Steve's Triumph Spitfire 1600
The ongoing saaaaaaga
The old 1500 was starting to make a little noise and it really did deserve
some attention after all these years of faithful service.
Rebuild that Lump?
Engine / Transmission Swap
Orrrrrr.....
A few guys around here had told me stories of really poor engine rebuilds, in fact, one guy ended up taking his machine shop to court and fortunately won.
I contacted Ted Schumacher at TS Imported Automotive in Ohio about a rebuild. He's been doing this forever and has a great machine shop. He's 7 hours from here, but I thought it worth the drive.
In our discussions it quickly became clear that improving performance would not cost all that much more than just stock. We came up with a plan, or should I say we agreed to do what he has been doing successfully for years!
I dropped the engine off and they did a tear-down. Unfortunately (at least that's what I thought at the time) they found that the block had already been max-bored to 40 over, and the noise I was hearing was piston slap.... tapered cylinders. Either another block would be needed or sleeving.
In the meantime I continued to read how others were struggling with and spending tonnes of money and time on attempts at better performance with their 1500s, and expensive transmission swaps, and still ending up with that British lump.
I had done much reading about engine swaps but was admittedly apprehensive. Dan Patrick's article was the one that put me over the edge. The nicest thing about it was that I'd be doing the work not paying someone; not just because I'm cheap, but more because I like doin' stuff myself.
It was tough to get my head around it, but without a rebuildable block the decision was pretty clear. In the end it will cost significantly less than a rebuild, be more reliable, smoother, more efficient, sustainable, and better performing to boot!
This would also be a great opportunity to get that brother of mine off his butt, and we can together handle some cool engineering and fabricating challenges.
So what next?
But which Engine?
Triumph? or another British engine to maintain some false sense of authenticity?
GT6 sure sounds appealing at first, and I had been considering this since last century, however, I really didn't want to destroy a GT6, they are just so cool. Also, why add significant weight to the front, sacrificing handling, for 104 rough horse power on a dated engine design?
Sorry Father Britannia, but the notion of a TR7 engine/tranny was not at all appealing, nor was a Rover V-8 swap.... I still wanted the best feature of this car to remain, handling. My research found zero British options attractive.
Love Joe Curry's Honda S2000 swap, but a little more than I wanted to bite off and I really wanted to keep the Bonnet factory. Truly though, that car is in a whole other category.
The 2.3 litre Ford sounds good, but not sure of availability and looks like no one's managed to keep it clear of the factory Bonnet.
Some nice jobs with V-6s out there if I recall, but more surgery than I wanted to do.
Some motorcycle engine? Although awesome power to weight, the impracticality of that swap turned me off quickly; no reverse gear etc. There are other engine choices that make good power and the weight distribution on the Spit is just about perfect now so I didn't really consider it.
I had a quick look into BMW inline 6s, and although light and decent performing, I'm not really a fan of BMW and wasn't motivated enough to look too hard.
Japanese engineering and reliability really does rule.
Suzuki apparently has a few engines that could work, and with a possible RWD tranny out of a Sidekick it may be doable also. I looked quickly but was distracted by what I thought were better solutions.
Nissan 240SX also sounded appealing, however, I found very little information on those.
The Toyota 4AGE engine mated to a Toyota 5-speed is in my opinion the BEST choice for a swap in our little Spits. Pretty sure it came Fuel Injected, with Electronic Ignition; naturally aspirated it can easily be built to something like 200 HP! Throw in Toyota reliability and engineering for one big smile.
Unfortunately I'm not sure how the shifter position would work out with that combination, and more importantly in my case anyway, availability. Apparently many of those cool little Corollas with RWD have been gobbled up by the drifter crowd and after awhile looking I just decided it wasn't in the cards for me.
After all that research, I feel that the 1989-1993 NA Miata 1.6 litre with 5-speed was the MOST PRACTICAL swap candidate. With a donor car the swap should be relatively painless and include Fuel Injection, Electronic Ignition, one of the best transmissions in the business, and more Japanese reliability. The only drawback I saw to this swap was that although a bullet-proof engine, power increases were not as straight forward as with the Toyota. From what I've read, basic mods to compression or cams generally don't yield much improvement in the Mazda. That written, adding boost is super-easy with these engines; Flyin' Miata does a number of very cool things with Turbos and without much hassle one can put down 160 HP at the wheels, and up to 230 HP if you like.
The notion of the Miata 1.8 litre, still in the NA (1994-1997) was super-appealing, however, I spoke with Brandon at Flyin' Miata and he was so awesome as to go to the shop and measure the length difference between the 1.6 and 1.8. Turns out the 1.8 is about 3/4" longer than the 1.6. To me, still breaking ground on this swap, I decided that even that 3/4" was not worth any extra hassles. I wanted the best odds possible to make this work. Additionally the 1.6 should come a little cheaper and if memory serves, the 1.8 had a second O2 sensor aft of the Cat. I preferred the simplicity of the single sensor. Newer Miatas had more electronics and although had more HP, the added complexity at this point was not appealing.
Read more **here** (will be added later) about important engine considerations when buying a 1.6.