I MODDED MINE

GRAEME WILLIAMS

Graeme bought his 1958 Sprite four years ago and, rather unusually for these pages, has actually detuned it. ‘The car had a 1275cc engine with a race cam, a Weber carb and a compression ratio of 11.7:1, so it was undriveable on the road,’ he explains. ‘Swapping the Weber for an SU HIF44 made a big difference, but fitting a thicker (2mm) head gasket to drop the compression ratio to 9.5:1 and installing a milder cam transformed it. Something else that helped enormously was fitting an Aldon Amethyst ignition system, which can be mapped via a laptop to suit the car perfectly. For more relaxed cruising, there’s also a 3.7:1 differential fitted.’