Quote:
Originally Posted by loki_the_glt
Much as I dislike contradicting the Honourable Laird, the 1600Ti had a twin-carb'ed 1600ohv engine; the Sunbeam Lotus used a version of the slant-4 DOHC 16-valve lump fitted to the HS Chevette.
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Yeah but no but yeah but..............
First, thanks for pointing out the Sunbeam Lotus indeed had a different engine - many people as i've already said referred to the 1600Ti as the Lotus Sunbeam - wrongly of course!
Now we get into a real grey area littered with landmines and other nasties to trip us up!
The Sunbeam used a Lotus Type 911 engine, loosely related to but not the same as a Vauxhall slant four :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_900_series#Type_911
The reason i say "not the same as" is because the slant four they were using at the time was the 1973cc unit from the FD Victor and Viva GT of the time. Chrysler wanted a bigger displacement so the Lotus block was used with a longer stroke among other things. The head was the 4 valve/cylinder twin cam unit developed by Lotus and used the Lotus designed block.
The original Chevette HS engine used the 2279cc Vauxhall slant four block with the Lotus 16v twin cam head., this was the Type 904.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_900_series#Type_904
However, FISA changed the homologation rules in 1978 and the Lotus head was no longer eligible for use on Vauxhalls slant four block so Vauxhall used their own 16v head originally destined for the road version of the Chevette and the HSR (Rally) version had an uprated version of it. As far as i know, Bill Blydenstein designed the Vauxhall 16v head and different cam configurations with different carbs gave very different power outputs.
The Lotus block was designed and built by Lotus from the start back in 1964 and the Vauxhall slant four was only used as a test mule by Lotus for their own 16v twin cam head, although this combination spawned the original Chevette HS version.
The Sunbeam Lotus used the Lotus designed block and head so was more true to being a Lotus variant than say the Lotus Carlton that used the Vauxhall/Opel 3.0 CIH engine as a starting block even though it ended up as a 3.6, 24v, twin-turbo brute.
The last slant four i had was a post-76 2279cc unit (so had the refinements/improvements to give 108bhp and 138bhp on single or twin Strombergs respectively as standard) but i had a trick head, cam, inlet and carbs on it. From what i remember (bought the top end set up from an outfit in Hunstanton called EPD) the head etc was a Blydenstein affair, big valves, gas-flowed, high compression, port-matched to the gas-flowed inlet manifold with brand new Strombergs jetted to suit.
The engine this little lot came from was dyno'd at about 240-250bhp (Can't remember the exact figure now, it was 30+ years ago) and the only real differences between my engine and that one was that one had a blueprinted bottom end and a four branch exhaust manifold (that was already sold or i would have had that too!) so the estimate of what my engine was producing with this lot on was about 200-210bhp. I know i could get the speedo needle back to 0 on the VX after fitting it and a tricked out Sierra XR4x4 with disco lights and go-faster stripes couldn't catch me - i left him going uphill while he was on the flat! Found out a few days later from the brother (a work colleague) of the driver of said Sierra that the Sierra was flat out at 145mph on the flat and i lost him uphill. After that i'm pleading the 5th!