Gee, mjb writes on autocrossing a Spit. You may want to settle in and get
comfy, though I'll try not to ramble on too much.
What you are suggesting is pretty much exactly what I am doing with the
Killer Spit. Yes, you can take an earlier roundtail body and frame, and
drop in a 1500 motor and gearbox. I assume you would build it to meet the
SCCA DSP specs. If you've not already read the notes I've done for the
current car (well, current as of last season, I don't want to talk about this
season just yet!) send mail to majordomo@autox.team.net with nothing but
get triumphs junior_details.txt
as the body of the message. This article is not quite ready for publication
yet, though real soon now I'm going to edit it according to my wife's
proofreading and send it in to VTR along with a picture or two. Yep, any
day now, honest. But it talks about the car that I've been running, some
folks may remember it from VTR in Rockford last year. Killer will be just
like it, but a good bit faster, since it will be the same motor, gearbox and
diff in a car that weighs oen or two hundred pounds less. I'll leave it as
an exercise for the reader to calculate what percentage of 1725 pounds that
200 pound reduction will work out to. There may be other changes too. I'll
show you in Ft. Worth next July. The car WILL be ready and sorted out by
then. Well, unless I start mucking about with fuel injection systems next
season.
The Weber carb you have will fit right onto the 1500 head, no problem, as will
the exhaust header. The ports on both versions of the 1300 motor are the same
as the 1500.
For the rear suspension, I recommend you keep an eye out for a wrecked or
fatally rusted squaretail Spit in your area. If you can get the 1500 swing
spring and matching axles ( 1" longer, each, than the roundtail Spit units)
they can basically be bolted in to the early car. You may have trouble
getting fat tires under the stock roundtail fenders with the longer axles.
New, 1" longer handbrake cables are not too expensive, throw those on at the
same time. There are a couple of other details, nothing to serious. Not
like trying to add one of the swing springs to a GT6 with the Roto-flex!
Oh, the 1500 donor car should also have the fat 7/8" sway bar that should go
with the swing spring. If a certain twit gets off his but, there may be
some 1" bars available in the spring of '97 as well. And, come to think of
it, springs, too!
Further fuel for the imagination can be found in the various competition
prep manuals available in reprints, the Triumph Tune catalog, and these
mailing lists. Depending on your schedule, you might want to just slap
something together as soon as possible, and get a feel for what needs to be
done to the car once it is running. For instance, a limited slip diff
helps, but it really helps most if the suspension, wheels and tires are
already near optimum. If you put a $800 Quaife in a car with 155/80
Wal-Mart radials, you've pretty much wasted $800.
And speaking of spending money, the one thing that will have the most
immediate, visible and longest lasting results is the investment in entry
fees. In autocross, there is no substitute for seat time, and working on
learning the essential elements of the course from a few walk throughs.
Like, for instance, how that first sharp 90 degree left hander at this
year's VTR autocross could screw you up for the next few gates, the entry
and exit for the decreasing radius buttonhook at the lower corner and really
hurt your entry speed for the uphill climb. So, if you want to autocross,
go autocrossing a lot. A car with fat tires and gobs more power than the
stock unit will be useless in the hands of someone who has no idea what they
are doing. Like my run in John and Val's TR4 at VTR!
mjb.
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