So how long does it take a Polish software engineer to swap an engine?
- four weekends to clean out the garage...
- two weekends to unseize all the nuts and bolts which hadn't been
touched in 14 years
- 1 microsecond to realize that if I yielded to shipwright's disease
and started detailing the engine compartment I wouldn't drive the
car this summer...just DO it
- One weekend of fussing with two different Stromberg CD carbs
- One weekend to put on the Weber downdraft kit...
My '79 Midget had thrown a rod, and I swapped in a spit 1500 engine/tranny.
The engine is finally in and it is SWEET. 9:1 compression, Weber DGAV
with Pierce manifold, header with Ansa exhaust, and it VROOMS. Somebody
on the list once said that a 40% increase in power would definitely get
your attention. This is only about 25% more (55bhp -> ~70bhp), but it feels
great...plenty of power through the gears and out on the road.
For anyone contemplating this swap, the engines and non-overdrive trannys
for the Spitfire 1500 and Midget 1500 really are identical except for some
of the external bits. The mounts and brackets are different, but they bolt
to the same places on the block. The thermostat housings are different.
The spit used an electric fan, so I had to use the waterpump/fan off my
old engine. A lot of this stuff probably varies as much year-to-year
within a marque as across marques, especially intake manifold and carb
linkages and smog stuff.
Most of the grief was of the 'getting this @#$&* off would be so easy
if I just had an impact wrench' variety. (I don't have electricity in
my detached garage.) The one nasty surprise was that the shifters for
the spit and midget are backwards. You don't want to find this out after
the engine/tranny is back in, and when you shift your knuckles ram into
the radio. Doing a 180 on the little ring bracket that holds the gearshift
in place saved the day.
I still have to sort out some tuning problems and flat spots and would
appreciate any advice from SOLer's who have done the Weber DGV conversion.
The instructions (if you can call them that) which came with the kit
said to set the timing to 13 BTDC and to NOT use the vacuum retard line
to the distributor. The engine pinged too much (on 92 octane) at this
setting, so I tried 8 BTDC and that's OK. It's great when it's cold,
but after a long run, the engine runs really hot, I have to blip the gas
at idle, and there are power lags at some speeds.
I'm running 12NY's (correct heat range) and distributor pickup is set
correctly at .015". Should the vacuum line really be off? If anyone has
been through all this and got it dead nuts I'd like to know what your
tuneup parameters are and what you went through to set it up right.
timd@ptltd.com (Tim Dziechowski - Phoenix Technologies - Cambridge, Mass)
'79 Midget new engine, Weber, & it vrooms!
|