Took my car to have the engine set up properly on the dyno this morning.
When it was new, the mk1 Vitesse engine was supposed to have 95bhp at 5,000rpm and 117lb/ft of torque at 3,000rpm, and I was hoping for something close to that...
First power run with the settings where I've had them for the last couple of months gave a figure of... 65bhp
The man with the spanners, well, a wireless keyboard actually, then made some adjustments, setting the ignition advance to 13 degrees btdc and leaning off the mixture a little.
Result? The best we could get was 79bhp at 4,455rpm and 106lb/ft of torque at 2,975rpm. Much better, but not quite what Triumph intended.
The chap who runs the dyno says the Strombergs aren't supplying enough fuel to make any more power above 4,500rpm, and it would benefit from a head skim to raise the compression ratio.
Bearing in mind that it's supposed to have had a lower compression, unleaded cylinder head fitted, that's not a bad result. To put it into perspective, the mk2 Triumph 2000, which effectively ran the Vitesse engine with lower compression, produced 84bhp and 100lb/ft when it was new.
My options now are:
Leave it as it is;
Have the head skimmed;
Fit a pair of 175 Strombergs;
Switch to fuel injection.
To be honest, 79bhp on the road feels plenty in a car that only weighs around 600kg's. Now it's set up properly it picks up speed much more easily and there's enough torque for it to storm away from less than 30mph in top. I think I'll leave things alone for a while as it's really nice to drive as it is, but I do have a spare engine in the garage that I might just rebuild over winter with a few modifications...
