[Healeys] New car!

[Quinn, Patrick]

G'day

It wasn't Denis Welch and it wasn't quite a diesel engine.

Years back Geoff Healey made no secret of his disdain for the C-series
6-cylinder. As most of us know when the DHMC was asked to experiment
with the new engine he was most dissatisfied with its power output. It
was only when he fitted a newly designed Westlake cylinder head and
triple dual-throat SUs into my car was he happy with it.

Some time later when BMC was looking around for an engine to replace the
C-series Geoff suggested that they revisit the 4-cylinder engine that
was originally fitted to the 100. Despite the initial negative response,
mainly due to the petrol version being no longer in production he also
suggested a few changes to the engine.

These changes included using the engine block and crankshaft from the
diesel version of the engine that was still being built for the Austin
Taxi. Being a diesel engine block meant that it was stronger to
withstand the compression strokes and the crank was nitrited, as in the
100S. Geoff also suggested that the block be decked or shaved to an
extent that the stroke be reduced to achieve a total capacity of 2.5
litres. From this he calculated that in standard form the engine would
rev to 6,000 rpm and produce around 150bhp.

Sadly this was not accepted by the powers that were in BMC at the time
as they went for a complete redesign of the C-series by Alec Issigonis
of Morris Minor and Mini fame. The result of that was a new 6-cylinder
engine with 7 main bearings and still with 2,912cc. That engine found
its way into the MGC which sadly was not the success that it should have
been.

Move forward many years and John Chatham decided to test Geoff Healey's
ideas on the 4-cylinder engine.

John built up a petrol engine using a decked diesel block, nitrited
crank, shortened rods and gas-flowed cylinder head. It easily revved to
around 6,000 rpm and without being overly stressed developed around
150bhp. My memory tells me that he reckoned that with further
development the engine would have quite easily developed 200bhp.

Hoo Roo

Patrick Quinn
Sydney, Australia

How about a "green" Healey? Drop-in a diesel and run it on
vegetable oil.

Years ago some (Dennis Welch?) put a London taxi diesel
4 cylinder in a 100. IIRC, it was pretty much a straight drop-in
(being similar blocks), with the difficulty being the change to
the diesel bits.

Good luck sourcing a 4-cylinder eninge, gas or oil burner.

--
Kent McLean
'56 100 BN2
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