Looking through Walter Hassan's Climax in Coventry book, written in conjunction with Graham Robson, these two gems emerged.

1; The ultra short stroke engines in 1964 and 1965 were not developed specifically for their potential high revving capability, but to provide a larger diameter cylinder bore to accommodate the movements of the closely packed valves. Combustion problems had delayed this engine layout, so it had run very well in two valve configuration in the interim.

2; The "flat" crank engine was not the result of much considered research into its potential benefits, but to make instalation easier in a car which was not built, that car being a further variuation of the Ferguson P99 car, but with the V8 motor. Clearly the tangle of the crossover exhaust in the normal FWMV would make it impossible to sit a driver in the cockpit on this front engined car, so the only way that the exhaust pulses could be got right with an alternative system was to convert to a flat crank design. Power remained constant and there were none of the expected increases in vibration. The engine note then assumed the even beat rather than the usual V8 irregular exhaust beat. Exhaust installation became much easier and many other FWMV engines were later modified on rebuilds.

We might assume that Harry Ferguson stumped up the money for the development, mindful of the careful way in which Leonard Lee ran Climax, other than the generous way in he must have subsidised F1 teams with his perceived pricing policy. Ferguson was actively designing a 4wd saloon car again in that period.

Roger Lund

Harry Ferguson Research perhaps, but Ferguson himself died in October 1960.

Roger, mea culpa.

I checked it in a Ferguson article after I had posted the words last night, and realised that HF had died prior to the first race of the P99 car. The time of my post was pretty late, so I thought I would correct it this morning, but too late. A least it proves that Ferguson Research were still committed to innovative research enginering. The article in Classic Cars, July 2005, made it clear just what a talented man HF was.

RL

Interesting similarities and differences with Tony Rudd's approach at BRM. From 'It Was Fun!', he was "obsessed" with cross-coupling the V8's exhausts like C-C which he couldn't do until the centre-exhaust version, and that Weslake's 4-valve heads were a failure. Even without cross-coupled headers, BRM had trouble with exhaust routing and so went to flat-cranks for 1963.


Paul M

Mention has been made on another thread of Ian Bamsey's book, IMHO excellent, on the Auto Union GP cars. He did another on the Lotus 25 and in the introducton he sets out the scenario with what I think, as a non-engineer, is a very lucid technical comparison between the Climax V8 and the BRM V8 . It meant that I could understand the differences, and the potential benefits and shortcomings/consequences of the two designs.

RL

PS I found his tome on the Vanwall similarly worth reading.

Did BRM use cross-over piping with the central-exhaust engine?

Apparently not - after giving up on the Weslake-developed 4-valve heads, they got the extra power with better combustion, and took the benefits of stiffer mountings to stress the engine and improve torsional stiffness, as well as better fuel stowage in the tub horns - but they could have done if they'd wanted.

At least, not with the V8 - I don't know about the 48-valve V12 in 1969.

Paul M

I have also enjoyed Bamsey's various books and I agree that his presentation is excellent.

For those interested in the various Coventry Climax engines, I would highly recommend "Coventry Climax Racing Engines" by Des Hammill. An outstanding work on the subject.

That was exactly my understanding, but you still get people saying that BRM couldn't use linked exhaust until they introduced central exhausts. By the time they did that they were using flat cranks, so why would they want to?

Does any of the book mentioned, or some other source, have a three way drawing of the FWMV engine? That would be most useful for model scratch building purposes. Cutaways aren't that good, as they are usually drawn at an angle.

I recommend this very informative stuff on the FPF and the FWMV: http://www.veloce.co.uk/shop/graphics/pdf/V283.pdf

You could try writing to Coventry Climax. I appreciate that in Finland you are not in a position to approach the owner of one of these cars.

As mentioned earlier in this thread, the FWMV's distinctive high-level exhausts was introduced to enable pipes from cylinders of opposite banks to be linked and therefore to aid extraction of the gases. Later engines had flat crankshafts which did not require this linkage and several cars, notably from Brabham and Lotus raced with low-level exhausts.

I was looking at some FWMVs today. All had high-level exhausts but none of them had pipes from opposite cylinders linked. Is this because FWMVs used in historic racing today have flat cranks? And did some FWMVs in the 60s use flat cranks and high-level, but unlinked, exhausts?

As an aside, is this the time to ask somebody to correct the statement in Wiki:

"FPf
The FPF was a pure-racing development twin cam version from the basic FWB layout."

Why not do it yourself?
The advantage of Wikipedia, which is also its disadvantage, is that it's open to anyone to contribute, edit, vandalise, etc.
I've done a bit of editing either where I know have something worthwhile to contribute or where what's there is in some way wrong and can be corrected.
We had a good thread about that recently

Oh, I thought you had to be a registered editor.
I shall pluck up my fortitude and elucidate the masses in that case...

[quote name='pertti_jarla' date='Feb 16 2010, 16:35' post='4146274']
Does any of the book mentioned, or some other source, have a three way drawing of the FWMV engine? That would be most useful for model scratch building purposes. Cutaways aren't that good, as they are usually drawn at an angle.

There is an SAE article written by Walter Hassan in 1966 that covers the 1.5 liter engines quite well. It does have some cross sectional views. It is number 66074-you can get it thru the SAE or maybe a local university technical library would have it.

Bob

One of the not crossed over systems we looked at...

Des Hammill's "Coventry Climax Racing Engines" says: "... The front line FWMV engines of the 1964 and 1965 racing seasons all had larger bores and single plane, ultra short stroke crankshafts". Doug Nye, in "History of the Grand Prix Car" says that many FWMVs became flat-crank units.

We didn't see that many engines with low-level exhausts, even in 1965, so does this imply that some of the 64 and 65 with high-level exhausts had flat crank engines? That would, I assume, imply that they didn't need high-level exhausts to link cylinders from opposite banks.

The FWMV used two types of Weber carburettor in 1961 and 62. The early engines used IDMs, but they changed during 62 to the DCNL4. The IDM was superior but out of production and so in very short supply.

I believe it is possible to distinguish between them because the IDMs were mounted longitudinally and the DCNL4s transversally. Does anybody know:

(1) whether this is a reliable way of telling which carburettor an engine has;
(2) whether the change in orientation was due to some characteristic of the carburettor or to a change of philosophy by Climax;
(3) when the DCNL4s began to be used?

With regard to exhausts on flat crank engines. I have read something that suggests the flat crank version was originally evolved to suit the Ferguson 4wd car, which couldn't accomoadate a high level cross over exhaust layout. Then when it was built, it turned out to be a better job in terms of vibrations than was anticipated.

Yes you have read it before. See post 1 point 2.
RL

Oops, sorry Roger!
That's not where I read it though...

I can't remember when I first read the story about the low exhaust FWMV being built for Ferguson but I've known it for a long time so I think it was a contemporary magazine, probably Motor Sport.

The first low exhaust FWMV that I can recall was Gurney's Brabham at the 1963 Dutch Grand Prix. His original broke before practice and a replacement had to be sent out by Climax.

DSJ's report of the British Grand Prix says that Bonnier's Cooper and Amon's Lola both had flat-crank engines. I don't think that either of these had low exhausts.

The flat crank and the Ferguson is mentioned in Walter Hassan's book "Climax in Coventry". It also says lots of engines were converted to flat crank spec in 1963 and 1964, rather than them being new ones. All the more reason for the engines out there today to be flat crank?
I also have one of those yellow Unique Motor Books compilations which contains an article that seems to have come direct from Climax (Hassan again?) entitled "The Coventry Climax Racing Engine 1961 -!965". This also tells the Ferguson story about the flat crank origin.

It would be interesting to know when Climax started work on the flat-crank engine. THe first ones appeared (I think) in 1963 but it's difficult to believe that Ferguson were still contemplating a return that late.

There must have been some engines racing in 63-65 with flat-crank engines and high exhausts. Has anybody seen any contemporary photographs showing (presumably) unlinked pipes like those racing today?