Car appreciation... the aesthetics, the engineering, etc

Dropping aero engines into pre-ww1 chassis is great fun but it is difficult to do well from an engineering point of view. i like to preserve the engine so it could go back into a plane (unlikely i know but some of the engines are getting very rare, particularly the big V8s and V12s). You also have to isolate the engine from all chasis flex and twist as they usually mount on very thin cast flanges. In an aircraft the plane tends to roll or pitch rather than send twisting forces through the crankcase. I have a V12 here that makes 900plus HP and more importantly 1200 lb/ft of torque at idle. it has a cast aluminium crankcase with a flat flange running the length of the engine on each side that is less than 20mm thick. if you bolt that to your pre 1918 chassis you will be expecting it to act as a stiffener for the front third of a very floppy steel frame!

The 39 car: Head is similar to the cast iron one. Fortunately we have drawings. Patterns are made in wood and resin. Lots of them. Some of them are for molding cores to go inside the head others give the outside shape. They all fit together like one of those old school wooden puzzles that you make into a cube etc. I think pattern design and making is some of the hardest stuff to get right that I have had to teach myself / learn to understand enough to talk to the guys that do it all day every day.

For actual casting we use NewPro Foundry in Hayes. brilliant attitude to nutters like me. Machining - I do it, some of it is done by a neighbour & friend who is a retired tool maker, other stuff gets farmed out to recommended specialists.

We are working to achieve factory power output - that's quite a bit, more than twice the production road cars. Also the factory cars were originally designed to last out Le Mans. By 1940 they would have been obsolete so long term durability was not an issue.

There are very few "modern" materials in my engine. Most of it is an exercise in blueprinting. I suspect some of our work will give greater long term reliability and or durability due to the precision with which thinks are being fitted. One of the problems with using old parts is that a failure (say a con rod) can be pretty catastrophic. So we have arrow rods and forged pistons. We are still on original compression, capacity and rev limits but we expect, even with hard racing, to get a few thousand miles between inspections. the rods are on modern shell bearings but the mains are old school white metal. We have added modern full flow oil filtration. The engine already had full pressure feed and an oil cooler but no filter. When I have raced cars without filtration in the past the only way I have got good bottom end life is to change the oil after every race meeting.I still do that with my vintage motorbikes. Having spent many £ks on this engine I do not see any point in not having a full flow filter.

Today's jobs : Decide how to go about making a new reproduction drop arm for the steering box - the old one and spares all showing cracks when magnafluxed.

I stripped down the water pump to check everything over. All looks pretty good, ordered new ball races (fortunately a common size). Now I have to work out if we can get a modern seal to stop it dripping water. The original system had a steel shaft running through a long bronze bush with grease being pumped between the 2 to stop water seeping out. I have yet to see a car on which this system reliably prevents water coming down the bush and on my engine when that happens it goes all over the ball races.