Speedy engine upgrade

[JFaulknerUlsterRep]

Remember that well Tony you on about DSL 123? Think his name was Bill from Ravenstone he was driving it like it was a caterham 7! Remember years ago Henry Curtis swapped his sports engine he had with his ruby with a standard engine Mike Harris had in his nippy at the time. It didn’t go down too well when we found out he sold the nippy on but took the sports lump out of it. There made for using whichever engine you run ?

   

[Tony Betts]

thats the one joe,

bill drove it like a maniac, and not just bill. 

i heard at one of the club nights from bill the crank had broken wilst his daughter was driving it.

i was told she was doing around 35mph at the time,  by bill.

until i went over to talk to your dad and bob, were i learnt she was actually slowing down from somewere around 75mph to 35mph were it eventually went bang.

its always good to see DSL, i understand she may be in germany nowadays?

tony.

[JFaulknerUlsterRep]

Not seen it around for a long time and asked in a few places to see who has it now. OFF 700 did re appear onto the radar tho and that’s where the ulster replica love affair came from! 
   

[Charles P]

You could, of course, get a spare Nippy cam reground and hardened which would negate the bearing problems. There appear to be a fair few Nippy cams around, having been removed. You can even grind a decent shape into a Nippy cam without resorting to small base circles (I have one) - but Paul Bonewell knows this and has probably suggested it as an option. 
Trust Paul, he's a top bloke.

Charles

[Ian Williams]

I have just seen this post and can offer some personal experience, I own a Nippy that was fitted with a Speedy engine from new. When I purchased the car the Speedy engine had been sitting under a bench since the 60's and it ran a mildly tuned ruby engine, it was slow and uninspiring to drive in this form. I already had tuned specials so decided to return the car as close to factory spec as I could to experience driving it as Austin intended. The original inch and a half crank was retired and a phoenix fitted to protect the rest of the engine but otherwise everything else remained as std including the Factory high lift cam. Now I did run an Nippy cam in one of my special engines a few years ago, and whilst it was fast in comparison to other cars I was able to make some worthwhile gains to the low down torque by using a reground cam with less lift and altered duration. This translated to faster times on the track than my previous set up, so it stands to reason that I could achieve similar results with the Speedy engine, however like Tony suggested, that to my mind defeats the object of the exercise. In practice the Speedy engined Nippy is great fun to drive, I used it daily for a while, it needs to be kept on song to get the best from it, yes let the revs drop and the power tails of quickly especially up a hill. But the driving experience is authentic, a dam sight quicker than a std tourer, and a few specials I might add, plus I have my own special for the times when I want to go for really quick seat of the pants drive. I have had no issues with any breakages of excessive oil leaks, the pump was over bored slightly to ensure a good flow, and I improved the oil seal around the starting dog but that is about it other than careful assembly.