A Thing of Beauty

This folks is what a 10,000 RPM 3 main bearing crankshaft looks like...Thanks Mike COStain and Keith DuckWORTH! Sometimes you just cant help but to share! This crank was cleaned up in the Cosworth shop some time in May of 65 and looks wonderful. It still has standard size journals.

Now THAT's smooth! What kind of longevity is expected? How many hours are on it since the Cosworth work?

The engine is a genuine Cosworth block, by that I mean Cosworth got the block strait from the foundry. Its a Ford block, but it has a Cossie number stamped on the block, identifying it as a MAE.

The best we can figure, the engine has had only minor work done to it, or what ever has been done to it has been done in period, and done very, very well. The only thing that appears some what less than original is the fact it appears to have been re-sleeved. We aren't sure why.

The word is that these MAEs(Modified Anglia Engines)were just a grenade waiting to happen. It either lasted, or it came apart...In many pieces. So maybe some piston issues. Back in 64 or when ever, Cosworth were using near skirtless pistons with only 2 rings.

Yup - limited life on the engines, but regularly rebuilt they were pretty good.

A friend ran a Ginetta G4 with an Anglia block - not the MAE, which used a much modified down drafted head (they actually blocked the old ports and bored new ones and brazed new tubes into the heads - machining was cheap back then!) for a bit more power for Formula 3, but a stock (but modified) head probably giving around 100 bhp on a 997 engine at 9,000 or so (I always suspected that anything over 8,000 was just thrash). They did have a rep for coming unglued at speed.....

Another guy was running an FVA - a Cosworth conversion to DOHC on a crossflow Cortina that gave 200 bhp + on 1600 cc. Talk about having trouble finding spares!

The modified head, with the crazy down draft set up was part of the MAE treatment. Below is a pic of a prototype MAE head. It never made it into production due to cost limits. Note the use of the original intake ports for coolant plumbing!

That FVA is monster! It doesn't look as cool as a BD, but looking cool, and being cool are 2 different things. The MAE has a gear drive cam...So does the FVA! Its a thing of beauty. Its basically the 4 cyl version of the DFV.

Leo