2k: Triumph:1976 Triumph Spitfire Mk IV with Yamaha R1 Power
The Triumph Spitfire was a light weight sports car built in Britain from 1962 to 1980 in four generations. Power came from a number of small low displacement inline-4 cylinder engines, but the chassis is competent and looks good with the early style bumpers and a bit of lowering. Shoving a superbike engine into front of a Spitfire is a surefire way to build a hot rod that’ll kill you quicker than you can say “drum brakes!” Find this 1976 Triumph Spitfire Mk IV with Yamaha R1 power for sale in Carver, MA for $2,500 via craigslist. Tip from Art C.
This craigslist ad could be better, but in the blurry photos we can see what looks like a Mk IV Spitfire with an intake sticking up through the top of the matte black hood.
It is supremely disappointing when a swap like this doesn’t include a single under hood photo, but the R1 is powered by a 1.0 liter superbike engine that puts out something between 150 and 180 horsepower depending on model year. This is a considerable bump up from the stock 63 horsepower iron boat anchor.
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Hard to get a pile of tickets any cheaper. Would like to see it in person.
Hey, even better than the concern about drum brakes, the ad says this one has NO BRAKES. Also, no reverse. Sounds like a perfect car for a lemming.
Man, that is one tall bike engine. I used to wrench on bike-powered Formula Four race cars, and they were way more compact.
Bobinott
I used to have a spitfire, it was a good candidate for a bike engined car. It probably lost 200 pounds in this conversion.
When a Spitfire's brakes work, it's hard to tell. They weren't boosted so the conversion wouldn't make a difference to the brakes. It was easy to push the car around, not having reverse would be annoying but not too much. I can almost smell the clutch burning with this one. You'd probably have to rev it to 10k and drop the clutch to get it moving at all.
My thinking for the bike engined Spitfire was to use a horizontally opposed Goldwing/Valkyrie 6. It doubles the horsepower, and has more torques than the R1. The Goldwing itself is half the weight of a Spitfire so the engine is somewhat designed for the weight. The Goldwing also uses the starter for reverse and is shaft drive so it may be easier to adapt to the car.
I wonder how the drive train works, very interesting build.
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