What is the spec/BHP of a 1.6 8v Vx Academy Engine?

[pellert]

Evening all,

Out of curiosity, could someone tell me what the specification of a 1.6 8v Vauxhall engine for the Academy series. is.

My own car has a standard set up, 101 Bhp at the crank and around 70ish at the wheels.

Are the Academy cars supposed to be standard?

Cheers

Paul

[Grubbster]

I'm not 100% sure but I think they were rated at 100bhp so yours sounds spot on. Academy cars then went to 115bhp K series, then 120 bhp K series, and currently 125bhp Sigma.

[andysteele]

i think it was 100 quoted (and so says the Magnificant Seven book), so yours is doing well still!

[pellert]

Thank you for your responses, the reason for the question is that I am trying to collect spares for my own car. There is a complete engine on Ebay and the seller is advertising it from an ex-academy car that has 100bhp at the wheels and 135bhp at the flywheel. This seemed strange to me. At £350 (or best offer) might be worth a punt.

Cheers  Paul

[Roger King]

Frankly, it depends on which rolling road he tested it on. I know of one particular rolling road that will show more at the wheels than you'll see at the flywheel on an engine dynamometer.

You need to make sure it really is a genuine Caterham engine. That unit was a weird hybrid. It was 1600ccm, but the physical size of the block and head are bigger than the 1600ccm engines that Vauxhall used in their production cars. I'm not sure it was ever used in anything other than a Caterham.

[Nick Chan]

There were a number of 1600 VX 8 valve engines that were upgraded by a chap called Bill Blyderstein (sp?) and it might be one of these as they were meant to be very similar in output to the cross flow 1700cc super sprints at 135bhp. I believe BB is now deceased

HTH

Nick

[Keith_T]

Hi Nick, pellert

Bill Blydenstein is the tuner.  My 1800VX uses bits supplied by his company.

BB was a Vauxhall specialist who produced race cars supported by Dealer Team Vauxhall and usually driven by Gerry Marshall.  His most famous creations were the V8 Berthas ("Baby" Firenza and "Big" Ventora).

FWIW my car was put on a rolling road last year and showed 125bhp.  Compared to the old Steve Parker- tuned cross-flow I previously owned it's a bit lacking in character but quite capable.  The rolling road man offer to bore it out somewhere near 2L and, with a steel bottom end, said it would turn out over 190bhp. I've got a Red Top coming sometime soon. 

 

 

[Matthew Willoughby]

The Caterham supplied 1600cc 8 valve Vauxhall is code C16NZ2.  It was fitted to some Vauxhalls from around 1992 but is apparently quite rare.  Caterham ported the head, threw away the injection gubbins and bolted on twin Webers instead.  My car has been rolling roaded at 102BHP and is fairly typical of the other cars on the Classic Graduates grid.  They all seem to have slightly different characteristics, presumably due to being hand ported and the setup of the carbs.  There are certainly some engines that are slightly stronger than others.  Some are relatively revvy whereas others have solid low down torque but a weaker top end (like mine).

The engines are becoming harder to come by so if anybody is ever upgrading and thinking of selling their engine please let me know as the Graduates racers are always after them.  They are remarkably reliable but the cars are now a minimum of 15 years old so we inevitably have a couple fail each year, and replacements can be hard to source.

[Nick Bassett]

Slight thread creep, but back in the day I had a Nova 1.3 SR (all that I could afford to insure - how do kids these days afford to drive these powerful hot hatches & EVOs etc?) that I had fittted with one of Bill Blydenstein's B+ pack heads. About a year later I got my hands on a set of s/h Nova Sport twin 40s and the car really did go very well - nobody believed it was only a 1.3!

Put loads of miles on it and took it to RAFG with me - the only issue it gave was carb icing in the winter - not great when you're in Antwerp heading East in the dark on virgin snow in sub-zero conditions and the car is stuttering like it is going out of fashion!

Sold it in the end to a friend in Bristol where it was stolen one night and used in a ram raid... RIP G331BAF (G174CPE - BFG plates) & of course Bill Blydenstein who sadly passed away a few years ago...

Ahem, sorry, back to Caterhams...!!!