What i work on when I'm not working on the Teggy

72Spitfire

Member
Thought I would post as I have a few minutes before I go to work. I purchased this car in 2001 at an auction. It had been sitting in a barn since 1983 and was a complete disaster. I did a complete frame off restore. It's where i learned to do body work, paint etc. It's mostly finished barring a few minor things.

I know this is an Acura forum and this is not an Acura, but I'm sure some others here like tinkering on cars other than Honda's. Maybe we can start a thread on it!

It's a 1972 Triumph Spitfire with a massive 1.2 liter engine :lol:. It's top speed is about 80 mph....not fast, but a joy to cruise back roads in the summer. And it handles like a slot car because it's so tiny and light.





 
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jdmjim

nothing from nowhere
thats really cool man, looks new. want to see a before picture. one of my customers had one he bought new,he wanted me to do a bunch of work to it but he died and i never got to see it. beautiful job man:thumbs up
 

Rx7driver4Life

New Member
You could drop a rotary in there and that little car will fly.

Here is my other car
1986 Mazda RX-7 With a Corvette LT1



 

96GSRteg

Tyler
im poor and in college so i cant do anything like that, but i think its every mans goal in life to do a restoration project like that. keep it up!
 

Teggy64

Got vtec?
needs some vtec... jk looks great, my dad's worked on a few of these, they're great little cars!
 

72Spitfire

Member
I only have a few of the "before" pictures due to a hard drive crash. Below is a pic before it was totally disassembled.



I quit my job and worked 14 hrs a day in my garage all winter. It snowed a lot, was pretty cool time. Just me and a friend, a few ZZ top records and a lot of time. By spring i had made a ton of progress, but was completely broke due to not working and having tons parts shipped from Britain. It took me another 5 years to "finish". (they are never really finished!) I actually spent an entire winter building an electronic ignition system for it using a Ford EDIS and coil pack and welding a trigger wheel to my crank pulley. I can drive around with my laptop plugged into it adjusting ignition curves. It's cool.:)
Below is a pic a few months later as it was going back together. Forgot how clean it was when everything was brand new and clean. :shock: They are only that clean once folks! Never again after you drive it.



Body work pic. Sore hands....I don't even want to know my sandpaper bill that winter haha.



The car currently does not run. It sucked a bolt through the carb and it lodged in the intake valve last fall. :???: I had the head rebuilt over the winter. I'm actually going to put it back together on Wednesday. Long job. I'll get it running, clean it up and take some proper pics and resurrect this thread in a month or so. Or maybe it will be 5 pages long with other people posting cool projects.
 
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72Spitfire

Member
Oh, and as for an engine swap. These cars are not very stiff chassis or body wise. I had no idea until after i had rebuilt it that the body flexed like a rubber band. Too dangerous to put big motor in unless you tore it all apart again and did some heavy bracing of the whole car. I've seen fools put small block Chevy engines in them which makes the front waaay to heavy. You want the weight split closer to 50/50. I know a guy in Britain with a Rover K Series swap in his. It goes 150 mph. I've seen a few rotary engine swaps also. Those old cars require alot of re engineering to handle the power of a modern engine.
 
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