Special 313 engines? - 407 and 408 MK1

[Connoisseur]

Originally Posted by Nick Challacombe

When I came to rebuild my 407 , 313 engine because, I think, very poor quality Irish petrol on a tour in Southern Ireland had caused one piston to loose its rings and scour the block.
When investigating the supply of 30th oversized liners in turned out to be far cheaper to use 40th pistons which were std on the 318. Every other dimension was the same.
I therefore think my engine is a 318 in effect. Not that relevant but I though interesting given the subject.

Apparently there is a number possibly under the cylinder head that tell you the displacement of the block it would be interesting to know if it says 313 or 318 there would also be a letter/number code next to it such as 4W or M. You don't by any chance have any record of that? A bit of a long shot.

[Nick Challacombe]

I may have misled you, when we came to re-bore we required 30th pistons but before we started we were looking at prices and noticed that 40th pistons were under half the price of 30th because they were std on the 318 engine. the only difference we could find between a 313 and 318 was the bore, the stroke was the same.
Therefore what I meant to say was that in effect I now have a 318 engine.
Apologies for the bad phrasing.


The fuel in Southern Ireland was c--p , the time before when we visited the BOC on a Herdiman tour decent petrol was available.
We could not even find additive. I saw a Shell sign passing through a village and pulled over to fill up at the single pump, I asked the operator why there were no other Shell stations around, he said they were not a Shell station, the boss bought the cheapest stuff he could find and he had bought the sign at an auction!!!

[Kevin H]

Originally Posted by Connoisseur

I'd better be diplomatic in my article. Even if Bristol didn't do some of the things suggested there is probably more to this than first meets the eye.
Still quite hard to fathom out myth from fact here.

I wouldn't worry about it. Tell it as you see fit, however getting to the truth is not easy. One of the problems is myths can be perpetuated by successive authors. I'd be wanting to talk to someone who has personally dismantled an original 313 from a Bristol.

[Connoisseur]

Originally Posted by Nick Challacombe

I may have misled you, when we came to re-bore we required 30th pistons but before we started we were looking at prices and noticed that 40th pistons were under half the price of 30th because they were std on the 318 engine. the only difference we could find between a 313 and 318 was the bore, the stroke was the same.
Therefore what I meant to say was that in effect I now have a 318 engine.
Apologies for the bad phrasing.


The fuel in Southern Ireland was c--p , the time before when we visited the BOC on a Herdiman tour decent petrol was available.
We could not even find additive. I saw a Shell sign passing through a village and pulled over to fill up at the single pump, I asked the operator why there were no other Shell stations around, he said they were not a Shell station, the boss bought the cheapest stuff he could find and he had bought the sign at an auction!!!

All now makes sense, still interesting. The Shell story really paints a picture of the laid back Irish attitude.

[Geoff Kingston]

Kevin,
I did not personally dismantle my 408's 313 engine but when John got it all apart and accessed the extent of the damage I had to find the parts.
Competition Cars were a wonderful company run by two or three brothers who knew everything about American cars and parts, the set up was amazing , a counter, parts books produced and phones behind, they had all the parts books for the USA and Canada and could cross reference everything so no I did not personally dismantle my 313 engine myself but I bought every component to allow it to be rebuilt and they were all Chrysler, Dodge, Plymouth, original or after market parts , not one component Bristol specific.
Geoff

[Roger Morrall]

My impression is that Tony Crook talked up the Canadian engine, focussing on the variations as against the US variant, and managed to infer that this was in some way special to Bristols, when it was in fact bog standard. He did I believe once claim that Bristols "blue printed" the engines, what ever that might have meant, and got extremely cross when this became the subject of discussion on the BOC forum. One has to admire his mastery of Marketing Speak but I’ve done a bit of that myself, not that I was at all good at it, and I do know that it is essential to defend one’s words to the hilt, otherwise the whole edifice is liable to crumble.

The key thing is that they were and remain most excellent cars

[Geoff Kingston]

Roger,
I got a similar impression when he was talking about the 603E and S though in that case he was talking the 318 engine down saying that production of the E was stopped because customers preferred the more powerful S, however this has never been supported by the respective numbers of each model owned by members of the BOC over the years, very few 603S' have been listed, far more 603E's until the S2 came along in far greater numbers than both, I have always had a suspicion that this had far more to do with the engines he had available or could get hold of as opposed to customer preference.
The other thing that amused me when I had the 411 was when I purchased a replacement starter motor from Bristol Cars and it came in a Chrysler Marine box, perhaps my 411 had a boat engine!
Geoff.

[Connoisseur]

Hello Roger - The 440 cu inch version of the B series engine was in fact used for marine applications...