A guy I knew used to be with the BMC Works competition group here in
Ontario, in the early 60's. Along with other war stories about how they
got Cooper motors to live, how the Sebring Austin Healeys were built and so
on, he told me about the life cycle of certain bits that let cars run as
well as they did in the bad old days...
They would life the rods and cranks of Cooper S engines at about 6
hours. Use 'em and toss 'em. Valve springs got one race. Clutches,
before they got the sealing problems of those funky early primary gears
worked out, would be changed every session. If you were running good in
Formula Junior, whole XSP engines could be persuaded to fall off the back
of the truck.
Man. he told some stories, but these had a ring of truth. He had a kind of
farm outside of Toronto, with barns full of stuff, and I found some pretty
amazing competition parts in there while looking for a few bits one
day. Dennis Prophet, for people who might remember him. I unearthed a
.040 over Cooper S 1275 block while looking for something else, and he gave
it to me...I still have it in MY barn :)
Part of the point of this is that we don't use the cars in the same way
that they were used, and reliability is an issue now that it wasn't then,
in many cases. Everybody's right, in this argument - roller rockers are
more reliable, they let valve guides live longer, and they let you make
more power if you take advantage of all of that. Guy running the Camaro at
Savannah told me that he lifes the top end of his vintage motors at 10
hours or so - I think he's taking advantage of something :) I sure got a
kick out of watching him put the binders on at the end of that long front
straight!
Brian
At 01:12 PM 12/20/01, WSpohn4@aol.com wrote:
>Damn - you mean that my buddy with the 970 cc Cooper S could have turned
>MORE than the 9500 rpm he used to use 20 years ago??
>
>Bill Spohn
>(1 MGA, 2 cams, NO rockers!)
What about the rocker arm front suspension I saw under those fenders?
Brian
Brian Evans
Director, Canada
MCI Wholesale Internet Services
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