Talk:Hillman Imp

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A few little things. I started to clean this part up, then I decided to remove it:

The engine had huge potential for modification and the racing versions were developing three times the power of the single carburettor version which resulted in the Imp winning the equivalent of the British Touring Car championship three years in a row: 1970, '71 and '72 In later years people turbocharged them and power outputs of around 170 bhp were realised

This conflicts with the earlier para which states that engine modifications were limited in scope. So which is it? Also, what is meant by the "equivalent of" the BTCC? Is it the BTCC or is it something else? The turbocharging is not something I've heard of either, can you link to a reputable source?

Also, in the opening para it states that the Imp was "effectively a hatchback" due to its opening rear window. I know what you're trying to say, but I think that's stretching it a bit. A true hatchback is much more than just an opening window. Graham 23:30, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm inclined to think the line about engine modifications being limited in scope should be deleted. There's plenty of scope to modify them. It's all down to how much the owner wants to spend and how practical he/she needs the car to be. Perhaps I'm missing the original author's meaning.

Added:- "However, in adapting the design to suit modern mass production methods, Rootes had left the engine somewhat more fragile than its Coventry Climax parent, hence any serious tuning must inevitably be accompanied by expensive strengthening modifications such as replacing the cylinder head gasket with gas-filled Wills rings." Which I think sums up the situation.

213.123.247.91 (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 13:22, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

While the factory never built any turbocharged cars, there are a few around that have been built by private owners. An example: http://www.angelfire.com/retro2/turboimp/

The Imp won the British Saloon Car Championship (BSCC) three times. The BSCC was later renamed the British Touring Car Championship.--Sunbeammadd 12:30, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Impartial assessment

"The Glaswegian workforce who were all recruited from the shipbuilding industry were also not versed in the intricacies of motor vehicle assembly, and Imp build quality and reliability suffered. They also brought with them their militant left-wing values, and as a result strike action and industrial disputes were a rule rather than an exception." This is hardly the language of an encyclopedia and lacks references. I would suggest making this statement (1) less opinionated and (2) to add references.[[user:jimjamjak]] 22:42, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Aluminium

The very first paragraph wrongly states: "it was the first mass-produced car with the engine block and cylinder head cast in aluminium." However, various earlier mass-produced cars featured aluminum engine blocks and cylinder heads including famously the 1961-1963 Buick Special and also related but different General Motors (Oldsmobile and Pontiac) models. General Motors built approximately 3/4 million cars with their 215cid (3.5L) aluminum V8 in just three years. One similarity between the General Motors V8 and the Hillman (Climax) four-cylinder is that both used cast-in-place iron cylinder sleeves. Later, Rover purchased design rights to the General Motors "215" engine but manufactured it with pressed-in iron sleeves (years 1967-2004). In the 1970s, Chevrolet's Vega was mass-produced with a linerless aluminum engine block and aluminum cylinder head. --2601:1C1:C200:BCF0:244F:4C42:EC3B:5440 (talk) 05:58, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

Since the contributor did not give us a source for this snippet I don't know where s/he got it from. I imagine that implicitly (or even expressly) the source was restricting itself to British cars because we Brits like to live on a separate planet most of the time. I remember the English motoring press did make a lot of fuss about the aluminium cylinder head at the time, which is consistent with my theory in the previous sentence. I will modify the statement accordingly. But if someone somewhere knows more and / or better, please feel free to correct my correction. Especially if you have a relevant source to hand. Regards Charles01 (talk) 07:30, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

Your right Charles01, and i found the source at which the statement comes from (it includes 'British' in its description, proving your point) available here: http://www.imps4ever.info/family/impbasic.html. I made the edit a while back when adding more information for the introduction to the article and I may of still been getting used to the referencing system. I will reference it shortly. Regards User:Dean Frankling (talk) 00:17, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

Cooling

At the risk of being accused of using the talk page as a "forum" instead of a place to improve the article, may I point out that that the article doesn't say anywhere what sort of cooling the engine uses. I see a single mention of a "water pump", which suggests a water cooled engine, but at first I was inclined to suspect air cooled, since radiator location is not obvious. I also have changed the claim that the engine "Could be ported and flowed due to the overhead camshaft", because ALL engines can be ported and flowed. Improving the flow of the stock head has nothing to do with whether the valves are actuated by a cam over them or under them. Many argue that an OHC engine allows for better flow inherently by allowing for wider valve angles (without resorting to fancy fixes, a la Hemi engine), but that is totally unrelated to the practice of porting the heads, polishing the air passages, reducing radii, and widening pinch points. These can be done to any engine. But here, I am getting off immediate topic of how to improve the article, and surely the WikiPolice will swoop in any moment now and chastise me for violating policy. Apologies in advance. 70.109.132.119 (talk) 03:42, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

Thank you. I agree the water-cooling needs to be spelled out in the entry, so I added that. After that some of your technical explanations lose me 'cos I would never have trusted myself to take an engine to pieces and be able to put it back together again, so the contents of the engine bay will always retain an element of mystery bordering on witchcraft for me (as for almost everyone else, now the standard response to a problem seems to involve replacing a computer chip). But the failing there is largely mine, not yours. Do please improve the entry in any way you think it needs. As far as possible, though, include credible sources. Under most circumstances, good sources will trump the wiki-police. If you can use language that the intelligent generalist with little hands-on experience of what goes on under the bonnet/hood (and where possible avoid words that work in British or American English but not both), so much the better. For many of us "ported and flowed" urgently needs translating. Wikipedia should (I say) address people who don't know but want to, before it addresses people who already know - or think they know - all the answers. (Though sometimes these things can be easier said than done.) Success Charles01 (talk) 09:22, 8 March 2018 (UTC)