The Mystery Motor (Repco V8)

[Greg Hermann]

>Well I'll just cut and paste the reply I got from my Father-In-Law on the
>subject of this motor, he was working at Repco at the time, so here goes.-
>--------------------------------------
>The Repco Brabham was developed in Australia there certainly was no outside
>money or help the engine was loosely based on the Buick all alloy 215 ci V/8
>but only the block was similar there were home built OHC heads  the block
>was also cast in Australia as the original was not strong enough.
>I was told that the whole project cost over in 4 years  around 6 million Aus
>$ for engine and car development I wonder how much it would cost to win a
>couple world titles now???
>One interesting point was the intake manifold has no butterfly's but was a
>slide operation this was a fairly scary thing because in those days the cars
>had good power and the tires were terrible the tires would throw rubber up
>and road debris and the slide throttles would stick
>I can remember one driver sarcastically commenting that at least they never
>stick shut
>They usually stuck wide open usually at a brake point at the end of the
>straight scary stuff  The car Jack Brabham  won the world championship is
>still in Melbourne and still is driven usually by Sir Jack at the Australian
>GP this car had no seat belts or fuel cells the car is aluminium monocock
>and the fuel tank goes down both sides it was  thought it was better for the
>driver to be thrown out in a crash because of the fire risk

That is all correct, but it is about the 3.0 liter Repco/Brabham Formula I V-8.

The engine in question was yet a different one, the Repco/Pontiac 5.0 liter
V-8. A rather rarer bird!

Regards, Greg
>
>----------------------------------------
>
>Well that's about it.
>
>Ross Myers