>Hold on there John! I personally agree with you regarding putting
>extremely large engines in Spitfires, but your allusion to putting a
>1500 engine in a Herald doesn't hold water. Speaking from personal
>experience, I can safely say that the 1500 hjas the same outside
>dimensions as that 1147 Herald engine. So there is no trouble
>installing it. True, if you use the Herald tranny, you will have to
>change out the clutch, but everything else is a piece of cake!
>
>Joe
>
>P.S. According to Tim, the RoSpit is going to be on display at Import
>Carlsile May 14-16.
>
Hi Joe,
Yes, the 1500 is the same size as an 1147. I did change to the single
rail gearbox for strength and synchros though. Doing this "simple"
engine swap involved changing the shock uprights, shortening the
driveshaft, fabricating new radiator mounts, wiring harness changes,
and several dozen other "little" things. Not as easy as one might
think.
My point is that the basic Spitfire engine is strong and quite
tuneable. And, adding signifigantly more power to a Spit will break
every other piece in the drivetrain one by one. There's a club member
I know who has a buick v-6 in his TR6, and although he's done a
beautiful job it must have cost him at least 10 grand or so. This guy
is an engineeer, and he does have a machine shop in his garage.
Unless you're just a massochist it really doesn't make sense to start
putting Japaneese engines into these cars. It's a whole lot of hard
work to end up with a car that will be worth less money than when you
started. I say if you want a Toyota, get a Toyota. They're fine cars
in their own right, but they're not Triumphs.
I contemplated many different engine swaps when I got my Herald. But,
after talking with a lot of people I realized the thing that really
made my car special was that it belonged to another time when they did
things a little different than now. Besides, think of the joy you
would miss out on not being able to tell people about the little bits
of wood that hold your "Made in Coventry" engine together.
Cheers,
John Matthews
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