A Minor Revelation (Pt2)

[Milton]

Before I prattle on, a bit more about “Leftie”.

Originally a 2 door saloon, she underwent professional major surgery in the 1990s to become a convertible and her 1098cc was replaced with an unmolested 1.3 Marina engine from “Grumpy’s” .(Presumably a garage located in a deep, dark forest near some mines?) She had been given disc brakes at the front, dampers all round and had been wax-oiled underneath. In addition her box section had been injected, and she had had a respray in Maroon B in the recent past.
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Now this may sound like I'm a bit of a grease monkey, but as someone whose background is in biology, only half of that statement applies. All the work described above was carried out before she came to stay with us north of Hadrian’s Wall by either people who wield spanners for a living or her talented, skilful previous owner. I had a few private emails with some folk here and chatted to some lovely people with mad, crazy eyes at a couple of shows, but that was it. As a result, when I went to see her and had a test drive, it was heart not head which saw me dig out my wallet and not even haggle over the price.

I'm not quite sure why I bought her 8 years ago. Since then I have believed that my actions were part of the proverbial mid-life crisis! I knew next to nothing about cars and there was almost no history of Minor ownership in the family. It made no sense to have a classic car taking up crucial space in the garage of a then young family, nor to spend the money acquiring one. And yet that’s what I did.

(One final bit to follow but no omnibus Louise! You've done well if you've got this far!!)

[bmcecosse]

Although it is a 1.3 engine - it's being horribly strangled by a standard Minor 1.25" carb.........which is already too small for even the 1098 engine !

[rayofleamington]

the 1.25" carb is actually not that bad on a 1.3 - don't believe the hype! I have tried it.

and Grumpy's was a fairly well reputed Minor specialist - during that time period they were based somewhere near Evesham
They moved again (in a northerly direction) but didn't last many years after the move

[bmcecosse]

Come on Ray - Leyland realised the 1.25" was too small even for the 998 engine and firstly fitted it to all 998 autos, and then to all 998s to get extra oomph.... It just can't pass enough air to allow a 1300 to develop it's full power potential..... And while a 1.5" carb is fine for a standard 1300 - if you want more the first job is to upgrade to a 1.75" carb - HS6 or HIF 44.

[chrisryder]

The Wolseley 1500 had a single HS2 as standard... but I do wonder if that was to deliberately reduce performance!

[bmcecosse]

No - it was just such a pathetic engine in the first place! But true enough - in the Riley version it had 2 X 1.5" carbs (don't get too excited - really only equal to a single 1.5" carb due to the ghastly manifold...) but was more 'sporty' nevertheless.

[charlie_morris_minor]

grumpy's were, for a while, just of the Oxford ring road

[ASL642]

Then I think they went up to Todmorden, Yorks before closing the business. ESM seem to stock a lot of their modifications these days.

[smithskids]

the HIF 44 is great on a warm 1275cc. my pickup goes from 25 mph to over 70 in 1 gear with rimflow valves and a 270 cam smithskids.

[irmscher]

Iain you need to slow down

[Cam]

Although it is a 1.3 engine - it's being horribly strangled by a standard Minor 1.25" carb.........which is already too small for even the 1098 engine !

Well... Like Ray, I ran an under carb'd engine for a while. 1380cc, big valve head, 10:1 compression, 276 Kent cam, LCB manifold, alloy inlet and ONE HS4 from a Mini 1000! Mind you I did change the needle for a AAM and it ran great, in fact when I changed to a HIF44 I did notice a slight DECREASE in low down torque although the top end was improved a bit. Not massively but noticable, but that was at 7000 RPM and wide open throttle.

In fact, from memory I think Vizard's book gives a comparison graph and it pretty much bears out what I experienced, including the better torque from the smaller carb.

I think the general rule of thumb is that the smaller carb will deliver just as much as the larger carb until the air demand gets so great that the diameter of the smaller carb starts to restrict things, but in practice that does not seem to happen as soon as you'd expect.

Of course all this is assuming that each carb is properly set up.

[bmcecosse]

Indeed - but a single 1.5" SU is capable of a LOT more air flow than a 1.25" !! And presumably it was on a 'decent' manifold - which would make it very much the same as 'twin 1.5" SUs ' which are acknowledged to be capable of over 100 bhp on an A series.