BANzai Rastafarai wrote:I can only drop this here becuz Gonsalves is in the pic..along with MR AUTOSPORT himself....
Story is that the engine in that Sunny costs $4,500 Quid ($45,000TTD)
in the 80's to build...Any background GOrdon?
(sorry if this is a bit off wallerfield and the 70's)
Now seeing this and the question on the expensive engine. That is a fact. At that time, the 3-car Nissan team also had the son of a former CEO of N&M. Used to race single-seaters, like Gordon. And the engine was built by Geoff Richardson in England for his Nissan Sunny Rally Car. He eventually stopped Rallying and Gordon and myself ”inherited’ his Rally car. At the time the sunny engines were relatively new and there were not many performance parts, so this was a one off, by an internationally known engine builder thus the “price”.
On an excursion to Barbados with this car, we were out getting the feel of the Bajan terrain the night before an event, and came upon a huge pool of water. Gordon watched me and said he not coming out to check the depth of the pool. I said neither me. He stuck in 1st and launched, got through the water and the engine died. Engine refused to tumble afterwards.
Called Simon Gillmore who suggested we take out the plugs and try to tumble the engine. Sure enough engine turned over spitting out plumes of water. Simon said,… we have just experienced “dieseling”, that is, water in the combustion chamber, tried to compress, water does not compress, so all of the connecting rods were most likely bent. Towed the car to where we were housed.
Remember this is Friday night, Rally starts Saturday evening. At that time practically all of the Sunnys in Barbados came with 1300 engines, this was a 1500. No con rods available.
So at the time the team would go to Barbados, plus some directors from N&M. We cornered one who had a rented Sunny wagon… “Boss we have a problem, we want your engine”. He said no problem, but check with the manager of the rental department, yep all owned by N&M. Manager says, no problem, but when yuh finish, I want the engine back in the original car.
Oh did I mention that the rental was also automatic? We did have a good support mechanic, who pulled everything apart, did the swap and we collected the car and drove straight to the start without testing, car started to cut off, realized the gas lines were mixed. So we switched, and ran flawless. Informed the organizers of engine change, so also changed our competing class, and went on to win our Class in the event.
Then the undo part, to successfully swap back the rental engine. Sad to return to T&T with the fancy Geoff Richardson engine in parts in the trunk. Rebuilt, found out it just had a cam and Cosworth pistons!
Engine eventually sold to Nizam.