Practically Classics Forum

I have just bought another Marina but without an engine & gearbox - no doubt now residing in someone’s Morris Minor. I can source an original engine etc. but given the opportunity, what inline petrol engine and gearbox combination does anyone think that I could consider. Something under two litres and capable of fitting in the engine bay without hacking it about. The MX5 immediately springs to mind, but what else is there that I could consider? A narrow angle V6 would be fun.

Getting a 1275 Marina/Ital engine is getting harder since they started to use them in the HRDC Academy A30s/A35s ... they get snapped up to be built into race engines at over £3K a pop! And they do have a habit of going pop

The MX5 is quite high and the gearbox may need "trimming" to fit or the gearbox tunnel "relieving" with a suitable tool ... 4lb hammer maybe? I know a chap who was putting one in his Midget and had a bonnet-closure problem .. that was going to get a power "bulge"!

I guess the engine bay is fairly wide but I don't know about the tunnel in a Marina ... although it did get the 1.8 so it could be wider than I remember (I only played with the 1.3 model back in the day)

I've read that an older 3-series ZF box fits in a Sprite gearbox tunnel .. that mated to a Ford SIgma might make a quick Marina!!

You might be able to use a modern transverse engine mated to an in-line gearbox if there is space for the paraphernalia on the ends of the engine (water pump, etc). Have you had a wander around the various Farcebook Marina groups?

Does the Marina have torsion bar suspension at the front, like the Minor it replaced? If so, the engine bay will be quite wide, so how about an Impreza flat-four, like Issigonis first envisaged for the Minor?

It would go like stink and you'd have no height problems, might be £££ to get one though I suppose! However it doesn't have to be the all-singing all-dancing Imreza WRX STI version, you could just use the normal cooking version (also used in the Forester) and still have a heck of a car.

I think it is the same design as the Minor .. but the car is going to be pretty narrow compared to a Scooby.

I can try and get you a rough measurement of the width of a Scooby flat-four as I have one on my garage .. albeit in the engine bay of my BRZ! That would be the easier of the FA20 units to transplant as the BRZ doesn't have the benefit or complication of 4x4 .. just drives through the rear wheels!

I need to go an measure a dip stick later anyway ..

How about an engine on steroids? Or could that be hemiroids? You might have to knock the bonnet about a bit, but the end result might just kick ass, as our friends over the pond say.

I had a couple of marina vans.. 1300 was the fastest car on the road..

Dick wrote: ↑

Wed Nov 27, 2019 8:57 am

I had a couple of marina vans.. 1300 was the fastest car on the road..

Yeah, then along came the Bedford Astramax and as we all know, that's officially the fastest vehicle ever built.

I'dbe tempted to go with a Toyota 1NZ (1500cc, 108 bhp and a usable quantity of torque, easy to convert to north-south applications too, a guy in the local multi-marque club is fitting one to his Minor Traveller) or, better yet, the short stroke, but otherwise similar 2NZ at 1300cc, slightly less torque but the one in my daily driver has 131bhp thanks to a "Cam box" VVTi upgrade via a chip that lives in the ECU and, even at 182000KM on the odometer, it's never had so much as the head off, still uses no oil and goes like stink. Factory 2NZs come in 74bhp, 88bhp and 94bhp versions IIRC, any of these would do fine in the lighter (than the bB it is, by some 110Kg) Marina shell.
But even better; these engines are all aluminium, and only slightly heavier than a Reliant 750/850cc engine at somewhere around 55Kg, so the Marina's handling would benefit greatly as a result of the weight loss up front.

JPB wrote: ↑

Wed Nov 27, 2019 11:03 am

I'd be tempted to go with a Toyota 1NZ (1500cc, 108 bhp and a usable quantity of torque, easy to convert to north-south applications too, a guy in the local multi-marque club is fitting one to his Minor Traveller) or, better yet, the short stroke, but otherwise similar 2NZ at 1300cc, slightly less torque but the one in my daily driver has 131bhp thanks to a "Cam box" VVTi upgrade via a chip that lives in the ECU and, even at 182000KM on the odometer, it's never had so much as the head off, still uses no oil and goes like stink. Factory 2NZs come in 74bhp, 88bhp and 94bhp versions IIRC, any of these would do fine in the lighter (than the bB it is, by some 110Kg) Marina shell.

Is there an English version of this fine piece of gibberish?

The main problem is that anything too modern will have ecu's. These would have to made to work in the new car. Mega squirt and mega spark is one name that springs to mind. The choice would be BMW or Mercedes as these are in-line engines that are coupled to manual gearboxes. Older ones would be the Fiat twin cam, the Ford Sierra, or a diesel out of a beat up pickup. You could of course throw common sense out the window and fit the ubiquitous rover V8!!

VW VR6 is a crazy compact engine for what it is...but don't recall any RWD applications so gearbox could be a challenge. Obviously there will be electronics to deal with as well as the original ECU will have nonsense like immobilisers to get in the way, though that's not likely to be insurmountable given it's an engine I'm sure there are maps out there for the Mega Squirt etc...

A Marina making that noise would confuse people a bit!