Catch up #1 Big Holes !

So, a bit of a delay since the last posting. But I'll try to get caught up now.

With the seats fitted, the car was ready to go for the cage fitting but I then had a bit of a delay. The first company who agreed to do the cage came up with a massive estimate for the cost and a very long delay until they could start. The second company came up with a better quote but kept putting off the start date (I was waiting on a week's notice for about 2 months with them) so I went to a third company. In the end it was the 11th of July before work started a good 6-8 weeks behind plan.

So, with work on the car itself a little stalled, attention turned to the motor.

It was reported to me that the motor had been stripped and checked over by the previous owner during the restoration work but as I'm going to be flat-out around the track, I needed to check it over for myself.

First the intake and rocker covers came off and the very good news was that the casting numbers for the heads suggested it should have big valves and with the covers off I could see that the heads also had pushrod guide plates fitted already.

Once the heads came off, I got a look at the bores...

For anyone brought up on small capacity European motors, the sight of a 4 inch bore is a bit of a stunner, these are some huge holes!

A closer look showed more good news. The block has been bored out to +0.060 and the cylinders bores look to be in very good condition. Also, the pistons are high compression types which with the nominal head volume should give at least a 10:1 compression ratio.

And things just kept getting better with the inlet vales turning out to be the slightly bigger 2.08" rather than 1.98" diameter (like a small saucer on a stick!).

That unfortunately was the end of the good news. Despite plenty of oil in the bores and my biggest extension bar, the engine could not be made to rotate.
After a little delay I decided to crack off the main bearing caps, then with a little 'tap' the crank un-froze from the bearings and spun. Taking the main caps off completely showed an amount of pitting on the crank and a bit of scratching of the bearings. I think that having been left so long, the crank had started to corrode to the bearings, possibly due to moisture getting in. Long story short, the crank was going to need treatment. But if I was going to take the engine so completely apart, shouldn't I look to uprate it just a little bit?

More on plans for the minor warm up of this power unit in future blogs!