Triumph Engine Numbering

[Ed Price]

This is perhaps best answered by David Chapman, but feel free to add any
comments.


May I ask you a few questions on Triumph engine nomenclature?

I was looking at your reference about Triumph Herald / Spitfire engine
identification. You stated that Triumph engines start with a one or two
character prefix; thus, the typical Amphi will have a GK series number (did
Triumph assign the "GK" to the IWK sale alone, or were "GK's" a general
production engine?).

My engine is clearly stamped GKI 257 HE.

My first question is obvious; what is significance of the "I" (not a "1").

Second, what does the "HE" signify.

Is this REALLY that early of a production engine; only #257!! Would you hazard a
guess as to the date of manufacture?

Since IWK made only about 4000 Amphis between 1961 and 1967, it seems that they
would not have bought only a single lot of engines. OTOH, 570 engines per year
seems like far too little (from Triumph's point of view) to be taking delivery
on a monthly basis (certainly not like modern auto production, where the engines
arrive on an almost hourly basis). Do you have any idea how IWK bought the
engines & transmissions?


Thanks,

Ed
El Cajon
67 Rust Guppy


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

 

[David Chapman]

Ed,

GK was assigned to the batch of 5000 engines that Triumph (in fact the parent
company - Standard Motor Co) sold to IWK in 1962, but, they forgot and Triumph
reused the same GK prefix on a 1300 engine in 1967 although I've never seen one
of those with a number less than 10000.

They did buy all the engines in one go because expected production was 30000
cars a year, the surplus engines were sold to Iran to power irrigation pumps.

Your engine number is GK 1257 HE which is about in the middle of the range that
were fitted to Amphicar.

HE is High Efficiency, all it really means is the compression ratio is about
8.5:1, a lot of these engines were exported and the LE version had a much lower
ratio so less power but could run on just about any fuel.

David C


----- Original Message -----
From: Ed Price
To: Amphicar List
Sent: Sunday, October 05, 2003 1:34 PM
Subject: [amphicar-lovers] Triumph Engine Numbering


This is perhaps best answered by David Chapman, but feel free to add any
comments.


May I ask you a few questions on Triumph engine nomenclature?

I was looking at your reference about Triumph Herald / Spitfire engine
identification. You stated that Triumph engines start with a one or two
character prefix; thus, the typical Amphi will have a GK series number (did
Triumph assign the "GK" to the IWK sale alone, or were "GK's" a general
production engine?).

My engine is clearly stamped GKI 257 HE.

My first question is obvious; what is significance of the "I" (not a "1").

Second, what does the "HE" signify.

Is this REALLY that early of a production engine; only #257!! Would you hazard
a guess as to the date of manufacture?

Since IWK made only about 4000 Amphis between 1961 and 1967, it seems that
they would not have bought only a single lot of engines. OTOH, 570 engines per
year seems like far too little (from Triumph's point of view) to be taking
delivery on a monthly basis (certainly not like modern auto production, where
the engines arrive on an almost hourly basis). Do you have any idea how IWK
bought the engines & transmissions?


Thanks,

Ed
El Cajon
67 Rust Guppy


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]


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