1975 Toledo 1300 upgrades

[Timothy Harwood]

Morning all,

After disappearing in a large cloud of white smoke a couple of days ago I will be stripping the top end to change the head gasket and was thinking of taking the opportunity to try and get a bit more performance.

Can anyone recommend anywhere in Kent that first can skim the head and convert it to unleaded, I wasn’t going to bother with the conversion as it does very little mileage but might as well as the head now has to come off, and possibly port and polish it.

I have read that a mk3 spitfire cam works well so might try that, or should I just use the standard Toledo one. I will also be using twin carbs when it goes back together.

Also where is the best place to get a new exhaust as it has seen better days and can you get a tubular manifold like they do for the spitfire.

Any advice greatfully recieved.

Thanks

Tim

[yorkshire_spam]

What sort of driving do you do? To be honest I'd consider swapping to a 1500 for a bit more torque. 
For cams, I haven't had a 1300 one, but I've been happy with the one I have from Newman cams

[Tim Bancroft]

Timothy, 

One can spend alot of money on a 1300cc engine. Probably the most sensible option would be too think about getting the basics done before starting to tune. 

Read this, full of great info:

https://www.teglerizer.com/triumphstuff/performancedata/III_whichengine.htm

As Toledo's don't have overdrive, I'd think about controlling coolant and oil temp and fit a bigger core to the radiator and a thermostatically controlled oil cooler.

Triumph's 1300 engine is very underrated and one can do so much.

[Clive]

The Dolomite club is ( I think) the only place to get a new exhaust. They had started making tubular manifolds too, but no idea how successful there are. 

However, you basic plan to improve the engine is sound. Get the compression to 9.5, and use a better cam, the mk3 spit is a good choice. A pair of SUs won't make a noticable difference to power. What may be better is a single SU HS6. 

[Timothy Harwood]

11 hours ago, yorkshire_spam said:

What sort of driving do you do? To be honest I'd consider swapping to a 1500 for a bit more torque. 
For cams, I haven't had a 1300 one, but I've been happy with the one I have from Newman cams

It’s pretty much a weekend car and only local runs really and like most people haven’t got an endless pot of money so a larger engine wouldn’t be worth the expense. If the head gasket hadn’t gone I would probably have left it as is but just using the opportunity to upgrade it a bit. 

[Timothy Harwood]

8 hours ago, Clive said:

The Dolomite club is ( I think) the only place to get a new exhaust. They had started making tubular manifolds too, but no idea how successful there are. 

However, you basic plan to improve the engine is sound. Get the compression to 9.5, and use a better cam, the mk3 spit is a good choice. A pair of SUs won't make a noticable difference to power. What may be better is a single SU HS6. 

Will have a look at the dolomite club if not I can get one made if I need to.

will definitely look at another cam but need to get head sorted first.

[Clive]

25 minutes ago, Timothy Harwood said:

Will have a look at the dolomite club if not I can get one made if I need to.

will definitely look at another cam but need to get head sorted first.

Ah, I see what you are getting at. If you were happy with the engine performance, a std skim/unleaded conversion  and pop it all back together 

But adding power is really a package deal. "Better" cam needs a higher compression, the Toledo is very low (8.5?)  so no harm it getting that up a bit even with the std cam. 

[standardthread]

On 06/09/2023 at 04:46, Timothy Harwood said:

Also where is the best place to get a new exhaust as it has seen better days and can you get a tubular manifold like they do for the spitfire.

 

 

Make your own exhaust, I did out of S/S for my Dolomite.

If you want details of supplier and how to do it message me.