In the past, I fell victim to the attraction of being a pioneer, in that eternal quest for the top step of the podium. Let me tell you about my pioneering blunders.
The first was when I was a works driver for British Leyland in Australia. It was 1970 and my MGB was consistently coming second to a three liter Austin Healey 3000. Rumored to be larger than four liters, he just had too much power. The B was 1.8 liters, but the additional horsepower we would get from bringing it to two liters was not enough.
It was then I got my master plan. The engine regulations of the day said you had to maintain the manufacturer’s block and crank – everything else was free. My pioneering concept was to graft a twin overhead cam head on the MGB block.
We sourced an MGA head, thinking it would bolt on. It doesn’t – an MGB has an 11 stud block, and the MGA is a 10 stud head. Answer, re-stud the block.
The next issue was the chain drive to the overhead cams. To lubricate the chain we had to drill into the oil ways at the front of the block, and then extend the crankshaft nose to take the gear for the chain. That hurdle cleared. What was next?
Next was the fact that the side camshaft in the B is driven by a chain from the crankshaft, so same direction of rotation. In the T/C A (known as the jackshaft) it is driven by gears from the crank, so opposite direction of rotation. And you can’t just throw it away, because the gear-drive for the oil pump is on it, so you are driving the oil pump backwards! That took us two days to work out and overcome, remembering that the oil pump lives in the sump, not externally, so you have to pull the engine out every time. Fun.
Now, after we got it running, the next problem came from the generous increase in horsepower. I was correct in that it did give us the horses needed, but what it then did, was to systematically break everything from the flywheel bolts backwards, all the way to the half shafts! In that season (1971), we set lap records at every circuit we raced on – and had a finishing record of 50 percent. It destroyed seven engine blocks as it dropped valves with monotonous regularity. The pioneering spirit brought my season undone.
Of course, once a pioneer, always a pioneer. In 1980 I was racing a Ford Escort Mk1, in the Australian sports sedan class. A few glass panels and some engine work and that was it. The Pinto engine was bullet-proof and I had a good season, but there were too many Mk1 Ford Escorts. I had to do something to elevate myself above the others.
My plan was to build a totally space-framed Escort, with the engine back as far as would be allowed and to run a wing. Not only did the pioneer decide to do this rather radical step for 1980, but to make it even more radical, it was decided to build two of them, one for my friend John English, and one for myself. These we ran as a team for the largest Ford Dealership in Australia.
Now you have to understand nobody had done this before, and then to compound our problems we decided to run Mazda 12A rotary engines, throwing the unreliable Ford T/C engines away.
This was not an easy engine transplant as the extremely hot exhausts run on the driver’s side of the car, and we were getting fried all the time. In desperation we had quilted asbestos made for the tunnel, but we did not know in those days, that the asbestos was probably more dangerous than the racing.
However, the pioneering spirit continues, and our SR 20 Turbo engine that was shoe-horned into the racing Securitas Escort Mk 1 has given us a substantial power boost, but also a substantially greater number of problems! But we will continue.
No, the road for the auto pioneer is not an easy one.
