I remember doing an electrical job for a guy in Carlingford in Sydney late '80's/early'90's. He said his car was a SP 250 - D. What's the "D" for? I drove it back to his house. Felt like I was driving Maxwell Smart's Sunbeam Alpine on steroids. The fella had one stock restored car, and a modded race version. I thought it was a great little machine. I remember him telling me all about them, but time has passed, and I don't remember much of what he said, except that he was right into them.
I have posted these pix elsewhere but not here - so here goes. This is my Majestic Major 4.5L punched out to 5 litres and is allegedly the hot rodded engine that was dropped into a Jag Mk X in the 1960s and was acquired from Ron Beaty. Here's a little history of the big Daimler being dropped into a Jag Mk X: Developing the beast Meanwhile in this pre-energy crisis world, fuel was still relatively cheap and a horse power race broke out in the USA as manufacturers built more and more powerful engines with larger capacities. Jaguar was in danger of being left behind. The company had two choices: develop what it had or build an entirely new engine. When Jaguar had bought Daimler in 1960 it had inherited a failing car range, but two excellent overhead valve V8s of 1959 vintage designed by Edward Turner. The first was a 2.5-litre unit producing 140bhp and 146lb ft torque, more than the equivalent 2.4-litre XK engine. Further more, when slotted into the Mk2 bodyshell to produce the Daimler 2.5-litre V8, it produced a faster car than the smaller engined Mk2 2.4, and in the opinion of most critics, a more refined car. The second was a 4561cc V8 which produced 220bhp at 5500rpm and an impressive torque figure of 283lb ft at 3200rpm. This V8 was fitted to the Daimler Majestic Major which was in production from 1959 to 1968. Sales of the latter were low but it could match the Jaguar MkX for top speed and beat it on acceleration quite handsomely. The logical next step was to try and fit the 4.5-litre V8 into the Zenith bodyshell to create a Daimler version of the MkX, which was duly done. Physically the V8 fitted into the engine bay quite easily, and ex-development engineer Ron Beaty recalled how it performed. ‘It lopped six seconds off the 0-100mph time, and that was with square cut exhaust manifolds and an air cleaner you wouldn’t put on a lawnmower. It buzzed around MIRA all day at 133/134mph in the hands of anyone who happened to be about’. Around this time Jaguar Technical Director William Heynes wrote to chairman Sir William Lyons on the subject of the larger Daimler V8: ‘There is no question that the horsepower can be brought up by redesign of the valve ports. At the same time I feel it is desirable to increase the capacity of the engine. I have therefore arranged with Daimler to revise the design to bring the capacity up to five-litres which, with revised valve ports, should produce 280/290bhp at 5000rpm with a 30% increase in maximum torque over the Jaguar 3.8 engine. The unit in this condition would give a satisfactory alternative unit for the Zenith (MkX) and also a satisfying performance in the big Daimler saloon’. In the event the company decided not to proceed with a Daimler V8 version of the Zenith saloon. The official reason was that the the Daimler production line was not tooled up for quantity production, but it had no trouble supplying demand for the smaller 2.5-litre V8. Perhaps the real reason was one of prestige. A 5-litre Daimler Zenith would have embarrased the XK engined Jaguars in the performance stakes, Jaguar’s engine designers also had a blind prejudice against the V8 configuration, which they thought could not match six and twelve cylinder for refinement and they thought they could design a superior V12 engine. In the event it took until 1996 for Jaguar to produce a V8 engine, the superb AJ26, which in 2009 was enlarged to 5-litres.
The 4.5 litre Daimler is physically bigger than the 2.5 litre. The former is about the size of the Dodge 315/325. The 2.5 litre is really small. I have both types and have measured approximately as follows - the length is overall water pump snout to back of block and the width is the widest point across the heads: 4.5 L 27" L x 26" W 2.5 L 23 5/8" L x 23.5" W The visual of a Daimler 2.5 intake next to a SBC intake gives the real perspective as to how tiny these are. They are actually considerably shorter than a Chevy V6. I am putting a 2.5L into a 1933 Willys Model 77 and the engine is only 3/8" longer than the stock Willys 134 ci 4 banger....
Was one of these Green by any chance? It sounds like Nick Pitsinos - My Dad who is currently in the process of putting one of the 4.5L's into his SP250 (thanks LimeySteve!) knows him well
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