Interesting commentary on Lucas

[baileyman]

... When I first saw Japanese cars with seals on proper latching connectors, I was amazed. I do believe much of the reliability of Japanese cars came from decent connectors.

My Dad told much the same story about the aircraft companies in the USA tearing into captured Japanese warplanes. I think he said they observed tolerances far tighter than ours.

John

[Donels]

Lucas seem to get the blame even when it’s not their fault, even today. Note the comment about bullet connectors, yes Lucas did make the bullet connector but they did not specify use in inappropriate places where it was exposed to the elements, step forwards Lotus, Austin, Jaguar et al. They also made excellent connectors but these were more expensive so not used.

Having driven cars with Lucas parts for many years I cannot say they were poor, it was usually the application by the supplier, anyone remember the Lucas coil and distributor on a mini? They were behind the grill and got soaked in heavy rain, stopping the engine. The Lucas bits were ok, the application was crap.

To keep repeating the same old guff about Lucas is just poor journalism, being repeated over and over by people who should know better. I worked with Lucas control systems for gas turbines for the world’s navy’s, they were excellent.

[Quart Meg Miles]

Didn't they also develop the early fuel injection units for racing, pretty much entirely mechanical using sliding bullets in a small cylinder to meter the amount injected into each port?

[Andy8421]

Didn't they also develop the early fuel injection units for racing, pretty much entirely mechanical using sliding bullets in a small cylinder to meter the amount injected into each port?

Lucas owned CAV, a firm producing diesel injection pumps. The concept is the same, the need to inject a metered pulse of fuel to the engine at the appropriate time and the appropriate volume. I had assumed that Lucas used their in-house diesel expertise when it came to their petrol injection system.

Its a pretty niche subject, but there is a website dedicated to these systems that explains how they work:

http://www.lucasinjection.com/index.html