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One litre Lotus TC F2 engine


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#1 CLR

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Posted 28 October 2014 - 17:12

It was reported that a Lotus 22  was raced in 1963/64 by Cosworth with a development Lotus twin cam one litre engine. A photo exists in Autosport to prove that.

 

More recently I was told that Cosworth built 30 such F2 engines. Is this correct, can anyone add to the story ?



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#2 RacingCompagniet

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Posted 30 October 2014 - 08:32

In the Swedish F2/FJ championship for 1964, Holger Norrman (and later Gunnar Carlsson) raced an ex-Troberg Lola with a one-litre Lotus twincam engine, but I have no idea where the engine came from.  I have up until now thought it was a private "hobby" project, but maybe it was one of the enginens you refer to.

 

(As a side note, that car was the only F2 in the championship races that year, all others were FJs run per the 1963 regulations.)



#3 Roger Clark

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Posted 04 November 2014 - 13:53

It was reported that a Lotus 22  was raced in 1963/64 by Cosworth with a development Lotus twin cam one litre engine. A photo exists in Autosport to prove that.

 

More recently I was told that Cosworth built 30 such F2 engines. Is this correct, can anyone add to the story ?

Can you give us a date for that photo in Autosport?



#4 CLR

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Posted 04 November 2014 - 15:41

Autosport for 5th October 1962 carries the photo and tells us :

Brian Hart raced the Lotus 20 fitted witha 997cc Lotus TC,fitted with special crank and rods last weekend. The car was prepared by M Costin and K Duckworth. The engine was said to deliver 102bhp at 8000rpm



#5 Allen Brown

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Posted 04 November 2014 - 16:28

That's in the Formula Junior era, not in 1-litre F2.

#6 bradbury west

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Posted 04 November 2014 - 16:40

Don't forget that Lotus had already run 2 x 997cc twincam 23s at the NRing 1000kms in 1962 under  an Walker colours, as well as the 1500cc car for Jim Clark, the only one people remember.... the late arrival/installation for the 109E block may have caused the last minute prerparation of the car at the circuit.

Also, the legendary/notorious 23 which JC and  Trev Taylor were slated to race at le Mans 1962 had a 997cc twincam, so the engines were not unknown at that time. Moreover, I suspect most of the development took place on the 1 litre block prior to the arrival of Ford's 109e? ISTR that Clark ran an Anglia with a 1000cc twincam at the time, as did, if memory serves aright, Mike Costin.

By late summer 1962 Brian Hart had joined Cosworth, as had Mike Costin,  so access to a 1000cc tc engine, probably an old slave development  motor perhaps, would not have been a problem at season's end.

For others to run these "old" engines in oddball Euro series a year or two later seems reasonable.

Roger Lund

 

edit, I suspect that Nosher ran the 20, or possibly a 22 in an end of season club libre race or some such, MMEC, North Staffs, etc at Silverstone. Any idea of the circuit, as that saves me retrieving my old Autosports which are  in storage at present. I may have the programme here.

 

 

Edit; I have looked through quickly the obvious sources which  might have  shown my first sentence was correct. Nothing has been found so I must assume that I am wrong. RL


Edited by bradbury west, 11 November 2014 - 14:01.


#7 Roger Clark

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Posted 04 November 2014 - 17:39

Brian Hart raced the Lotus at Oulton Park and Silverstone (and possibly others).  Both were Formule Libre races.  The Autosport photograph that CLR pointed to suggests that it's a 20.

 

I thought that the 1-litre 23s at the Nurburgring had pushrod engines but I may be wrong.

 

I couldn't find a mention of 1-litre twin cams in Graham Robson's Cosworth book.  i do think that 1962 seems very early for Cosworth to have been testing an F2 engine.



#8 bradbury west

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Posted 04 November 2014 - 17:52

Roger, thanks for the circuit info. and the 20 clarification.  I will check through some 1962 programmes here. I agree about the early date for a possible F2 engine. I would have thought they would have been more than busy with development of the FJ engines, esp with Brian there, plus ongoing work with the twin cam, bearing in mind Ford's plans for racing. The NRing engines were from memory, but I always understood that to be the case. I will check for sources here in due course. I know Brian also raced another sports racer through much of 1962.

Hope you are well, btw, missed seeing you at the Revival.

Roger



#9 Ray Bell

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Posted 04 November 2014 - 21:12

Is this the same head that became the vital component for the Elan?

I'm pretty sure the photo I saw after that Nurburgring 1000km race (in Sports Car Graphic, I feel sure) depicted a head which seemed very much like the familiar Elan/Lotus Cortina unit.

I was also under the impression that Clark's car was a 1000cc or 1100cc class car, but I might well have misread the report. I don't have it any more so I can't check.

#10 Peter Morley

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Posted 04 November 2014 - 21:27

Most Lotus 23s had pushrod Ford engines originally.

I also thought the other Nurburgring 23s were normal ones with pushrod engines.



#11 CLR

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Posted 05 November 2014 - 09:23

I know that October 1962 may look early for F2 development TC, but F2 was due to start in S. American Temporada series in the first months of1964. 

I also feel that dohc engines were not permitted in FJ ?? can anyone confirm that



#12 Peter Morley

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Posted 05 November 2014 - 11:29

CLR you're right, dohc engines were not permitted in FJ

 

The rules said

Engines with one or more overhead cams were not permitted.

Camshaft had to remain in the original location.

The block and head had to be from an FIA recognised touring car.

 

According the Motorsport's report of the Nurburgring the engine in Clark's 23 was:

An experimental engine based on a Ford 109E block - although it said 116E on the side - and was 1477cc.

 

The other 23s in the race were in the 1,000cc class and no mention of twin-cams - given the debut of the twin-cam was widely reported it seems unlikely they would have overlooked any others and this was very early in the development of the engine (customers didn't get them for another 6 months) so it is unlikely they would have had more than one twin-cam at the time.

 

According to Graham Capel's Lotus 23 history it was the Clark/Nurburgring 23 that was refused at Le-Mans where it had a 997cc twin-cam.

The other 23 that was refused (with a Climax engine) was subsequently fitted with a 1,000cc twin-cam and sold to Bernard Consten who won his class in various French races.

 

So 1,000cc twin-cams did exist in 1962.



#13 bschenker

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Posted 05 November 2014 - 12:42

I know that October 1962 may look early for F2 development TC, but F2 was due to start in S. American Temporada series in the first months of1964. 

I also feel that dohc engines were not permitted in FJ ?? can anyone confirm that

 

Tis was only a question of FIA regolations, the FJ in January 1964 was no more and engine in the new F3 regolations verry rare, so the organisator writet the race as F2 (1964) that's permittet the use with the 1100cc 2 carburator FJ.

 

.



#14 CLR

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Posted 10 November 2014 - 16:38

There is currently in Germany a F2 Lotus 35 fitted with a one litre Lotus TC.    Engine number 9 of a batch of 30 such engines Cosworth built I was told.

 

Can anyone shed light on where the other 29 are now ?

What sort of bhp/rpm they achieve ?

Did they use a 105E cylinder block ?



#15 Allen Brown

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Posted 11 November 2014 - 13:55

I think there's a big difference between establishing that 1-litre TCs existed and establishing that one was ever used in F2. 

 

Anyone who owns a 1964-66 F2 car and would rather like to race it with a 1-litre TC will be following this thread with great interest!



#16 Ray Bell

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Posted 11 November 2014 - 15:04

Originally posted by Peter Morley
Most Lotus 23s had pushrod Ford engines originally.
I also thought the other Nurburgring 23s were normal ones with pushrod engines.


As I mentioned, there was a photo of the twin-cam engine in a magazine after the Nurburgring race...

I also clearly remember the debut of the Lotus 23 in Australia, in Leo Geoghegan's hands on October 14, 1962. After the meeting I asked him why it didn't have the twin-cam head.

Allen, if they weren't allowed then they shouldn't be now, surely?

#17 Roger Clark

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Posted 13 November 2014 - 18:33

Motor Racing magazine , April  1964, contained an article by John Blunsden on the Cosworth SCA.  It says:

 

"Duckworth started thinking about an F2 unit as long ago as Christmas 1962, and considered about half a dozen configurations (most of them 'semi-exotic', four of which were developed pretty fully on the drawing board before he decided that the in-line SCA was the right answer".

 

The timing seems to rule out any suggestion that Brian Hart was racing a prototype F2 engine in October '62.

 

Later, Blunsden says:

 

"The experimental Cosworth-Ford twin-cam 1-litre engine (more or less a scaled down version of the1.6-litre) may not have been a resounding success, but this was mainly because valve bounce occurred too close to the revs needed competition so that a single missed gear induced immediate tappet failure and had more development time been spent on this project the trouble would no doubt have been solved".

 

I have seen a figure of 106bhp for the 1-litre twin-cam.  As Cosworth were apparently getting more than that from the push-rod Junior engine, it probably wasn't worth continuing.



#18 Ray Bell

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Posted 14 November 2014 - 02:28

That would have been my expectation...

The twin cam Lotus head was marginal in those things with the revs of the late-'60s 1500s and 1600s, what chance would they stand with a one-litre screamer?

#19 Patrick Fletcher

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Posted 14 November 2014 - 09:22

Not so much the twin cam Lotus head but there was still the third cam in the block that was driving other things. I recall more than a few failures with the third cam. 



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#20 CLR

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Posted 14 November 2014 - 10:06

Interesting that Duckworth considered other options before settling for an in line 4.

 

One thing he didn't think necessary, was 4 valves per cylinder, or dohc layout, while Honda obviously did.



#21 Ray Bell

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Posted 14 November 2014 - 10:42

Which other arrangements did he consider (yes, I have read the thread, I see no others...)?

Four-valve engines were almost unheard of at the time. Coventry-Climax and BRM were about to start work on them, but in 1962 they were a vestige of ancient history.

#22 CLR

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Posted 14 November 2014 - 12:35

Agreed both BRM and Climax had decided the 4 valve route was not easy.

But  Mike Hailwood was winning GP races in 1961 on a Honda 250cc 4 cylinder with 4 valves per cylinder.

In 1959 a Cooper fitted with the 4v per cylinder Borgward engine had seven wins in F2

So it was a proven way to attain more power,

I wonder why Cosworth didnt follow that route or for that matter adopt a dohc layout  ??



#23 Roger Clark

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Posted 14 November 2014 - 17:08

Ferrari also announced that they would have a 4-valve V6 for 1962, but like the BRM and Climax (until 1965) it didn't appear in public. The BRM 4-valve heads were developed by Weslake and never developed as much power in Lincolnshire as they had in Sussex.

The Motor Racing article I referred to above implies that Duckworth did consider other configurations but does not say what they were. Cosworth were still a very small company and the costs of developing anything different may have been beyond them. It must also have been advantageous that the SCA fitted into existing cars. Holbay produced a Flat-4 for F2 but it could hardly have fitted into a Lotus 32.

It's also noteworthy that when Duckworth eventually produced his first ground-up twin cam engine it had a very much smaller valve angle than was fashionable. He always went his own way and ignored received wisdom.