable. I think somone races it now though.

[ingrowtn]

Cosworth turbo?

[mattius]

Triumph 6 engine is too heavy

Rover v8 fits good
So does K-series
Fiat Twin Cam
Ford Zetec 1.8L
Volvo T5

by far the best so far i have seen is this
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi...

nissan skyline engine!

[moosetvr]

That is only the 4 cylinder 2.0 Skyline engine though, would be interesting to fit the proper Skyline GTR engine, the RB26DETT straight six twin turbo engine !! Drove one in Japan with 1000+ bhp, but may have to change the Spitfire rear diff !!!

[jellison]

Zetec - it is a small car forget TR6 or V6's or V8's - keep it small an light.

Edited by jellison on Saturday 20th October 19:48

[Jonny_uk]

K-Series is loads lighter than Zetec, and in 1.4l its still 100 bhp! Go for the 1.6 and chuck all the caterham goodies at it, ford type 9 box on the back

Job done!

[jellison]

Jonny_uk said:

K-Series is loads lighter than Zetec, and in 1.4l its still 100 bhp! Go for the 1.6 and chuck all the caterham goodies at it, ford type 9 box on the back

Job done!

Ya well that kind of thing!

[//j17]

There is currently only 1 known k-series Spitfire - http://crazyspitfire.blogspot.com/

Not the simplest transplant out there.

Edited by //j17 on Monday 29th October 10:31

[ol' dirty]

I was only thinking about this the other day!

I thought about the addition of a bike engine but thought that the addition of a turbocharger/supercharger to the 1500 would probably give similar results + massive increase in torque over the bike engine for a lot less wedge.

[jellison]

Their handling is crap at the best of times - stick a 1000+ bike lump in it and it will be scrap very soon!.

A waste of time.

[AJLintern]

Well I think as standard the handling isn't great, but with some setting up it can be made much better - Dave certainly seems happy with the way his was handling!

[Adam_BGT]

I'd be tempted to have a look at MG midget modifications, apparently the MGF k series engine is quite a popular conversion. Alternatively, have a look at www.oselli.co.uk and see what mods they might offer!

[Grantura SWE]

I have seen several Spitfires equipped with Volvo engines here in Sweden.

The old cast iron B18/B20 engine(from 120 Amazon and the 140-series) with the standard M40 transmission is an easy fit. Lots of tuningparts are available.
B21/B23/B230 engines from the 240, 740 or 940 should also fit without to much problems and produce a more power than the earlier ones. Parts are no problem at all.

The Volvo Alloy engines are normally used with front wheel drive (as in S/V40, 850, S/V70, S60 and others) but can be converted to rear wheel drive using a Volvo 960 gearbox. These are avaliable as 4, 5 or 6 cylinder engines.


Have also heard of Spitfires with Mazda rotary engines as well. Don't know how easy they are to fit without modifications.

[rustyspit]

DIY supercharger: http://www.justdrive.ca/gt6/josh/supercharged.html 
...or buy one off the shelf:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Triumph-Spitfire-Supercharger-Kit-MP45-Eaton_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQcategoryZ34198QQihZ010QQitemZ200211387095QQrdZ1QQsspagenameZWDVW 

I guess you'd need to somehow lower the compression of the UK spec engine, and go for forged pistons etc....

[mattius]

lower the compression is easy, get some US spec low compression pistons, JE even do forged versions.

however that kit isnt ideal way of doing it, and a lot of cleverer people than me have said its a crap way of doing it, josh's way was much better.

I was going to emulate it again but i wrote off the car you see the kit on.