1979 Triumph Spitfire Project

I prefer not to post until I have some quantifiable "thing" complete. That's good and bad. It allows the post to document a sub-project in a meaningful way. Unfortunately there are multiple things I've worked on that I haven't written up. I have a disassembled and cleaned Ford T-9 transmission sitting on a table in my basement. "Quasimotor" is a really cool full size engine mock-up I made to test fit the Mazda V6. My son-in-law Ken 3D printed a remote oil filter adapter model that I created in Solid Works. So there is actually a good bit of work that has been done but not documented here because it's "in process".  The plan for custom parts like the remote oil filter adapter, is to cast them in aluminum. Ken became interested in casting aluminum, purchased the equipment to do so, and has cast a few items. Very cool. But parts cast for use on the Spitfire will quite often need precision mating surfaces, meaning they will need to be machined....

My apologies that it's been a while since my last post. There was more time to write these in the winter months. Spring sprung and I became busy with lots of projects and activities. I have actually continued to work on Penny along with everything else, but writing posts has fallen to low priority. I always find it amusing when the subject of finding things to do in retirement comes up. In retirement, I'll finally have time to do perhaps 50% of the things I'm interested in. 😜 I'm going to give up on trying to write about, and post-date work done in the past. From this point forward topical posts will be dated when I publish them. The last post discussed removing the engine and transmission. Since then I've spent time on three general things, although everything currently relates to making sure the Mazda KLG4 V6 engine will fit.   Figuring out how to verify that the basic physical dimensions of the V6 will fit inside the engine compartment with reasonable accuracy. ...

(Written on 3/23/2022) A reader commented. "Would like to see a pic of that 2.5L". This is exciting because it means we actually have a reader. Well, here it is. Right side of the 2002 Mazda KLG4 2.5L V6 engine, which will be the back of the engine if it ends up in the Spitfire.   Left side of the engine, which with luck will be the front. As I said previously, I discovered the Mazda KLG4 2.5L V6 on a Miata forum. The engine has an aluminum block and cylinder heads to reduce weight. My understanding is that this is physically the smallest V6 engine manufactured. But as noted on the Miata forum it is neither small nor light with all of the "stuff" around those fundamental parts. So what one does is scrap all that stuff. The stuff is mostly intake and fuel injection parts. This will be replaced with aftermarket components if I move forward with this engine. Switching from the restrictive factory intake to the free breathing setup the Miata folks use increases the hors...