A7 V8!

[John Mason]

The V8 Austin engine looks great in the photos. I see that both camshafts are used which is what I expected. Do they have one 8 lead distributor driven from one camshaft gear or two 4 lead distributors one off each camshaft gear. If it’s two it must be very difficult to get them synchronised.

John Mason.

[Bruce Nicholls]

Are the blocks staggered to get the little ends central in the pistons?
If so are the camshafts similarly arranged to get the cam followers in line with the cam lobes?

[Tony Griffiths]

More from the same guy...

Most interesting - it just shows what can be done with a basic workshop and probably less than a £1000-worth of lighter, inexpensive machine tools - : a Barnes lathe from the 1920s or earlier; a cheap Taiwanese/Korean mill-drill (I can recommend these - they are very, very useful) and an Atlas horizontal milling machine.

[Paulcars1]

Hi John We are using two dk4 distributors, one cam will be timed 18odeg out so that both cylinders on the same crank journel don't fire on the same revolution. Bruce blocks are staggered to keep rods and pistons central to bores, cams will be the same to get everything to line up. We are still working out some problems with the layout, water pump will be used to push water thru engine.

[Scarlet O'Hara]

Apologies for not posting this sooner but I couldn’t find fathers folder on the Anderson specials.

James Anderson built 4 innovative specials between 1922 and 1936. The second special was constructed in 1926/27 and featured a mid-mounted straight 8 engine built up using two Austin 7 engines; the 1977C issue of the A7CA magazine included an article about this car.
This car was developed over a number of years and in 1933 the transverse engine(s) were replaced by two Austin units but now mounted in a side by side configuration. These only lasted until 1934 when they were replaced by James Andersons own engine, a flat eight configuration built up using two Humber 9/20 blocks and a modified Humber 9/20 crank.

So there’s a bit of history to this multiple A7 engines theme.

           

[James Anderson]

Perhaps oddly but coincidentally, having exactly the same name, I went to school in Glasgow with his son Roderick (Roddy) but being possibly too immature and/or disinterested in all things motoring at that age, never discussed his father's projects. Andersons Garage in Newton Mearns was a huge establishment (sadly long gone) and there are quite a few videos on you-tube about his various exploits. Obviously, a very talented engineer, one of his Humber twin engined cars was and may still be in Glasgow's Kelvingrove Museum and not in the more expected Transport Museum (thank God in a way, because most of the cars there are just stacked on shelves!) Still both very well worth a visit!

[Ruairidh Dunford]

I understand the first of his specials is buried in a field near Newton Mearns...