For many years, I drove a 65 Spitfire with a 215 in it. Never had any
oiling problems. I thought it was a lovely motor. Around 1984 or so,
I beat a 911 Turbo to about 60 at one of those little stoplight races.
The look on his passenger's face was one I will never forget...
Now, I did go through 1st, 2nd, and 3rd while he went through only
2 gears, but I digress... Sorry, just reliving some memories...
I did read an article about an Eclat that had a 215 put in it. I am
sure that I saved the article and could FAX it to interested parties.
I also have an article on how to modify the 215 up to about 4.9 litres,
involving some machining and part swapping with other engines.
Does anybody know which one became the Rover engine? Buick had 14 head
bolts, while Oldsmobile had 18 head bolts on theirs so that it could
be used with a Turbocharger. The turbo motor (F-85) could be had from
61 - 63, I believe.
Building up a 215 is rather expensive as compared with building a Ford
or Chevy motor, but even in stock form (185-200 SAE GROSS BHP), they
were pretty potent for weight.
The 300 lb figure you quoted... How reliable is that? I remember that
the article on the Eclat swap said that it was 7 lbs lighter than the
907 motor that it replaced! I always wondered how hard it would be
to fit 2 907 heads onto the 215...
I had an opportunity to drive a 1980 or so SCCA ITA Monza with the 3.8L
engine... prepared to the limit and with 2 bbl carb... I SWEAR that it
felt as fast as my 427 Corvette, at least up to about 50 MPH... Note that
the limits for ITA are STOCK parts... and there are a lot of performance
parts out there to build them up. Anybody have a weight figure for these
motors?
Once I drove an RX7 with a "ported" 12A motor. The overrev buzzer comes
on at 7000 RPM... And I was told that the objective is to keep the
buzzer on at all times! Driven around at normal RPMs, it felt like a
normal RX7. Redlining at 9000 RPM, it went like a rocket. I was told
that 9500 RPM is the limit for a stock-rotored mazda motor. Above that,
the rotor tends to jump a gear tooth, and all hell breaks loose. Higher-
revving motors need special gears on the rotors to prevent this. I
heartily recommend this motor to anyone who loves a motor that revs.
What size brakes are on the Europa? Do they run 9.75 dia. Stanpart brakes
as are found on the GT6 or 9.00 inch ones a la Spitfire?
--toms.
p.s. I did see an RX7 motor in a spitfire. The installation looked
pretty tidy. I imagine it went as well as my V8 one did, without the
problem of blowing up spider gears or stripping rear axle bolts every
year or so... AND gave a better top end as compared with my 5500 max rpm.
For a Europa though, I would get the cosworth 4-valve heads that they
used to run in Formula Atlantics to 11000 RPM (with 58 DCOEs). They
mount right on the little Ford engines that came on the twincam europas.
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