I know that bike engines are powerful, lightweight, cheap (from bike breakers) and all sorts of minis are fitted with them, either front or rear mounted, but I have a nagging worry that they may not be as reliable as we might suspect.
At a 2 day race meeting at Anglesey last year, there were four very lightweight, spaceframed, rear-engined and grp bodied minis competing in the same race. Three had various bike engines and one a supercharged honda 2litre vtec, about 300+bhp! These were super bits of kit and was very impressed by them. On each day, these cars had one "practice" session of about 15mins. and two races of 20mins. The vtec had problems initially but when sorted went like hell, for a bit, until the engine did itself in. The bike engined ones also went well, but did not complete the second day's racing.
In conversations with other petrolheads, the consensus was that we all expected the bike engines to have lasted better since two of their drivers said their engines were or very near standard tune, all the minis were much lighter in weight than standard, the lightest being less than 700kgs. Even if all the bike engines came from a scrappy, can it be sheer coincidence they all failed? Does hauling 700kgs of mini instead of a bike make a difference?
I'm not sure what their lap times were, but am certain were not as good Metro Challenge or Mini Milia.
One-time Midas owner, Pete Hills regularly sprints (OK, I know it's not racing but bear with me) his very lightweight and quite superb mini and to my knowledge has only suffered one engine failure. Pete does not pussyfoot about when competing and often gets good results. He does all his own work and I respect his skills very much. So I would say his 1275 A series engine is very reliable? Also, in other mini race series, often with more than 20 cars per race, I never expect to see more than one or two cars to retire.
So the question I ask is: In general, can I expect a bike engine, tuned or standard, when front wheel drive fitted to a standard weighted mini, or Midas, to be as reliable as a decently built 1340/1380, when subjected to everyday use and the odd thrash?
There was also at a sprint a lightweight mini with a BMW k1000 head conversion on an A series; Cost about £8k so far. The conversion was interestingly different but I thought expensive: perhaps a honda vtec, ecu change with cams, up to to 250bhp?......now we're talking bangs per buck.I don't think the 1380 that left him for dead cost that much!
Any thoughts?
Ron.