'80 Spitfire

[Smokescreen]

A friend of mine's dad has a Triumph, a 4-speed with I think a 1300, and it has been sitting in his warehouse for about 20 years. I runs, but needs a battery, new tires, new carpet. It only has around 40K miles, and I was wondering how much it would take to make it nice enough to be a decent daily driver. It only has around 90HP, any cheap engine swaps that could boost it to around 150?

[unixrevolution]

A friend of mine's dad has a Triumph, a 4-speed with I think a 1300, and it has been sitting in his warehouse for about 20 years. I runs, but needs a battery, new tires, new carpet. It only has around 40K miles, and I was wondering how much it would take to make it nice enough to be a decent daily driver. It only has around 90HP, any cheap engine swaps that could boost it to around 150?

Try it with 90 before you go swapping engines. Triumphs aren't fast, but they're TONS of fun. Plus you lose the flavor of it being a Triumph Spitfire. You could probably get it running for $500-1000, and to make it really nice would take about 2-3 grand. by my estimates anyway, YMMV.

[Juggs]

my friend has a late 70's (i think) triumph tr6. its a little yellow convertable. its a blast! its decently quick (its got a couple mods on it like some dual weber carbs) but its just a blast to drive.

[Matra et Alpine]

90 ? out of the original 1296 ?
Unless you've a "79X" works race engine that's a stretch

At an absolute push you might get 100 if you tweak everything and don't mind a very peaky, horrible off-cam engine

You could put in a later 1500 Spit engine - needs different clutch IIRC. But you're still short of yoru 150 goal and even tuning woudl be a stretch to reach it. Superchargin might but then you're WAY off "original".

As already stated, have soem fun driving it enthusiastically using the very free-revving 1296. It delivers performance to match the handling. Puttin g LOTS of power in and the limits of the chassis are going to become VERY evident

[johnnynumfiv]

Lol, no way there is 90hp coming out of that. As matra said, it'd take some serious motor work to get 100. A possible swap is a RX-7 13b, I'm doing one this spring.

[cmcpokey]

that sounds awesome johnny.. which gen rx7 is the donor? i would imagine a gen1. such a shame such a beautiful car losing its soul, but it will find a good home.

personally, if i had a 1980 with 40k, i would try to keep it as original as possible. and any restoration would be to original specs. such as the 1981 rx7with 42k i will be getting. i wont be taking it far from original, just some upgraded suspension.

[johnnynumfiv]

Either a mid 80's one with some work done to it, or a early gen turbo. I'll probably just buy a front clip from some jdm company or find a local place to get a good quality engine.