Subject: [6pack] TR5 and TR250

From: John Cyganowski <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2013 12:54:26 -0800 (PST)

Most of the reasons for the TR250 vs TR5 have been touched upon here.
 
Bruce McWilliams had a large role in this decision.  His job was not to cater
to perfromance enthusiasts, it was to sell cars and in 1967 he had a big
problem.  The TR4 was essentially the same car that they launched in 1961.
Okay it got IRS - whoopie! This was the muscle car era and the young men
wanted power, not a noisey 4 banger. Triumph had thousands of unsold TR4s and
something had to be done.  A 6 cylinder was a step in the right
direction. Mechanical fuel injection had been around in aircraft since WWII,
but it was relatively new for automobiles. It is true GM offered mechanical
fuel injection in the corvettes as an option. For mass production it had to be
cheap and reliable. In 1967 it was neither.  And it was not reliable until GM
started coming out with electronic fuel injection in the late 70s early 80s.
For Triumph, North America was the market for sportscars, not the rest of the
World. The potential for a "black eye" and slow sales
 over service issues won out over performance.  Time proved McWillliams
correct. There were all kinds of fuel injection issues in the EU. It took the
company quite a while to sort out these issues. The Kimberly book goes into
this a little bit. Now a days we know how to make the Lucas PI system function
like it should but PI would have been a disaster in North America in 1968.
Instead it was a contained problem in a relatively small market.
 
John Cyg
70 Damson
CC52927LO

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From: Larry Young <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2013 13:27:18 -0600

I can agree with some of this logic, but the central issue is whether 
the PI system could have met US EPA regulations.  I think the answer is 
No. Were any other manufacturers using it on their US cars in '68? Fuel 
injection was a performance enhancement up until the later fully 
electronic (e.g. Bosch L-Jetronic) systems were developed.

On 1/13/2013 2:54 PM, John Cyganowski wrote:
> correct. There were all kinds of fuel injection issues in the EU. It took theW
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