In 1963 I believe. The 215 is a great engine, being the narrowest V8 ever built. The resultant scale of my Spit was derived from the scale width of the Buick exhaust manifold mating faces plus 3 inches for riser stubs to put the fishtailed collectors in the correct position in the cowling.

The Buick/Rover 215c.i/3.5ltr V8 was enlarged by TVR to 4.2ltr and used in the Chimera sports car amongst others.
My mate has one fitted in his 1973 Ford Capri.
It was originaly fuel injected,but he runs it with a 4 barrel Holley suitably
jetted with gives him a nice 230bhp.

Probably the best light and narrow V8 would TVR’s own AJP8,either the
4.2 or 4.5ltr versions:

Like most Ferraris, the Cerbera’s AJP8 engine uses a flat-plane crank. “Flat-plane” means that the crank throws are all in a single plane – i.e. if you laid the crank on a desk it would be flat. Laying the crank of a conventional (twin-plane) V8 on a desk would result in a very three-dimensional wobbly thing sitting there. In both cases however, the desk will get very oily. With a twin plane you get eight evenly spaced firing intervals for every two complete engine revolutions, but the downside is that you can’t take advantage of exhaust pulse extraction effects since the manifold design is prohibitive. The Cerbera’s flat plane crank means that the engine (essentially) becomes two four cylinder engines operating on a common crankshaft, so the exhaust design is made like a traditional 4-2-1 set up to take advantage of pulse tuning effects.

Thus a flat-plane crank produces an engine that is more powerful but rougher in nature. It also means that the engine sounds like a pair of four cylinder engines together, rather than the classic “warble” of a V8 (e.g. the Rover engines used in Griffiths and Chimaeras). As a point of useless trivia, a four cylinder engine in a “boxer” configuration, as used by old Alfas, Beetles and of course the Subaru Impreza sounds like a classic V8.

The unusual exhaust sound is made even more weird by the “V” angle not being 90 degrees. Its 75 degree angle means the engine doesn’t behave exactly like two four-cylinder engines since instead of the firing intervals being 90 + 90 degrees apart they are 75 + 105 degrees apart.

I bet you didn’t really want all that gory detail, did you? And I bet you’re now wanting to know what “pulse effects” are? Basically its a technique where exhaust gets actively sucked out of the cylinders by the exhaust system, due to standing waves being set up in the exhaust pipes. Better? I didn’t think so….

Here’s a 4.5 AJP8 engined Cerbera in action with 300+bhp escaping :diablo::
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VshqCSPjVcg&feature=related

That would really liven your beautiful Spit up 😉

Mark