The Iconic TwinCam

[GrUmPyBoDgEr]

A thought occurred to me!
A lot has been written about the Cosworth DFV being the most successful engine in Motorsport etc.
I think if we disregard F1 the Twincam must be a major contender, even possibly "The most successful engine"
I cannot start to list the huge variety of single seater, sports racers, rally & road cars that in their time had Twincams as powerplants.
There was also quite a number of small firms that tuned Twincams & put their trademark on them (Holbay, Hart, Vegantune etc.) another interesting list
The list of competition successes must also be very impressive.
What do you Historians out there think about producing lists, or do they already exist?
I would attempt to make a start but perhaps some sort of accessable format to which everyone could add their bit would be the best way to start?

Just an idea (& coming from someone with a Zetec under the bonnet )
Cheers
John

[hatman]

Mmm, maybe - but I also think the Jag XK lump must be in with a shout.

[andyelan]

Hi Everyone

Just consider this.

Walter Hassan was one of the key engineers behind the XK engine before he left Jaguar and went to Coventry Climax. Here he met Harry Mundy and together they helped produce some of the most sucessful GP engines of the early 60s. After Harry Mundy left Coventry Climax he went freelance for a while and it was during this time he designed the Lotus Twin Cam using his race experience and applying it to a road engine (that of course is the double edged sword, on the one hand the Twin Cam is basically a thoroughbred race engine but against that is the fact it requires high standards of maintenance and dosn't suffer fools gladly). Another highly sucessful GP engine at this time was the BRM V8 which was the brainchild of Tony Rudd. After he left BRM he joined Lotus where his first project was the Twin Cam Big Valve. Oh and while we're at it, Keith Duckworth had worked for Lotus as a gearbox specialist before he went on to form Cosworth and produce a certain DFV engine. It really was a very small word back in the 60s as far as motor racing was concerned.

One final note, the Twin Cam did compete at Grand Prix level. It was fitted in the back of a Brabham BT6 for the 1963 South African GP and a Cooper T73 and Brabham BT10 for several races in 1964 &1965. In total it made 7 starts over this period and it's one and only finish was a 9 place in the 1965 South African GP. It should be noted however that of the 6 DNF, only one was the result of engine failure

Regards
Andy "Anorak"

[peterako]

Thanks Andy,

Makes very initeresting reading for me!

Peter 'Anorak'

[GrUmPyBoDgEr]

How about this for a start:-

Lotus Cars:-

Elan
Elan +2
23; 23b
Europa
Seven S3
Seven S4
Cortina
Lazenby Elite Mk14
47

Other Makes:-

Ford Cortina Lotus
Ford Escort Twin Cam
Caterhan 7
Turner (what?)
Mallock U2
Cooper?
Ginetta G4 & G12
Chevron B8
March Formula B
Lola?
Elva Mk 7 & Sebring Coutier
Brabham B21 & B29
Elfin (Australia)
Renmax (Australia)
Dulon etc. This list must go on for ever?

Owner Modified Cars
Morgan
Ford Anglia 105E
BMC / Leyland / Rover Mini
Fiat 500
"Lawn Mower" Oh yes??
Vegantune employee:- 2 Cyl. TC in Motorcycle??

Tuners:-

BRM
Holbay
Vegantune
Cosworth?

Competition Successes:-

??? Endless surely

Cheers
John

[rgh0]

In Australia you can add Elfin and Renmax

cheers
Rohan

[paddy]

I would attempt to make a start but perhaps some sort of accessable format to which everyone could add their bit would be the best way to start?

Wikipedia?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus-Ford_Twin_Cam

Paddy

[GrUmPyBoDgEr]

Yes that's the sort of thing I was thinking of Rohan.

Wikepedia info's a bit sketchy Paddy.

Is there anyone clever enough to set up something where others could add their "bit" to a list before this becomes what could be an unwieldly chain of postings?
Or was that what you meant Paddy, that we could enhance the Wikepedia entry?

But thanks to everybody so far
John

[paddy]

Yes, what you're suggesting is a wiki page that everyone can edit. That would require someone to set up such a wiki (there are multiple ways of doing it, and perhaps Jeff would be happy to set something up under lotuselan.net).

However, the Wikipedia suggestion was serious: the information there is quite skeletal at the moment (compare with the DFV page, for example) and would benefit from some effort from someone with time and the right information to hand. If the information we are compiling is authoritative reference material related to the twink then Wikipedia is a good place for it. However, if you want to compile information that's not appropriate as a reference (eg "my favourite twink failure mode is xx", or "QED are the best suppliers of parts in the UK") or is too specialist as a general reference (eg reproducing the entire contents of the Wilkins book) then setting up a separate wiki is the right thing to do.

Paddy

[andyelan]

Hi Everyone

I would have thought Wikipedia would be the best place to collate information, after all there would seem little point in re-inventing the wheel.

That aside, if anyone is interested in learning about the Twin Cam in a broader context, I would thoroughly recommend these books:-

Coventry Climax Racing Engines - The Definitive Development History by Des Hammill
and
11/2-Litre Grand Prix Racing 1961-65 (Low Power-High Tech) by Mark Whitelock

Also there's The Ford Cosworth DFV by Andrew Noakes' which is another good read

All three books are excellent (although quite technical), the Coventry Climex one especially giving a great insight into where the thinking behind the Twin Cam came from and showing how it was a properly, fully engineered design and not just a collection of Ford bits thrown together by a bunch of amatures.

Andy

[Ross Robbins]

John Wrote:
Other Makes:-

Ford Cortina Lotus
Ford Escort Twin Cam
Twin Cam Anglia 105E
U2 Mallock
Ginetta Yes in the G4 and G 15
ChevronYes B 8 sportsracer
March Yes Formula B
Lola?
Dulon
Brabham B21 and B29 Formula B cars

I added in bold the information that I have. I KNOW there are more applications that just don't come to mind as easily as they used to.

" A waist is a terrible thing to mind" Homer Simpson

[GrUmPyBoDgEr]

Yes, what you're suggesting is a wiki page that everyone can edit. That would require someone to set up such a wiki (there are multiple ways of doing it, and perhaps Jeff would be happy to set something up under lotuselan.net).

However, the Wikipedia suggestion was serious: the information there is quite skeletal at the moment (compare with the DFV page, for example) and would benefit from some effort from someone with time and the right information to hand. If the information we are compiling is authoritative reference material related to the twink then Wikipedia is a good place for it. However, if you want to compile information that's not appropriate as a reference (eg "my favourite twink failure mode is xx", or "QED are the best suppliers of parts in the UK") or is too specialist as a general reference (eg reproducing the entire contents of the Wilkins book) then setting up a separate wiki is the right thing to do.

Paddy

Yes we're on the same wavelength Paddy.
One of my questions was does something exist & I think that the headings I suggested would be sufficient to show the worthiness of the Twin Cam, it's extensive use in road & competition cars also those involved in the further development of the engine.
Setting something up in Wikepedia however goes beyond my abilities.
Can the exiting site not be added to? If so how & who would / could do it?

Cheers
John

[GrUmPyBoDgEr]

John Wrote:
Other Makes:-

Ford Cortina Lotus
Ford Escort Twin Cam
Twin Cam Anglia 105E
U2 Mallock
Ginetta Yes in the G4 and & the G12?
ChevronYes B 8 sportsracer
March Yes Formula B
Lola?
DulonLM7
Brabham B21 and B29 Formula B cars

I added in bold the information that I have. I KNOW there are more applications that just don't come to mind as easily as they used to.

" A waste is a terrible thing to mind" Homer Simpson

That's the sort of thing I was thinking of Ross; I've added to your additions but deleted the G15 (Hillman Imp based)
What about Cooper?
Confucious he say "many minds make light work"

Cheers
John

[peterako]

Confucious he say "many minds make light work"

Personally...I think it could be electricity....or maybe black magic

Really enjoying this Twin Cam Thread! I'll dig through any litrature I have this week and see what else is out there!

Peter

[paddy]

Can the existing site not be added to? If so how & who would / could do it?

There are lots of options for what you could do, depending on how seriously you want to do this.

It would be possible in principle for Jeff to set up a wiki somewhere on lotuselan.net (say at lotuselan.net/wiki) where registered users could add pages and other registered users could edit them. This can be easy or hard depending on the exact nature of the hosting arrangement that Jeff has and, in the end, you'd be relying on him to set it up and do all future maintenance. The advantage of doing it this way would be that it wouldn't be necessary to set up a completely new set of accounts because we all already have them. Also, it would be possible for Jeff to continue to put some adverts on the pages alongside the text which may offset some of his costs for hosting the site.

All the other options involve setting something up more or less independently of lotuselan.net. Maybe we could persuade Jeff to point a subdomain (eg http://wiki.lotuselan.net) to a separate site that someone else could then maintain. But then that other person would have to set something up, maintain user accounts, pay for any hosting etc. All the time this was operational it would potentially drive traffic away from lotuselan.net and potentially take away some of Jeff's advertising revenue.

There may be general value in setting up a wiki which can be used to consolidate information that otherwise requires searching through the archives and multiple threads with multiple conflicting views. For example, as well as reference information on the twink there could be pages with info such as:

- how do I measure toe-in?
- do I use EP90 or grease in my trunnions?
and other reference data that people have posted.

All of this would require some effort, on an occasional basis, to consolidate information from the archives. Is it worth that effort?

All of that said, it could be done relatively cheaply if someone was prepared to invest a little bit of time and some expertise. However, I'd be wary of doing something that takes traffic away from Jeff because he invested the time to establish the site and get everyone together, and keeping the community here is the thing that keeps it going.

I did just buy the domain http://theiconictwincam.info (for 60p!) if you're still interested ...

Paddy