LOT 194 - Ford Cosworth 2.0 litre BDG engine

ABOUT THIS CAR

“The BDA and all its derivatives went on to dominate the motorsport scene and even today, 30 years on, it is still providing many winning cars with their power.” Burton Power, ‘Ford Cosworth BDA / BDG Tuning Guide’

Actually, we make that well over 50 years but the point made by the good folk at Burton remains the same. Tracing their roots back to the Lotus Twin Cam engine of the early 1960s, the legendary ‘BD’ series of engines were developed at the end of that decade by Cosworth utilising, as did the Lotus TC, the then current Ford bottom end. Sixteen valves in ‘hemi’ combustion chambers for maximum acreage and airflow, operated by twin overhead camshafts now driven by belts instead of chains were the order of the day. Looking as cool as it sounded, all this mechanical wizardry was mounted atop Fords ridiculously strong ‘711M’ block and the key to unlocking bundles of horsepower was duly precision cut.

First up was the alphabetically correct ‘BDA’; BD for belt driven, A to ensure 25 further developments could be accommodated without recourse to a new naming system. Though they had much in common as far as head design went, it was essentially a slightly less exotic variant of the FVA which, like its ‘two straight fours’ DFV cousin, utilized gear driven camshafts that would arguably have been too closely related to a dentist’s drill for the road use expected of the BDA. Indeed, it was in the engine bay of the Escort RS1600 that the engine was first seen, though its competition potential was clear with both racing and rallying firmly on the agenda. Development continued apace and the BDG with its 1975cc capacity arrived in 1973. The ever-larger cylinder bores necessitated brazed in liners and the BDG, after considerable input from Brian Hart, eventually received an alloy block which had the double whammy of a considerable weight saving over the earlier iron blocked engines.

Enough of the nuts ‘n’ bolts of the BD range, time for a little personal touch; why not, when one of the most successful Formula Ford engines of that period had its own name (Patch since you asked, referencing a repair made to its block after a con-rod made a bid for freedom). Enter Kenny Allen - ‘King Kenny’ - a hugely popular figure in the world of motorsport, particularly in his native Scotland and specifically on the Hillclimb scene. Seven times Scottish Hillclimb Champion, Scottish Speed Champion and occasionally appearing in the British Hillclimb Championship Top Ten Runoffs, Kenny was still winning well into his 70s but sadly passed away in 2019; his life has been celebrated for the last few years by the annual Kenny Allen Memorial Hillclimb, held fittingly at the ‘King of Hills’, Doune, near Stirling.

Having progressed from his original roadgoing Mini and a Clan Crusader through to competition specific machinery such as a Mallock U2 Mk 20 and Chevron B15, Kenny then moved on to a Vision V84A, powered to yet another Scottish Hillclimb Championship by this very BDG engine. Originally built by AGRA Precision Engineering in Dundee, they continued to look after it when Kenny transferred it to the Ralt RT30, in which it was said “he could thread the eye of a needle”. Kenny eventually went back to competing in a road car, this time his beloved Lotus Elan, and the RT30 was sold to brothers Dave and Sandy Robertson who continued to entrust the engine’s upkeep to AGRA.

Numbers stamped into the engine and shown in the photo gallery indicate the BDG was periodically rebuilt by AGRA and their man Iain Ross dyno tested it at 274 bhp. Now retired from AGRA, Iain gave the engine a cambelt service and rebuilt the Weber 48 DCOE 98/2T carburettors in 2021, since when it has hardly been run.

The BDG is a ‘three stud’ exhaust manifold example sporting the desirable alloy block. It comes with Lumenition electronic ignition, an Armtech rev. limiter, Mocal remote oil filter, a fuel pressure regulator and Pipercross air filters. The exhaust manifold and dry sump parts configured for the Ralt RT30 are also included in the sale.

A copy of the aforementioned dyno sheet and a video of the engine running in the RT30 are available, the latter showing the engine’s beautifully crisp throttle response and 70 to 80 psi oil pressure.

Given its current carburettor configuration, the BDG lends itself to a variety of potential end uses from hillclimbs and sprints to circuit racing and rallying though the temptation to pop it into virtually any Ford powered road car of the ‘60s or ‘70s is appealing and unhinged in equal measure… The option to fit fuel injection and unlock further potential is of course also there.   

With prices of freshly built BDGs being in the £25,000 to £30,000 range, we feel the potential opportunity to purchase a proven championship winning engine for around a third of that is not to be missed.