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O/T Definately not your usual what bike engine question
Mark (smokey mow) posted a topic in The Start Line
As a few of you know I now have a 1966 Johnny Walker Racing JW4 single seater in my car collection for a bit of a restoration. Various incarnations of the JW4 was built between 1965 and 1969. The early mk1 cars supplied from the factory were fitted with the 250cc Villiers Starmaker Engine, the Mk2 with a 650cc BSA A65 engines, Mk3 with Saab engines and Mk4's were designed for the IMP engine. My car is a Mk2. The Formula 4 regulations at the time stipulated that the retail price of a running engine should not exceed £150, this was intended to keep the cost down for competitors and any possibility of engine tuning to gain an unfair advantage. As such cars were often sold without engines to allow owners to choose their own. Several different bike engines were fitted which typically included BSA, Norton, Triumph, JAP and Ducatti. As my car currently has no engine, The question is what to go for myself? The criteria is.... Built before 1969 650cc or under Air cooled Ideally a unit twin While I'd quite fancy a british engine, they are generally underpowered compared to some of the Japanese offerings from the same era in standard tune so my current thinking is the Yamaha XS650, but has anyone any other suggestions? For those that can't offer any help but are reading this and wondering what Formula4 or the JW4 was then have a watch of this period film http://bps.britishpathe.com/hls-vod/flash/00000000/00004000/00004168.mp4.m3u8 And before anyone asks, yes I do have a better roll bar