43 replies to this topic

[Clip]

I just drove a lovely old Morris Minor that 16 years ago had a Datsun 1200 engine swap. The elderly couple are selling now as too old to drive it. It was a 60th birthday present for her 16 years ago. It also has a 5 speed Toyota gearbox. Geared a bit high but it went like stink! Absolutely bog standard with the tiny original carbie and a dogleg exhaust manifold that certainly wouldn’t help flow! So what’s wrong with our A series engine? This would eat any standard 1275 that I’ve ever driven and with much less fuss. 

Edited by Clip, 03 July 2023 - 08:30 AM.

[Steve220]

5 port, small packaging, 50's designed engine.

[stuart bowes]

that's why lots of people do engine swaps isn't it

 

the A series is old and small and definitely has its flaws, some people build them really well and then they work a lot better but at the end of the day they're still limited.  they were designed for limited cost and best economy, not for power

 

to be fair though you could say if you want a powerful engine why not just buy a car with a powerful engine.  some might say changing the engine is a complete travesty and should be banned

 

I say if you want to do it, do it, it's probably really good fun.. if you don't, fine it's your car

 

'Rubbish' takes it a little too far though, some of them are absolute screamers

Edited by stuart bowes, 03 July 2023 - 08:44 AM.

[coopertaz]

not rubbish just outdated in their time they were breakthrough for small packaging with box in sump

[Chris1275gt]

I wish I could’ve designed that rubbish engine and shifted 10 million of them

[Spider]

Design of the A Series started shortly before WWII but was shelved during the war as there was more pressing matters and then not really picked up again until the late 40's, making it in to production in 1951 as an 801 cc unit.I think it was in the late 50's after a tour of the factory by Mr. Datsun and his engineers that a deal was struck between Austin and Datsun, however Datsun didn't take up production of the Austin A Series Engine, but apply some more modern (for the day !) technology to it and their brand new factories, made their own more advanced version of it.

These finished (if memory serves) in the late 70's however, the A Series, for better or worse, soldiered on for another 30 years after that.

A Rubbish engine ?   Well,,, I'd say yes and no. Outdated in some ways, but equally, WAY ahead of it's time in many others, especially when you reflect on the fact that despite being designed in an era that emissions were not a consideration yet it was able to meet emission regulations right up to 2000 I think shows just how remarkable a design it was. It may not be a powerhouse when compared to many other engines over the span of it's production but in almost every other respect, it's quite good,

 

[Clip]

Thanks folks, interesting. I’m not saying they are rubbish (I absolutely love my 1310 and it goes really well), but I’m beginning to understand them more and more everyday. It was just a shock how well an old Datsun 1200 went in comparison to my $12,000 mini engine. 

Edited by Clip, 03 July 2023 - 10:51 AM.

[Ethel]

It is an A Series engine, or at least a not too distant cousin.

[weef]

When we first worked on the early Datsun units in he 1970s the spanner sizes were odd for metric, 12mm or 14mm AF, and we always thought more akin to the 1/2" or 9/16" AF used on the "A" series and the unit similarities were such that you thought it was an "A" series.

[IronmanG]

Not sure I would want a great deal more performance in mine. My skill set wouldn't handle it

[Merryck]

The A-series was getting long in the tooth when the Mini was first introduced, which considering the era wasn't a big deal. My issue is that they then left it largely unchanged until they stopped producing the Mini over 40 years later.

 

I only discovered a few years ago that the Nissan CG engines were based on it. Which means at the time when my 1998 1275cc, shopping trolley Micra marketed to the perennially boring was produced with;

 

16v DOHC engine

Aluminium block

81bhp (restricted)

5 gears

7300 rpm redline

Phenomenal reliability

 

Rover would sell you a 'hot hatch' Cooper, marketed as something special with;

 

8 valve, single cam, push-rod engine

Cast iron block

62-76bhp (depending on year - tuned to reach the higher numbers)

4 gears

5200-5800 rpm redline

No real reliability - it still suffered from the problems it always had

 

The A-series is a great engine for an older car, they're a lot of fun, easy to work on, parts are (not so much these days, but definitely were) plentiful. There was a lot of choice (and expertise) in terms of tuning. There are clear benefits to having an engine with that level of longevity in the market, but it was a disgraceful business decision to keep using it right up until the end when the market was flooded with better alternatives. My issue with the A-series isn't with the engine itself, it's with the mis-management of the companies that just kept using it without doing anything to bring it up to modern standards.

[mab01uk]

The OHC A-Series And 9X Engines

 

Alec Issigonis wrote to BL boss Donald Stokes 18th April 1968:-
"The greatest need in combating increased production costs over the year is the development of a new engine for a small car of the Mini type. The present A-Series engine offered a quick way of getting the car into production in 1959, but has now outlived its purpose both for weight and cost compared with European competition."

However his proposals were kicked into the long grass by British Leyland who were not interested in technical excellence or innovation at a time when they wanted Austin-Morris to return to financial stability and profit.......

 

More here in link, including more photos of the OHC A-Series:-

https://www.theminif...and-9x-engines/

 

Edited by mab01uk, 03 July 2023 - 02:20 PM.

[Spider]

Martin's post here has also reminded me that at the end of the day, those making the decisions at BMC / Leyland / Rover were not car enthusiast like most of us here. They were running a business and that meant, it had to make money (though, I think for more of it's life, it didn't !). Updated engine designs aren't what sell cars, especially say with the Mini where largely it appeared very much the same in 2000 as it did in 1959. What sells cars is body styling changes or a compete fresh model altogether, and these days, all the trinkets they can dream up to distract us from the task of driving, while we sit in the traffic with everyone else.

 

I get management's thinking, it takes years to develop a better engine that those already rolling down the line and zillions in cost to do that. Is it going to result in a 20% or more increase in sales ?   Or, they could spend a tiny fraction of that on a change in paint colour, add strips, different trim and maybe even a radio cassette player, all of which takes a small committee an afternoon over a few cups of tea to come up with resulting in an increase sales by 30%.

While that all sounds like it makes sense from a profit view point, clearly, the Japanese showed the world that doing total vehicle updates does in fact pay dividends. Even then, it seems most manufacturers keep their basic engine designs in production for around 10 - 12 years before coming out with the next.

 

I have to also say, from my own experience, the A Series I don't find unreliable. Sitting here, thinking back over my past 40 something years of ownership and zillions of miles with them, I personally have never had one ever let me down. Yes, they may have developed oil leaks or may have gotten noisy, but they all got me home every time.

Also, in terms of performance, when you break down just about any engine, under the cylinder head, they are all fundamentally similar. There's little difference in the bottom end of our A Series Engines to the Datsun 1200. Certain, as we have all seen, none of the parts in the bottom end of the A Series have any weaknesses and can take a lot more power than as produced. This also highlights where the restriction is in getting decent performance from the A Series.

[mab01uk]

The many 'Special Editions' of later Minis proved to be a much cheaper way of boosting sales every year or so than a new updated engine.....in more recent years it was usually ever tighter emission laws and the increasing weight of even small cars that made manufacturers design new cleaner and more powerful engines. The nearest the A-series got to that was a general makeover for the A+ version for the Metro launch in 1980, which filtered down to the Mini soon after (unfortunately there was not quite enough money left for a five speed gearbox upgrade) and later still the BMW financed A-Series MPi engine upgrades in 1997, to meet tightening emissions laws up to 2000 before the launch of the R50 MINI in 2001.

 

Interesting also to read Mike Theaker's (BMW/Rover Engine Development Engineer) account of the Mini MPI development story and how it was BMW's will and John Cooper's insistence that finally got the A-Series MPI into production in 1996, extending the Mini's life by 4 more years. Mike Theaker also later worked on powertrain development for the New MINI (R50).

Mike Theaker on the Development of the Twin Point Injection system for the Mini.
Link to PDF below:-
http://www.turbomini...ts/493117-1.pdf

 

(Article from September 2000 Miniworld magazine)

 

Remember also most older engine designs like the A-Series were designed long before CAD and modern computer analysis so were usually over engineered, which has allowed the A-Series to be stretched from 803cc to 1275cc in later years and be heavily modified for extra power and performance...which was never on the original Austin designers plans. 

Edited by mab01uk, 03 July 2023 - 07:35 PM.

[Readers14]

As with most things in life, technology has made things more efficient & improved the way we live are lives.

The A series is very old technology now. 
Emission Regulations meant that it couldn’t be improved any further.

 

I hate to say this, but 50 years from now, people will be saying “Internal Combustion Engines are rubbish”.