14 replies to this topic

[Stefan Ornerdal]

In some entrylists I have seen both ”Riley ERA” and other ERA:s, A-B-C-D-E...-Type.
First British GP at Silverstone 1948, Geoff Richardson and Cuthbert Harrison was to (or did) drive “Riley ERA” and Leslie Johnson, Geoffrey Ansell et consortes had just--- ERA’s.

Whats the difference? Wasn’t all ERA’s a kind of Riley engined racing cars?
Or was it just the usual inconcistency from the prog-printers?

A little bit off-topic: Did Riley ever produce a Mini? In my country (Sweden) there was only two types of Mini’s, the Austin and the Morris. But I have seen an Italian Innocenti Mini Cooper...
Any other kinds of Minis around the world? Wolsley, Hindustan, Alvis...?


Kind regards
Stefan

[GIGLEUX]

British GP 1948: the car of TC Harrison was a B type ERA (R8B). Geoff Richardson entered the car which was to became the first RRA. Entered as an ERA-Riley, which means a Riley with an ERA engine, it was based on a Riley special built by Percy Mclure before WW2. It was a Riley chassis with an ERA unit and independant front suspension by the way of the André-Girling system. Richardson acquired it and at first converted the car from offset single-seater form to central single-seater in 1948.

Yes Minis were produced under the names Riley and Wolseley with specific front ends and interior trims.

[D-Type]

The Riley Elf and Wolseley Hornet had different front ends, a bigger boot and 1000cc engines. The big boot also appeared on the South African Mini Mk3, which may have been branded as an Austin, Morris or Mini - I don't know.

The naming was meant to echo the thirties - they wanted to have a Riley 'Imp' but Hillman had copyrighted the name.

The Riley version of the 1100 was the 'Kestrel' but they ran out of inspiration and the Wolseley, MG and Vanden Plas Princess were merely 1100's and later became 1300's

[GIGLEUX]

the Riley Elf...

...and the Wolseley Hornet

[Vitesse2]

Classy stuff! They both had wind-up windows and real doorhandles on the inside!

I'd be more inclined to call Richardson's car a Riley-ERA, working on the "chassis first" convention. But of course that rather discounts the ERA-Delage from the same period

But of course the ERA engine owed more than a little to Mays' White Riley .....

[D-Type]

Yes, but with the wind-up windows you lost the door pockets and with the glovebox you lost the full width dashboard shelf.

How close was the ERA engine to the Riley? I reckon about as close as the Repco was to a Buick, the Cosworth DFV to the Ford Cortina, or the AAV815 to a Fiat, etc

[Geoff E]

To drift off at a slight tangent, there was the Mini ERA

http://www.eraturbo.com/

[David McKinney]

Originally posted by Vitesse2
I'd be more inclined to call Richardson's car a Riley-ERA, working on the "chassis first" convention.

I agree entirely
Unfortunately the sport at the time didn't agree, and this car was usually known as the ERA-Riley (and, as you mention, we hade the ERA-Delage at the same time).
Even more OT: I suspect - but don't really know - that the cars universally described from the 1930s to the present day as Dixon Rileys and Dobbs Rileys would have been entered in period as plain Rileys. Eleswhere in the world they would at least have been called Riley Specials, but "special" was not a word favoured by the British motorsporting establishment

[Roger Clark]

As far as i know, the "chassis-engine" convention only became common in the 50's with the growth in proprietary engines. Even then it wasn't universal, as shown by the Rover-BRM. It is arguable that, if follow this convention, Fangio's 1956 championship winner should have been called a Ferrari-Lancia, but we've been there before. In general, I think it is better to follow the convention of the time and not to impose modern practice.

[Peter Morley]

Originally posted by D-Type

How close was the ERA engine to the Riley? I reckon about as close as the Repco was to a Buick, the Cosworth DFV to the Ford Cortina, or the AAV815 to a Fiat, etc

The biggest difference is in the engine mounting - Riley used a bar that passed through the block, ERA used external mounts, so the Riley has a big hole passing through the block which the ERA doesn't.

The current ERA block pattern was modified so that it could be used to make Riley blocks, they are that similar.

ERA even kept the block mounted camshafts, with pushrods & rocker arms, rather than using twin overhead cams which you might have expected from a racing engine.

Your comparisons look reasonable:

Didn't early Repco engines use a production block, but with araldite blanking something (oilway) off.

Didn't the FVA use Cortina blocks, and that is half a DFV?

[Sharman]

When we were talking about the Lister F2 I mentioned John Horridge, he had a Riley Special (Jehu Riley) before moving on to a Lister Bristol (Ecurie Bullfrog). He also had a Morris Oxford with an ERA engine. Which engine and what happened to it? Can any body shed any light?

[Stefan Ornerdal]

Thanks, everyone.

Further on the Mini subject--- the 1275 cc BMC Cooper was in Sweden called "SS". The 1071cc was only 'S'.
Was this in Sweden only? Never heard of an "SS" anywhere else. My big brother rallied one of these in the sixties. Wonderful car, at least when he changed the electrics from Lucas to Bosch...

Stefan

[bradbury west]

Ref D Type's post 6 above, I do not have any specific ERA books to hand, but Ihave turned up the VSCC Bulletin Summer 2000 in which the excellent Alan Burnard describes how he created an ERA engine from an old scrap Riley 6 motor in 1966 The process took him 22 years, in between whic he created his own Delage 8 cyl GP engine, covered in the Winter 1998/99 Bulletin -- these are the very types of articles which IMHO Motor Sport should buy in and publish as GUEST ARTICLES each month, taking other people's recognised wisdom etc and bring them to a wider audience, so more people get to know more, and more accurately, about more topics.

I the article Alan cites a few of the problems with the Riley 6 motor which he bought under guidance.

The Riley head had 12 studs, the ERA 32. Marking off the block to drill through, he found no extra bosses into which to drill, only water passages, so the blocks were not common.

The crank and rods were not man enough. The head was not suitable, too few studs and cast in iron.

The side mounted housing for the magneto and water pump is OK but needs the larger ERA pump with two outlets.

The spur gear is ok and the skew gear for mag/distributor can be used.

Riley Push rods are "like knitting needles" whereas those on the ERA were special tubular ones.- he considered Jaguar blanks apparently, but chose not to use them.

Riley cam followers can be used with the special profile ERA camshaft.

So he bought a spare ERA block.......................... however the bore was 1" shorter than that for the 1.5 litre, clearly being an 1100cc block. The ERA cast iron blocks had the block and crankcase in one piece for rigidity.

Using an E Type ERA crank, 80mm throw against the normal 95mm, so he had the enine linered to 62 mm giving him a short stroke 1500cc, with a higher rev capability tpo 7500 as against 6500, and a different exhaust noise.

The rest of the story goes on in fascinating detail, nearly as well as the story of the Delage engine, not least the story of how he created new versions of the Murray Jamieson 140mm blowers, which then became standard wear for many ERAs.

So the block seems different, as are the head, rods, crank, no doubt pistons, plus the majority of the ancilliaries and nuts/bolts. It also had a specially cast sump. No dobt an ERA specialist will fill in the details.

It may throw some light on the Riley provenance the these engines. They were very special indeed like most production based race engines are. Apart from displaying his engineeering skills these articles also shows Alan Burnard as a very good narrator. Good stuff, but that is what you get with the VSCC magazine articles.

Due credit to Mr Burnard's copy and to VSCC is recognised, info repeated for educational purposes etc

RL

[simonlewisbooks]

Originally posted by Peter Morley


Didn't the FVA use Cortina blocks, and that is half a DFV?

I have heard that a genuine FVA block is in fact a totally different casting to the original Ford unit (Anglia/Cortina) . The FVA is somewhat stronger with thicker internal castings and so forth.
The F2 regs of the day demanded 'production' blocks and so the differences were well hidden to bamboozel the scrutineers. I was told it was only externally descernable by pushing a welding rod into one specific opening in the water jacker and noticing that the rod won't go in nearly as far as it will on the corresponding (thinner walled) Ford block.

Not that I am suggesting anyone was cheating of course...ahem...this is just reporting a story I heard some years ago - from someone with an FVA in his workshop!

Simon Lewis
Transport Books
www.simonlewis.com

[Peter Morley]

Originally posted by simonlewisbooks


I have heard that a genuine FVA block is in fact a totally different casting to the original Ford unit (Anglia/Cortina) . The FVA is somewhat stronger with thicker internal castings and so forth.
The F2 regs of the day demanded 'production' blocks and so the differences were well hidden to bamboozel the scrutineers. I was told it was only externally descernable by pushing a welding rod into one specific opening in the water jacker and noticing that the rod won't go in nearly as far as it will on the corresponding (thinner walled) Ford block.

Not surprising really, a lot of 'production' blocks are probably that close to the original!

I'm pretty sure that I once saw a block that had FV cast under the engine mount rather than the L that Lotus twin-cam blocks had. I'm sure they didn't change the pattern just to change the letter on the side of the block!