Man I love your video. From Mississippi in the United States. I’m a southern man who loves British cars and your video is remarkable. Thank you for taking the time to produce it.
New subscriber here from the US. My son and I are on the hunt for a 1968 Spitfire and are in the process of purchasing one.I have been watching a lot of your videos and really appreciate the work you have done and while I prefer the looks of the original Spitfire, I really appreciate and respect your desire and work done to customize your car to your liking. It really does look cool, I like what you've done with it and like you said, it's your car, who cares what other people think! Keep up the good work and keep the videos coming! Cheers!
A lovely example you have here. I'm seriously thinking of getting a Spitfire. I'm here getting some info on such things, wondering what model/age I should get.
@@stormcup2920 I've never used spacers so cant really comment. possibly a good way to replace the wheel studs though. Something you'll need to do if fitting alloys
I owned one for 29 years. Literally rebuilt the engine on top of my work bench. I had the head rebuilt with hardened valve seats for unleaded fuel. They called it a 1500, however it was actually 1493 cc. The biggest improvement I made was replacing the stock Zenith carb. with a Weber side draft. Another improvement was replacing the breaker point ignition with an electronic unit. The reliability was vastly improved. Fun little car that got thumbs up all the time.
They are MGF 15". I *think* they are 185/45's. No issues with rubbing but i wouldn't go any bigger. Some people put travel stops on their steering rack as the Spit has a lot of steering travel
i may just do the same thing. next vid lets see how she is under hot conditions out on the road. hard acceleration, moderate acceleration and constant cruising 60mph.
Great video. Nice car too! Just found your channel so I will be interested to see how it helps with tuning and monitoring. I like the idea and may well fit one to my '74 Viva HC. I like the idea of knowing what the actual figures are. The old school ways have always felt like guessing to me as someone who also doesn't really know what to listen/feel for 👍🏻
I have a Vitesse and the stocimetric ratio is 14.7:1, what I find fascinating is the the ideal distance from the centre of the bore to the lips of my triple Weber Carburettor trumpets is 14.7 inches! Because my Webers need high volume and low pressure fuel supply, and I have Facet electric pumps, I have installed a digital fuel pressure gauge, it is much better than any of the old analogue gauges I have found, because it reads out in large red numbers, and the old gauges with needles are all made for much higher pressures than my system experiences - to keep my car looking original I have hung the digital gauge under the dashboard
Hi, thanks for the video. I have my AFR gauge and am about to install it. Will you be doing a follow up video on the ensuing carb tune and testing so we see the results of tuning on the gauge?
i put a usb socket with a digital voltmeter readout in mine that's the size of a 12v cigar lighter. You could put one of them in between the two gauges and use the original voltmeter hole for the afr? thanks for vid - i'm considering an AFR :)
Interesting,but too much for me colour tune is perfect and (relatively) cheaper. Thanks for the video like your approach to solving the numerous issues with classics.
all my spitfires are fitted with cardboard deflectors to ensure sufficient cold air. they are there for a purpose. as is the original air filter cover with th hoses ensuring cold air flow to the carbs.
It might be interesting to know that on a traditional Mini 998cc the inlet and exhaust manifolds were cast together as a single lump. Obviously they did not consider inlet heat to be a problem. Probably heating of the carb itself could be more of an issue which is why the spacer blocks were usually plastic
don't worry about the manfold getting warm. on single manifolds on spitires and heralds triumph found that the manifolds would get wet inside. fuel droplets from SU and stromberg carbs are larger than in carbs such as webber. the wetting issue wasn't the case with twin carb manifolds only singe ones. so triumph put the coolant tube in as it helped warm the manifold up earlier during cold start. this prevented inlet runner wetting and benefited in a better mixture for the engine. getting so hot you can't touch it, is not good imo.... but warm to touch is just right. in north america we have a much worse pathetic single inlet manifold and they get warm to touch as well. the carb should be cold and some use bakelite spacers to isolate heat. but you mention your carburetor is cold - so good to go. on mine i have a new rebuilt HS6, modified for non angled mounting. but i have never run it on my spitfire. you can after a bit more driving check sparkplugs for colour. i found a good tuning tool is something called colortune. which of course i lost mine.
Leave the heat wrap on, even if the intake is touching it in a few spots! If you grind more intake material off, slide a thin piece of metal shielding over top of the wrap, not touching the intake. That's the best you can do.
I love that you’re not afraid of experimenting, and doing what you want to do rather than what others think you should do. All the British phrases along the way are just icing on the cake!
The exhaust wrap works great but stinks when you run the engine and it drys out! I done a few motorcycles with it. It works great! I am planning on doing the same to my Spitfire!
Same here, wrapped lots of bikes but never a car. It does stink like mad for awhile but eventually burns away. Sure keep’s temperature down though. Sitting on a bike with wrapped pipes proves that!
My 1st car was a 1964 in 1966 triumph spitfire. Handled very well and was slow. it was the pale yellow with black interior. they had, later, a metalic yellow later, I didn't like it. And it was a lot of fun to drive compared to american cars. But after awhile I totaled it, which didn't take much and went with a 1960 PV 544, the best all around car I ever had.
4 years rebulding mine... I will never get my money (working hours) back but I don´t care it was a big lesson learn, rebuilding this spit was acknowledg a bit of car history - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-gfX-tX69zww.html - thanks for your videos, keep the good work!!!
Yes, for a few minutes the water heats the manifold. Here in Canada, when it's-40C its necessary on highway trips to keep ice from forming inside the intake. BUT for driving in England I doubt you'll need that. It's just my opinion, but I think the close contact between intake and exhaust will really heat the intake. It is known that a cool intake is better than a hot one as far as combustion efficiency is concerned.
I know this is an old clip, but if you're still reading comments I thought I'd say something about that dampness you felt at the top hose. That temp switch sensor tube is not supposed to go under the rubber hose, there is no way it will seal up ( unless you put some silicone around the tube where it enters the rubber??) and the tube might get crushed....the sensor is just supposed to lay on top of the hose. Wrap it on with metal foil. Yes, it won't get as hot as when it's inside the hose, just turn the activation temp lower. Oh ya, there is no mercury in the sensor it's just air pressure.
I wish I had encountered your video earlier...I am taking the single carb and manifold off my car and I'm searching for a dual carb setup! Just one word of amateur mechanic opinion, I suggest you grind off as much metal on the intake and exhaust as possible and install heat wrap on the exhaust; if there's room add a heat shield. The water tube you ground off served to cool the intake manifold. I fear your new intake will be really hot on a road trip.
The water tube is to HEAT the manifold and stop it from icing on cold days. The water comes directly from the engine, before the thermostat opens, so it's definitely intended to warm.
see told you this is the way to go. one all the tuning is done you should see higher torque and crisper throttle response. that manifold is excellent up to forty five hundred rpm then hits a stop sign. runner diameter. you can use muriatic acid to open the inlet runners up - carefully..... but i wouldn't bother. once you're all tuned up and if you're happy with the conversion - you can sell your dual set up for lots of money to USA and Canadian owners.
You should just get a single carb and manifold from a US car. I’m sure there are many lying around in people’s garages. Would have to figure out how to get it there
us single carb version won't work with euro exhaust manifold. and the two ninety degree bends are terrible. also the single usa version has peashooter runners. they are too small.
For the throttle cable, bicycle shops are great. I made my own for my daily Spit 1500 10 years ago. Back then I bought 2 new standard Spitfire ones and both where a nightmare (binding etc).
You may have all this sorted by now but...do consider the electric fuel pump add on. Use a switch so that you can cut it off. The problem is that modern fuels boil off at a much lower temp than the fuels back in the 70's. So what happens is your fuel evaporates from the lines, bowls etc after you drive it and shut down. So you try to start with no fuel in the carbs. So you turn on the electric pump, then go to start, once running cut the electric pump off you don't need it until you need to restart. Hope that helps.
