I saw a Mini in the 70's with a Lotus twin cam head grafted onto an A-series block. Then somewhere there's a guy with Ducati desmo ohc heads on a Harley crankcase.
Logic never stops some people, I'm pleased to say!
I'm sure I heard somewhere about it being popular to fit BMW 16 valve motorbike heads to the A series block as the bores line up!?
The BMW bike heads are apparently an easy conversion as the water and oil holes all line up too to the a series block.
friend of mine builds these conversions for folk, and youre right, its not the easy job its made out to be by someeasy is a relative term..... three of the studs line up, sever need redrilling, most intersecting with other holes than need plugging first, none of the water or oil line up at all (99% of conversions dry deck and use external oil feed). Bore spacing is close, but not perfect, (gets better when the engine is taken +.080" to make 1380, as they offset bore them at that oversize) and you have to convince the a series that it would like to be an overhead cam engine, with cambelt drive and tensioners etc........ But yes, its 'easy' compared with some conversions!!
To be fair, you can actually buy a conversion kits with all the adaptors etc, but its still not exactly the bolt on conversion that some people would have you believe!!
Back in the 60-70's someone actually managed to get the lotus twink engine onto the mini box, was in a magazine years ago, but apparently handling was somewhat comprimised.....
Hi. At the NEC classic car show yesterday i saw a mk2 mini with a home brew 4 cylinder jag engine running the a series gearbox. Just under 3000cc!
I was trying to talk to the guy but it was too crowded.
Anyone know anything about it?
Thanks
BL did a twin cam A series engine I think there were 3\4 prototypes, the money ran out, we were offered a motor to try, as Midget we ran in the RAC National series was doing well it never turned up.
I saw a Mini in the 70's with a Lotus twin cam head grafted onto an A-series block. Then somewhere there's a guy with Ducati desmo ohc heads on a Harley crankcase.
Logic never stops some people, I'm pleased to say!