Mini prototype engine from 1957 - 2 cylinders

[BruceK]

Some fascinating stuff here.

[BruceK]

More progress

[BruceK]

Coming together

[pbraun]

Fascinating!  We can all learn a lot from these older masters!

[BruceK]

Agreed.  This guy, Ivan Dutton, has a very interesting YouTube channel.  Worth checking out. 

[BruceK]

The latest installment - video just out today.

Interesting that he has a belief of not using any oil on the piston rings of any engine he builds.  His rationale is at the end of the video.   

[94touring]

That's really neat.  His method of not using oil to bed the rings makes a lot of sense.  Another thing I've researched and found out was you're better running on the leaner side initially too, which helps create friction between the rings and cylinder walls to achieve what he's talking about.   Too much fuel can wash them and they'll never break in.  To top all that off you also want to drive it fairly hard, hard acceleration and engine braking on decel, to force the rings into the walls. 

[MiniDave]

Kent Prather told me the same thing about putting the rings in dry, I have never done it that way in my whole life, but this race engine and the 998 I'm building I'm doing it their way. We'll see what happens.....

Thanks for posting these, I have been watching them thru TMF, but it's great to have them here on RM.....

[jeff10049]

Looks very interesting I'll be watching the videos tonight.

[BruceK]

The latest on getting to run, uploaded today.

[MiniDave]

I wondered how they were going to sort the starter out - I knew they would have to come in from the back because of the oil filter boss on the motor, but I had no idea they'd be able to walk into shop and the guy could just pull one off the shelf, that not only had the right number of teeth on the gear, turned the right direction, but also had a flange that would allow them to mount it on the gearbox housing!

This motor is tiny compared to even an 850 Mini motor!

I wonder how many HP it will make, 10? 15 maybe? enough to even move a car down the road? I guess there were plenty of tiny cars with about that HP, I think early 2CV's were 12 hp now that I think about it.....

[BruceK]

It's alive! 

And it sounds just like you'd expect.

[BruceK]

I can understand why BMC wanted to prototype this. Especially when you consider the competition for the Mini was bubble cars like the BMW Isetta, the Messerschmitt, the Fiat 500, the Lloyd, etc.   All of them had single cylinder or two cylinder engines.

So glad BMC did not cheap out and went with the intact 4 cylinder A-Series instead.

[jeff10049]

I can understand why BMC wanted to prototype this. Especially when you consider the competition for the Mini was bubble cars like the BMW Isetta, the Messerschmitt, the Fiat 500, the Lloyd, etc.   All of them had single cylinder or two cylinder engines.

So glad BMC did not cheap out and went with the intact 4 cylinder A-Series instead.

I had a 56 Lloyd wagon in some ways it was a better car than my 60 mini. Although advertised hp was lower and advertised top speed was lower it cruised in modern traffic better and quieter than the mini. Of course, the mini would out handle it but as just a car in normal driving, the Lloyd did just fine.

The engine had 80k miles on it when I took it apart and it was perfect I mean perfect no ridge in the cylinders nothing clean it up and reassemble same with the transmission.

I like the looks of the mini much better but I didn't think the Lloyd was awful.

It is interesting how one brand that early on was somewhat on par just disappears but mini had the looks, performance, not foregin, and continued to improve over time. What I mean by not foreign is just about any country you go to is familiar with British or North American goods.

[BruceK]

Some fine tuning and sorting out the two cylinder prototype engine.

Toward the end of the video Ivan goes over some details of his rare 1959 Mini.

[tsumini]

He needs to wear a microphone. I catch about every fourth word. Camera mic just doesn't get it.

[BruceK]

Yeah, I got a feeling that the low man on the totem pole in the shop is also the cameraman.

[BruceK]

This video is all about Ivan's 1959 Mini. 

Very old man drives very old car very, very fast!  I don't know how the guy recording it didn't lose it.

[MiniDave]

Interesting comments about people throwing trash out of the car on the road....he does like his Mini, doesn't he?