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I've been thinking about the M50+ problem of the air intake manifold interferring with the bonnet and I wondered if mounting the engine slightly lower would solve this.
I haven't got to the stage of offering up the engine yet so I'm not sure how much room would need to be made but thought that if the Marlin supplied rubber engine mounts were left out and the engine dropped directly onto the welded in mount points, this may solve the problem. You'd need to re-drill the holes in the chassis to align correctly and possibly add a reinforcement plate underneath.
With the straight 6 having perfect primary balance it may be the ideal engine to do without the chassis isolation the rubber provides as the vibration shouldn't be too uncomfortable.
My M52 engine with the Marlin-supplied mounts only has about 5 inches of ground clearance, which is fine as long as you go over the larger sleeping policemen slowly....any lower than this and I think you would be into serious sump-scraping.
Tim
I've been thinking about the M50+ problem of the air intake manifold interferring with the bonnet and I wondered if mounting the engine slightly lower would solve this.
I haven't got to the stage of offering up the engine yet so I'm not sure how much room would need to be made but thought that if the Marlin supplied rubber engine mounts were left out and the engine dropped directly onto the welded in mount points, this may solve the problem. You'd need to re-drill the holes in the chassis to align correctly and possibly add a reinforcement plate underneath.
With the straight 6 having perfect primary balance it may be the ideal engine to do without the chassis isolation the rubber provides as the vibration shouldn't be too uncomfortable.
Any thoughts or opinions?
Morris
I don't think you should have a problem in the Spotster. Jeremy seems to have solved the problem by turning the inlet elbow back to front. ]
I certainly would not try to hard mount your engine - it will vibrate, despite being well balanced, and as Tim says ground clearance is marginal when mounted normally.
Unless you consider dry sumping it.............?
OK, hadn't appreciated how limited the clearance under the sump would already be. I also thought the problem with the manifold was the nearside front corner sticking out too much but if this is only a cabrio issue then I'd already planned on doing some rearranging of the intake pipe.
When I went to order my chassis mark said I'd need to modify the manifold so I'd been working on that assumpton.
Dry sumping would be good but with the limited space as it is I'd probably create more problems by having to find somewhere to put an extra oil tank and cooler, plus I guess you'd need to inject the oil somewhere near the top of the engine into some sort of spray bar and I'd be bound to get that wrong
Morris
I think your pinch points will be the front offside rocker cover with the engine side bay, and the inlet elbow on the nearside.
The Cabrio is very tight, but after experimenting with several ideas, I re-drilled the engine mount holes and offset the engine marginally. You can also adjust the gearbox mount to affect the height of the engine at the front if that fouls on the bonnet underside. But make sure you leave enough clearance for the gear stick above the prop-shaft - I pushed mine up too high to get the front of the engine down, and then found the gear linkage fouled the prop.
