On New Year’s eve, just as the whole world was due to collapse, Rennie and Tim dragged the Ro-Spit up to Asheville, N.C., and completely disassembled the car at Steve Eckerich’s Triple E Performance (phone 828-645-7850). Together they laughed, cried and cursed as—just one year to the day after it first ran—the Ro-Spit was completely taken apart again.
There are several reasons (other than pure insanity) for our decision to dismantle our baby.
First, with the help of SpeedSource (phone 954-481-8331), we are rebuilding the noisy tranny. Apparently the input shaft bearing is going south on us. We chalk this up to using old junkyard parts to begin with, not because of any stress that our 225-horsepower rotary is putting on the transmission.
Second, we are going to finally fix a pesky oil leak. Either our modified oil pan or the oil pan gasket is the culprit, and it has leaked since day one. With the engine finally back out, we can fix this correctly.
Third, thanks to Steve Eckerich and Wilwood (http://www.wilwood.com), we now have rear disc brakes. Our awesome rear disc brake conversion (also perfect for G Production Spitfires) uses carefully redrilled Fiat X 1/9 rotors and Wilwood Dynalite Single calipers. While only slightly lighter than GT6 drums, this setup will offer much better serviceability and braking performance.
Fourth, we really wanted to look everything over after the car’s first year on the road and track. We must say that despite the aforementioned problems, we are totally impressed by what we’ve seen, now that the car is disassembled. Nothing has cracked, stretched, warped or in any other way gone wrong in the entire chassis and driveline. Due to our careful design and judicious use of Thermotech (http://www.thermotec.com) heat shielding—possibly combined with some luck—we don’t even see any burned paint or heat damage anywhere on the chassis or transmission tunnel.
And last, but certainly not least, again thanks to Steve Eckerich, we have now designed a true independent coil-over rear suspension. The heavy transverse leaf that was restricting suspension travel has been replaced with Truechoice-built Koni double-adjustable shocks and Eibach springs (http://www.truechoice.com).
Look for the new and improved (and 100 pounds lighter) Ro-Spit at an event near you this spring!
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