Imp
Turbo Mini Forums

What's peoples thoughts on the sunbeam imp? There's a guy selling one here, 1965, mostly rust free, has a seized motor, but it's the 800 some odd cc motor. He's also willing to throw in two 1200cc motors that do run, willing to bench show. He's asking about 1800ono in british pounds(about 3000 U.S. so I'm just guessing at the pounds conversion). Too much for the car or is that about right?

-James

if its rot free (which it should be in CO) i'd say thats a good price considering their rarity over there.

std engine is 875cc, there was a 998 engine in the raylle model but these are rare as...

I didnt think they could be stretched to 1200, or not easily ie bored and stroked.

maybe it's another 875cc then... All I know is he's giving up two good motors with it so the buyer can get it running easily.

can you get any pics?

They're great cars and the engines can make lots of power. But 1200cc would be a high spec engine.

Fastest 998 mini in the world? 13.05 1/4 mile 106mph

I have an 998cc engine from one - I ran Imps years ago and I never throw anything away - they go from 875cc to 998cc by removing the cast in liners and replacing them with "wet" liners and, IIRC, the wet liners can then be bored to a maximum of about 1140cc.

BUT, it's a troublesome engine, mainly head gasket....

Mine has Wills rings rather than a conventional gasket - worked fine when I last used it but VERY expensive as well as the machining of the grooves in the head.

I keep meaning to put it on eBay as I'll never use it again....

But for a 998cc engine it would out perform anything 998cc that Leyland produced (for a similar state of tune) mainly because of it's well oversquare bore/stroke ratio and unlimited RPM, and 8 ports......

Schrödinger's cat - so which one am I ???

hmm. I'll try to get pics. He's got one of it on minimania.com in the cars for sale section, just search for imp, http://www.minimania.com/web/id/9114/Cars4Sale_Detail.cfm try that and see if it works. He has more pics, I just haven't got them.

its worth checking that it has the correct engine parts, the sunbeams should have twin strombergs and an oil cooler as standard.

looks a bit more ropey here,


http://www.minimania.com/web/id/8701/Cars4Sale_Detail.cfm

Apart from the twin carbs and oil cooler, the genuine "sport" models (875cc) and ANY 998cc or above, will have an external oil drain pipe from the head down to the bottom of the block as the larger versions ran without oil seals on the valve stems....

The 998 and above would have had something better than the twin strombergs, mine has a weber.....

Schrödinger's cat - so which one am I ???

Is that not the other 2 he had for sale Joe?

Also, do a search on Google USA, there are a few people running them out in the USA in some small bore racing classes, I know as I sold my spare 998cc block and pistons to a bloke in California about 5 years ago...... (sold on ebay and he paid to ship it over.......)

Schrödinger's cat - so which one am I ???

well maybe,

but same colour, year, and a sunbeam, bit of a coincidence.

It's the same seller, he had three, this one is the last of the three. Now, here's a better question, would you rather snag up a rare car or put your mini back on the road? As that's my dilemna.

That is a tough dilemna !

What would that be for ?

Rusty by nature

racing mainly.

Oh, and the mini would be my daily.

850 billet cranked turbo as a daily?

your worse than me!

lol. yeah. I'm awful. Not to mention the obscene amount of carbon fibre it'll have. Only reason is because I love driving it so much.

Racing a Imp sounds better than having it for a daily I guess ...

Rusty by nature