I didn't know that!

[Sussex Pete]

Recently purchased a book about BL in the '68 to '86 period, as that was coincidently the time I was working there. Came across this picture that is captioned "The most powerful S series engine. A 2-litre EFI in an MG Maestro". Now, as far as I know the S series was only ever available as a 1.6 and I didn't know that it ever appeared with EFI, although this picture appears to contradict that. So, can anyone clarify one way or the other, please

[Montegoman]

The picture is of an early "O" Series EFi engine 1984/5. The S Series was only ever built as a 1.6 but it was mated to the Lucas fuel injection and available in the Rover 216 SEi, VDP and Vitesse. It was the best version of the "S" Series engine as it ditched the auto choke. It was never installed in the Maestro & Montego because it was felt it would be too close in power to the carb 2.0 "O" Series in power.

What is the book you are referring to?

[carfix]

It is possible to see "interesting" engines that never went into production vehicles.

One of my first jobs on leaving university back in the late seventies was working for Vauxhall Motors at the Luton site as a product development engineer. At that time Vauxhall still has some autonomy from Opel.

I know when new cars were being "engineered" for volume production we would be looking at suitable power plant/transmission combinations. We could in theory source engines and gearboxes from any General Motor plants through out the world.

As a result, you could see "mock ups" of cars with various engine/transmission combinations and some where tried out in pre-production vehicles.

Most never saw the light of day but in theory you could see some "interesting" engines in early Cavaliers and Astras running around the plant . I am certain we took plenty of photos of them at the time and I do remember the "marketing" men being very interested.

Of course most of this development work was lost when we started producing vehicles which were mainly Opel designed. However, we still took great delight on getting our hands on the various new Opel cars and seeing what new engineering features had been built into them.

[Sussex Pete]

The picture is of an early "O" Series EFi engine 1984/5. The S Series was only ever built as a 1.6 but it was mated to the Lucas fuel injection and available in the Rover 216 SEi, VDP and Vitesse. It was the best version of the "S" Series engine as it ditched the auto choke. It was never installed in the Maestro & Montego because it was felt it would be too close in power to the carb 2.0 "O" Series in power.

What is the book you are referring to?

The book is British Leyland The Cars, 1968-1986 by James Taylor and published by Crowood. Managed to get a new copy at a heavily discounted price. As the cam cover looks distinctly S series and I have only ever seen fluted cam covers on an O series engine, the picture confused me to say the least. There is another photo in the book, that is supposedly from a Montego but shows the alternator on the exhaust side of the block and an end-on starter motor, through the bell housing.

[Jeff Turbo]

As the info on this engine is obviously incorrect, It makes you wonder about the rest of the book Pete

[Montegoman]

James Taylor is very knowledgeable but his background is more Rover and Land Rover than other parts of BL. I am sure my 1985 MG Maestro Efi had the same cam cover as in the picture, The S Series had clamps over the cam cover.