Fast Marina Magazine

Dear All,

I´m from Germany and I´ll have an engine in an Austin Healey Sprite MK1 (Frogeye) which is for sure not orignal. The engine number is:

RKM1127E 14252


Someone told me that this engine was used in a Morris Marina, 1275cc - can it be? Or was it used in a Mini! What kind of engine is it ?? I was unable to upload a picture from the engine - the quota was reached - if you need a pic - let me know, can be sent via mail!!!

Is this engine more or less structurally identical to the one which was used in the AH Sprite MK1, or identical to any other engine? the problem is that I can´t find any items for this engine due to the fact that I can not order the correct goods without knowing where it comes from

I have no idea about the following as well - which will be good to know:

1) Power (cc):
2) Built:
others

many thanks for all the answers and support - and sorry for my bad english

Thorsten

Your engine does not appear on this list http://www.mgcars.org.uk/mgccz/technic/codeseng.pdf

RM may mean it is a factory remanufactured engine.

Is the code you have given the one stamped on a silver plate on the right hand front side of the engine?
Is it possible to tell the cylinder head casting number, under the rocker cover?

To get pictures on this forum it is best to upload them to http://www.flickr.com and then use the Img button above and paste the link to flickr there.
For example

Right click the image and you will see the link to Flickr in Properties

Hi,

thanks for your answer - here´s a picture from the engine - thanks for the description how to make a link - that rocks!!

For sure - this is a reconditioned engine - I guess from UNIPART!!

As you can see, the engine number is stamped on a silver plater - located at the right upper front.

Is this helpful??

Once again - many thnaks for all the support

Thorsten

It might be worth contacting Keith Adams at http://www.aronline.co.uk/

It certainly looks like an A series but your engine number does not follow a normal sequence. Also with a Weber carb the engine may well have been heavily modified from standard. You wont know till you take it apart.

The Marina and some other 1275cc cars was fitted with a cylinder head casting number 12G940. If you can find this number under the rocker cover it will help.
But again with the Weber carb, have the inlet valve sizes been changed from standard, perhaps when converting from leaded to unleaded fuel etc......????

More reading at http://www.somerford-mini.co.uk

A standard Marina 1.3 engine developed 60 hp (45 kW) at 5250 rpm and 69 lb·ft (94 N·m) at 2500 rpm but that was with SU carbs and not Webers...........

A little further research and I find that all engines pre-fixed with RKM were of UNIPART origin when BL split its parts organisation. The 'E' at the end of a part number denotes it is a reconditioned, service unit only (basic engine assembly with no ancillaries).

So I would guess that the remaining part number is simply a serial rather than an engine identifier.

Good luck with your researching.

According to this discussion (in French, in English

"Otherwise, the engine Ref: 14257 RKM1127E is a reference used by the British during the repackaging and that normally is a 1098. "
"What is certain is that the 1275 bear the reference RKM1 Refurbished 1126 E (mine is 1127 RKM1 E)"

If you want parts for That engine, please contact Abingdon MG
Enquiries@MG-TR-Parts.co.uk
phone 0044 121 544 4444

So I'm guessing that the '1127' refers to the capacity of the engine.

N'est ce pas.?

Kil

Great contributions guys, with bits of information coming from several sources to build up the picture. So to summarise, I think that the engine number says;

1. This is a BL 1098cc block overbored to 1127cc (20 thousands of an inch) and not a 1275cc Marina engine.

2. It has been reconditioned by Unipart and bought probably on an exchange basis (the E in the engine number). It was reconditioned after whenever Unipart separated from BL (anyone know the date?).

Comment
There were some Marina van engines of 1098cc, all of these would have been low compression engines (different pistons), although having been reconditioned the actual compression is anyone's guess. Equally it could have come in this form from a Midget, Sprite or Minor, all of whom (I think) used the 1098cc engine at some point. Checking the head casting number as jiversteve suggests will help you identify the source of the cylinder head and so the likely provenance of the block.

I found another source of info that may disagree with the theory that the RKM number is related to engine capacity, always assuming that the document is correct.

http://www.calverst.com/articles/Eng-en ... n_data.htm

And so the puzzle continues, I think that the only remedy will to open the engine up and start measuring things up.

Even then, judging by the Weber carb and possible further tuning it may not be possible to be finally certain of the engines original spec.