Most performance per $

[azruss]

how do you do this without ending up with just a shell,

To do it on the cheap, that's exactly what you end up with. You can go "rat rod" to get you there. If you want a finished car, then it runs into lots of dollars. glass hood, door, trunk lid, front fenders, carbon fiber interior, much lighter seats. When I first got my motor in, i took it for a test spin. the car had one seat, no interior, no doors, no hood, no trunk lid, no lights, bumpers, etc. It went like a bat out of hell.

[vandor]

This depends on the year, but here are two things that are cheap and will make nearly all Spiders faster:

1. Stage 0 tuning: make sure what you have works as good as possible. An hour on the dyno adjusting timing and fuel mixture can make a big difference.

2. Cold air induction. Cooler air always makes more power, but only the carbed Spider 2000s have fresh air plumbed to the engine. On any other Spider making sure the engine gets outside air will likely give 2-3% increase in power. A stock air filter getting outside air will make more power that a free flow filter breathing underhood air.

[MrJD]

Csaba... Are you saying you like the 79 air cleaner set up vs an open element lunchbox style filter?

[vandor]

Csaba... Are you saying you like the 79 air cleaner set up vs an open element lunchbox style filter?

Yes. I bet you dollars to doughnuts that the stock setup will make more power on a stock-ish engine.
However if you do a lot of mods the stock setup may start to limit max flow.

[MrJD]

Hmm.. I wonder if k&n makes a filter that fits it... That, smoothing out the flex lines that go to the filter box... And a bit of an airdam up front... Might work well. Going to be a shame to lose the carb sound that comes with the open element though.

[seabeelt]

Seat of the pants - read my post on adding the dual webers this past week to our 71 with a stock 1600. BEEK did a valve job two winters ago but that's all and just for ease in tuning I added Mark's Computronics electronic ignition. Man did it go from fun to drive to a blast to drive. It already has the stock 4-2-1 and since it's more or less pre smog, no cat, just the stock resonator and stock muffler. It already had a sweet exhaust purr, but now it has under the hood tiger roars. You can really hear the first half of the carb roar before the sound of the high revs take over. I think carbs and manifold (with three sets of air filters, all kinds of jets and some larger chokes - thanks Ralph ) cost me a little over $600, bought right here on he forum. I did the standard rebuild kits for both, set them to factory spec with respect to jet sizes for the 1600 ( posted numerous places here) and did absolutely nothing else. No lightened flywheels, alumnum pulleys, aggressive cams bigger domed pistons or changes in compression ratios. What a big difference in seat of the pants by just letting the engine breathe more air( and fuel )
R/