Sorry guys, but FNG here also posted this to the intro thread: OK, I'm a heretic. My first car was a 1959 Austin-Healey Bugeye Sprite, But before that, I couldn't get enough of hot rods and funny cars. So it just seemed natural to combine American power and Brit handling and style. I know all about what it takes to make a concours Austin-Healey, but I just can't get that hot rod urge out of my blood. http://forum.britishv8.org/read.php?13,8264 Any other cross breeds out there? Rick
Sounds like it will be a fun car. I just saw an Austin-Healey 100-six today that had a Toyota Supra turbocharged inline 6 in it...considering those things can be boosted to 1000+ hp I think he won't have to worry about not having enough power.
I just learned that the infamous ROVER V8 is pretty much a Buick 215. All Aluminum, in '64 the Buick 3.5L put out 200HP with 11:1 Compression and a 4barrel carb. That's almost a 1:1 ration for HP/Cu in. Pretty amazing.
And those clever Aussies took the BOP 215 and m***aged it into the Repco V8 which won the 1966 and 1967 Formula 1 ***les bolted to the back of a Brabham ch***is. Cheers, Kurt O.
yep, buick sold the tooling for the 215 to rover in the sixties. they produced them for a long long time, think they might even still be in limited production currently.
Yup! They're still using them in Range Rovers,albeit in a much modified form,and they're light too, they weigh about the same as a 4 banger Pinto motor.
Try Daimler Hemi , available in 2 flavors 2.5 liter & 4.5 liter , Iron blocks with Aluminum Heads. I have one of the 4.5 liters in my roadster they only built 2000 cars with the big hemi
HOLY XK 120. My FAVORITE Jaguar. I've owned 2 Jags, one in High School ('85 XJ6), and one a few years ago ('84 XJ6 w/ TPI 350) Have you seen the "Fluguar"? THat would be my dream sled.
The Daimler hemi is very much an underrated engine IMO. I know the 2.5, from Daimler's version of the Mk 2 Jag; But the 4.5? what was that fitted to? Thanks Rodney
hi , over here in england the most popular V8 is the rover V8 (215 buick) as they were fitted to cars , land-rovers ,range rovers , ambulance`s and postal delivery vans ! they are a lot lighter than Daimler V8`s being alluminium , daimlers cost a fortune even over here to reduild and improve , my car and my daughters rat rod staion wagon both have rovers, tho I could do with MORE power as mine is a heavy old boat........my friends g***er anglia also has a rover V8
here is a 5 litre rover/buick/tvr motor flat out.....these motors were built for the TVR sports cars.You can hear one coming down the road from a mile away...closest thing ever,along with the Cobras, to a factory hot rod.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ow4MlCv5i4I
The Big Daimler was in the Daimler Majestic Major sedan & Limousine 58-68 approx , same car the Queen had in the sixties, as all the Royal family have had Daimler cars. I have to agree that XK is a stunner .
Nzboss, larger Daimler Hemi was fitted to the big limos, Ole Lizzy Windsor has a reasonable collection of them. American V8 into British body has some history, AC Ace with Ford motor, Jensen with Chrysler, Lola with ford again, can be a marrage made in heaven, combining European cornering, with American straight line muscle. While V8's have never had the same level of m*** sales in the UK, and with the exception of the Rover/buick lump, tending only to be found in top of the range sports or limos, I could not claim a shortage of Top quality motors , Rolls Royce, Coventry Climax, Daimler, etc all made excellent V8's , even the dreaded Triumph OHC is a great unit if you ether sort the cooling problem or use the later Mk2. TVR have kept developing the Buick/Rover unit to the point where it has little in comman with the original other than number of cylinders, even the firing order has been changed and the whole way the crank throws are arranged, they are making big numbers of horsepower. The British may not instantly be ***ociated with a love of V8's, but hey if the queen collects Hemi's .......... good enough for me.
I know his last name is Fluegar, but being a Jaguar I often see it dubbed as the "Flueguar". An obvious blending of the two names. There is a picture on Flickr of him getting out of his Kat,l wouldn't you know it.....his SHOES ar Aligator skin...matched perfectly to the interior! NOW THAT IS NEW LEVEL OF KOOL! I'm imagining a pair of Doc's wrapped in blue metallic vinyl with white vinyl scallops......or maybe not.
Cheater mod in vintage racing for Dart/SP250s is to drop in the Big Motor. Most tech inspectors will never spot the difference.
I never knew Daimler made a 4.5 either. I know the Daimler V8's are supposed to be rare and expensive, but they due produce alot of power for a 2.5 litre engine, and they can be blown too, a****s other things. I like Daimler powered rods, they make a change from the norm sometimes.
I seem to remember reading an article many years ago on modifying the Daimler Hemi where they used pistons from Triumph Bonneville motorcycles to hot 'em up. Then again,I may have dreampt it!LOL Anybody confirm that? Mark
As much as I like British cars and Ford V8s it hurts to see a big Healey six pulled for the swap. But hey, it's your car.
Swweeeeet. I grew up working on Healey's in my old man's resto shop, my first car was a '56 100-4 done up to 100-M specs and a few extra's. I've seen a few conversions, but all were 100-4's. One was a 289, the other was a 350. The 289 Cobra 100-4 belonged to a customer, that thing was crazy fast. Hard to drive just back and forth around the garage, and the 289 was pretty stock if I recall. But a 2000 lb car doesn't need a ton of hp to be fast. My one piece of v8 healey swap info- make sure when you mount everything that you don't unintentionally rubber mount the entire engine/transmission combo. You'll notice under the x-brace on that austin transmission there's a mount that runs inline with the transmission with a bolt to the cross member. This keeps things from being completely rubber mounted in the fore/aft plane. The 289 Healey ended up without something like this after the swap to the v8 and ford transmission, and I watched the engine/transmission shift forward enough during an auto-cross to eat the radiator... The Austin-Healey itself almost had a v8 from the factory. During early negotiations Donald Healey had plans to outfit them with Buick nailheads. Deal fell through and Austin stepped up, but man would it have changed history if they'd had the nailheads when they hit the market! Good luck with the build!
My father-in-law did that deal. The Brits needed a little convincing that 'merica was larger than they could imagine, and that cars they exported the North America needed things like fuel tanks that held more than 10 - 14 gallons, V8 power, and air conditioning. The Wagoneer had a V8, but the Brits didn't think 4X4's needed that kind of power. So he built a V8 engined Land Rover 88" and shipped it to the factory; after they whooped a bigwig in little drag race versus an E-Type on a slick road (he was in 4wd hi-range) they started the Range Rover project - 1st production RR was in '72 BTW, and like a lot of good things, it took 15 years to get here. <<<<<-----I dropped a rebuilt Rover V8 with 400k miles into my latest project after a rebuild: it wasn't cheap, but the weight savings was outrageous: 30 days till 'fire in the hole.'
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