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[Mr Skrunts]

Dont think so Martin, it was the 1256 engine from the HC Viva which iirc was a bored out version of the 1159 engine from the HB Viva. A crap engine,even Bill Blydenstein said it was virtually impossible to tune.

Didnt do too bad with mine.

Stage 3 head, HD Valve springs and HD Competition clucth (was either up or down on the pedal) and updated stromberg 175 carb and a standard oil pump.


Bought the as an ex demo (Local Dealer - Kirkby Central) with all the above fitted plus lumention, car had 20k on when I bought it plus all the HS spoilers and DTV stripes.  Engine lasted to 32k and started to burn oil.  So had a brand new Vx short motor fitted with all the above plus a high pressure oil pump.

Ran it all in carefully and the new lump showed a vast improvement.  Took it to Noble Mellors in Chesterfield to have my tracking done and Gavin Cox thier rally driver took it out for a test drive and commented on quick it was compared to his 100 bhp Astra powered chevette but said mine was a bit fluffy on pickup.

My girlfriends Dad had a garage and reckoned he used to work on race cars (dint quite believe ) but let him have a twiddle on mine.  He ripped the lumention out and put standard points back in, and some plugs that the dealers wanted me to test (as they considered fitting them in the plods panda cars) with mine being a stage 3 big valve head I think they said these ran hotter and wanted to see how they performed in thier old demo.

Well impressed, wheelspin in 1st and 2nd gear and a squeak in 3rd.  Car had never managed to maintain more than 102mph whatever I had done, that day it went on and maxed at 112mph (indicated on speedo) so I was well chuffed (even more so for the length of private test track I was on)


Few years later when I had my sylvia turbo I went to buy a rally prepared HS.

Twin 48's, big bore exhaust routed inside the car etc, fire ex kit, R/C plus all the usual.  The guy selling it reckoned it had 240bhp and took me for a spin, he thought he would impress me down some twisty country roads where we could see for miles.  He hit speeds of 70/80 mph pushing it all the way.  I passed on the deal as I thought the car was tame, and proved it by taking him in the sylvia on the same route at nearly 110.  His car was fooked


There's good and bad in all, and is surprising how many low mileage chevettes are actually tucked away.

[Mr Skrunts]

Was a Bill Blydenstein but had the CHR2 cam rather than the full race CHR3 that would have needed the new inlet and Dellorto 45, plus the 4 branch manifold and big bore exhaust.

I also removed the resonator boxes from my exhaust and fitted straight through pipes, made quite a difference.

[albitz]

The HS with twin 48,s etc were normally around 175bhp (on a newish engine) The works rally cars were 240 at best,but that required bigger valves, much higher lift cams, different pistons etc, so he was probably a bullshitter as you suspected.
I think old Billys point about the 1256 was that the time effort and money required wasnt really worth the bother as the head design was restrictive and after a certain point it didnt really matter what you did, there was no more performance to be had.

[Mr Skrunts]

One of the family who owbed the factory where I worked rebuilt his HS from the standard 135 to the 240 bhp works spec.

When he wrote the shell off on one of the rallys he had the engine rebiult from the 240 bhp twin cam 2.3 to the 2.6 stroker kit with the new crank and single cam head, they recked that what approx.

He had a never ending supply of engine as the block was the same as the Bedford CF230 vans, and we ran a fleet of them at work.

Once heard them setting the timing in the garage. they just revved it to 7000 rpm and and adjusted the timing.  Sounded awsome.

I have a couple of pics some where, will scan them and post them when I find them.

Also have a pic of his brothers escort BDG works car, he won his class in the Lombard RAC with that, cant remeber what year it was tho.