I saw this pic this morning, posted on Instagram on the Guy Broad account. It shows a 4-cylinder XK Engine, mounted transversely in a Mk1 Mini.
The caption claims that the head was a modified 6-cyl head that was “cut down”, and that the block and crank were cast specifically for the project. It appears to be mated to a standard Mini transmission, from what I can see in the pic. Notice the distributor being driven off the back of the exhaust camshaft.
It was all done in-period…I can’t inagine the effort and determination it took to make it all work…astonishing.
This may be here say, but a Scot I worked for in a Jaguar shop in the '80’s, swore that Jaguar made a prototype 4 cyl engine, exactly like the XK 6 cyl, but never went into production.
A lot of cross-flow Mini conversions have their Webers poking through the front of the hood…it’s true when people put Ford/Lotus based engines in them, and it’s also true when they put crossflow heads on the original A-series block.
It does look goofy, but they were usually done for racing.
Yes, that’s what I was referring to in my response to Ray. I believe there may have been a kit at one time to install a Kent, which included a bolt-on tail shaft for the crack to mimic the Mini crank.
…of course, that kit also allowed a few Lotus Twin Cams to find their way into Mini engine bays too.
They are real enough but didn’t run as good as what Jaguar wanted. There was a record car that used this head, and I believe it had something to do with MGs.
On the note of stuffing some unthinkable hardware into a mini, have you watched “Project Binky” on YouTube?
A mini with all the running gear from a Toyota Celica 4wd turbo. All to fit within the original body with exception of some widened wheel arches.
A huge amount of engineering and clever solutions. The presentation is a times quite funny as well. One of my favorites.
Yes, I watched about the first 4 or 5 episodes, but I somehow find it very stressful to watch as they run up against one seemingly insurmountable obstacle after another.
Maybe I’ll wait until the project is done, and then watch all the episodes in reverse order
