Morris Minor Owners Club

Has anyone ever done this conversion using BMW motorbike head??
Ian.

That has got to be the most bizzare post I have ever seen on this site.

Can you explain the link between the two please?

People bore 1275s out to 1380, fit 2litre Fiat Twincams and fit the occasional Rover 3.5. So why not! The mini lads are doing it, are they any better than us? It just seems the ultimate power modification and a real challenge.
OK i know the purists wont appreciate it , but the likes of Cam. the Beardmores and Plastic Orange may do.
Ian.

It is always good (and fun) to see people's ideas. This sounds like a nice mod albeit a bit dificult I think

err... I'm not sure all of us know what you're on about. Do you mean sticking a BMW twin-cam bike engine in a mog? If so I like the sound of it! It would be very light and revvy, but you might have a spot of bother reversing

Do you mean just using the cylinder head? do the bits line up? Would be most surprised if they did!! There are a couple of people how make twin cam cross flow heads for the A-series, very expensive though! but if you've got the pennies why not?
I read an article in one of the Kit car mags about a 7-styled car with a 2 litre v8. That used 2 16v motorbike cylinder heads.. a cool 350bhp was the order of the day!
Has anyone put a bike engine into the mog yet? I know minis are old hat now but the mog is a bit heavier.... maybe 2 engines then ... see Z-cars at http://www.zcars.org.uk/ for inspiration.
Jim

I suggested this to Jonathon a while back - possibly using that old favourite - Suzuki Hayabusa. Problem is Minor weighs a bit more than a mini/caterham etc and engine may not be long lived pulling the weight. There's no shortage of power with bike engines - new Kawasaki 1400 is 197 bhp. If you were to strip minor down to race weight, then yes i think it would be ok, but put driver and 3 passengers with luggage etc in the equation, then perhaps no.
On the other hand, mate has a Kawasaki ZX9R engine going very cheap - 140 hp - maybe in the future.

Thing with bike engine is that they rev VERY high compared to a car engine, so if you want to use all that power then you'll have to have very low gearing which means that if you want to drive it to the shops then it will be screaming it's head off. Also, as Pete suggests, bike engines don't have huge amounts of torque (compared to their car counterparts as they don't need it in a bike) so I would imagine that loaded up it would be under a lot of strain.

If I were you I'd stick a car engine in a car and a bike engine in a bike.

If you want a mad modification then use a tuned big-block V8 or a 200-300 BHP Jap 2 litre turbo engine.

A 200bhp K series is pretty 'mad' too Cam.

True!

I'm pretty sure he's on about using bike heads on an A series engine. I'm not sure if it's ever been done, but it's been thought about a lot in the Mini world I think.

Something to do with the bore and spacing being nearly identical IIRC.

Well, if that's the case then the Mini boys will know more than us for sure! Maybe in the distant areas of my memory there is something floating around about the BMW heads. I THINK I might have read an article in Miniworld about it once (10 ish years ago?). Now you mention it it does ring a few bells.

Yes I do mean putting a BMW K100 head on the A series block. Morspeed in Coalville Leicsare doing a kit for it. Try this link.

http://www.minifinity.com/index.php?nam ... incam+head

Its for the post on Minifinity site. There talking of 160/170bhp. Think transmission may need uprating a bit.

Makes you think doesnt it.
Ian.

Looks nice.

I've just been reading it too - want one

That's one (of many) advantage of the Minor over the Mini though. We can just use a Ford type 9 gearbox whereas the Mini lot have to scratch their heads and grovel to their bank managers to uprate their gearboxes!

...and, as we're constantly reminded, even then, the gears are STILL thrashing away in the sump

Looks interesting ,but why ?, you are dumping half of the original motor so why not go whole hog and put in a bigger motor which is unstressed and I would imagine be more reliable. Either that or for A series fans just fit the BMW Mini supercharger on a 1275, or 1340 and achieve similar power values.

I would imagine it would best suit the 998/948 crank. The 1098 long stroke might not last long.

Perhaps its not such a bizzare post after all. Eh Peetee.
Ian.