Spit 1500 / FOX

[JohnD]

Oil cooler should ALWAYS have a thermostat!    Oil works best when it is is a little bit hotter than coolant, because any water that condenses from piston blow-by will not boil off and because that is where it is designed to be!   110-125C.     An uncontrolled cooler will soon get it down well below that!

John

[yorkshire_spam]

In my opinion the need for an oil cooler on a 1500 is highly dependent on how you use it.

I never found significant deterioration in the oil from "day to day" usage, but on runs like the RBRR and 10CR I found even high quality oils like Penrite or Valvoline degraded significantly when no oil cooler was fitted.

As @JohnD says, it should ALWAYS be fitted with a stat though. Mine is built into the take-off plate as I think it's a nice neat solution.

 

[Dannyb]

I did have a thermostat on the oil cooler. I'll probably put the oil cooler back before the next RBRR.

Danny

[WIMPUS]

We bought more spares...

And they fit into Fox 🫣

Both doors need some work, but not really to bad, already started a bit on one of them.

 

 

[WIMPUS]

Yesterday driving from work to home, she sometimes does at stops... 

But did had that 2 times before in the past days.

Double checked everything, even fuel pressures etc.

Eventually changed my very old Bosch coil (was on it when i bought Fox and done all of the 272.000kms i did! )

Put on a Lucas coil I had laying in my boot for 10 years.

Strangly it drives a lot better now.

 

Did measure both coils with a multimeter, both the same.

I did order a new blue Bosch one

[yorkshire_spam]

Those doors look in good condition! Coils do that sometimes - on the bench = fine. In use they start to fritz a bit before failing.

 

[WIMPUS]

41 minutes ago, yorkshire_spam said:

Those doors look in good condition! Coils do that sometimes - on the bench = fine. In use they start to fritz a bit before failing.

 

The door edges lock side are not to nice, both need some welding there.

[Tim Bancroft]

I used to own a Spitfire mk2. That car used to occasionally stop without warning, found that the coil retaining bracket was loose around the coil body and it was sliding backwards and therefore I was loosing connections. Schoolboy error!!!

[WIMPUS]

1 hour ago, Tim Bancroft said:

I used to own a Spitfire mk2. That car used to occasionally stop without warning, found that the coil retaining bracket was loose around the coil body and it was sliding backwards and therefore I was loosing connections. Schoolboy error!!!

Oh, thats not good.

Here it was still all tight.

But seems new coil fixed the issues.

Did order a spare blue Bosch one again.

[WIMPUS]

Done a winter classic car meet yesterday near Antwerp.

Parking was full !

And Fox was the only Spitfire there, but there was a Herald and a ex UK GT6 mk3 !

There was loads of interest in Fox.