Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
save you money and stick with the standard needle you won't see any noticeable difference without a decent exhaust, carb and ignition set up.
Not true. My 1500 had a head skim/little bit of porting, fast road cam but std dizzy/carbs/exhaust and made 91BHP which I reckon is MUCH better than the std engines which "may" have been 75bhp on a really good day, more likely 70 if lucky (from previous experiences of testing engines on rolling roads std engines never make the power claimed by manufacturers). That is a minimum of 20% increase, but in all likelyhood nearer 30%. Pretty noticeable I would say.
The operator reprofiled the needles, something he had been doing for over 40 years for all sorts of cars, but mainly racing Minis (but a few E types and other such cars, some used at FoS and similar european race events). Sadly I think he may have retired now.
Anyway, the best solution is to find a rolling road operator who knows SU's (so mini/mg/triumphs etc)
Std needle for an early 1300 is ADM. This may help? Or give somebody like canley classics or Burlen
http://www.teglerizer.com/cgi-bin/needle090db.cgi
http://www.teglerizer.com/suneedledb/09 ... tjava2.htm
so a similar needle but more profile/richer at the top end could be ADL (but that is just by looking at a needle that is richer , so doubtful it would be correct!) OR you could just take the dashpot/piston assembly out, take a fine file and take a flat off the needle from about 1/2 way down. And then drive it, see if better, try again etc. Would be much easier with a wideband AFR gauge!
A shame the old minty lamb needle comparison site is still not working.....
To be fair the OP has a 1300, not a 1500. Doesn't the 1500 have a better flowing stock exhaust manifold than the 1300?
I am also interested where in the rev range that extra power came in? Not much use if it is at higher revs with a 1500, unless the engine is modified so the bottom end can survive.
my point is that the engine had the std carbs, manifolds and exhaust. The only changes (apart from a bit of balancing) was the head and cam. And 20-30% increase in power.
The power range was mid to top, I tried 9honest!) to keep it to sub 5500rpm, and the car was being used for PCT's, autotests, autosolos, 12 car rallies, targa rallies and trackdays. I remember one day being late for an autosolo, we were 4 up, and cruising at 100mph (satnav) on teh motorway. It was a 4.11 diff, with OD box.
It was a trackday at goodwood that did the crank eventually, 100+mph along the pit straight and a big end had enough. That was probably 5k of a very hard time. A couple of cranks later (one caused by a oil filter blowing off, crap repro stuff) the Kent cam was largely missing a lobe, and a couple of others were leaving. That is when I gave up on the OHV engines.
To be fair, there are very few people who give their cars such a hard time. If I were to do a 1500 again, I would use a TR5 profile cam, meant for more moderate RPM. But for similar money I have double the power and bombproof in my spitfire thesedays. And the TR7 lump now in the toledo is pretty resilient, but doesn't see the competitive stuff. Still has a hard life though, just not as many miles.