British Anzani

[richard]

autojumbling today and amongst other things bought operating instructions for 242cc and 322cc  anzani two stroke , rotary valve engines on the basis that i thought one or two micro's used them . surprised to find used by Norman,Cotton,Viscount two wheelers and Jarc,Astra Gill,Powerdrive,Fairthorpe,Berkeley,Manxcar and lastly Opperman ! Quite a list . ( total production figures for all combined would be Very few ) Were they any good cant think i've ever heard one .

[Big Al]

Talking to those that know there is good reason to say the Anzani was a better engine than the Excelsior that replaced it in most installations. The unit has a rotary valve but of course required some understanding to rebuild and maintain. The Excelsior is more basic. Its plus and minus is that it comes completely apart including the crankshaft. This was fine if you had the skills and ability to rebuild it correctly. The trouble is many people thought they had but did not so many a crappo engine still lurk out there. For myself I have never had a reliable Excelsior that I loved. It was a case of waiting for the next problem. The two Anzani cars I had, Opperman Punicar and Berkeley, both ran reasonably will and would actually start when asked without lots of fiddling about. However neither these nor any of the Excelsior machines got daily use so ultimately I can only go on what the old hands told me and my meddling experience.
Interestingly I had quite good contacts with Dave Chapman at Dolphin Marine Engines. This unit started life as a marine version of these engines. It gained water cooling and eventually he had the engine redesigned into a fully jacketed water cooled unit still using the dynostrater and Siba electrics. The final version did away with the Siba parts to go to solid state. He sold the company some 10 years ago when I bought him out of Siba spares. It is, in theory then, possible to get a water cooled modified engine to then fit into a Microcar thus solving one of the big problems of these engines in half the installations, cooling. The later units also gave more power. I leave you to ponder if water cooled twins really belong in the MIcrocar world, all that extra weight.

[Bob Purton]

Given the choice I would go for the Anzarni, if one got Bleriot across the channel its good enough for me!

[richard]

  then again balloons were the first aircraft but i dont fancy going to torremolenos , watneys red barrel, in one