Plan B Forum

It has a Merlin engine as originally as used in Spitfires, P51s, and 38 others.

https://youtu.be/J-I3Cl1RICg

Seems like a waste of a good Merlin, but maybe it was never to be airworthy again.

More Merlin history:
http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/wo ... in-engine/

Spitfire vs Bomber engine

I'm a little doubtful of that being an actual Merlin engine. There's a couple reasons- the wheelcase end is never shown- there's no room for the blower, which all Merlins had and you can't just take the blower off and run the engine. The only thing that's clearly Merlin is the valve covers.

I highly suspect that that is a Rover Meteor with Merlin valve covers on it. A Rover Meteor was a naturally-aspirated 27L engine derived from the Merlin- it used the same crankshaft, rods, and similar enough cylinder banks and heads but the crankcase was designed to delete the blower and aircraft reduction gear so that the engine could be used in Centurion tanks. It made about 600HP. We've used many Meteor parts to make some of our Merlins run again, as they aren't used in aircraft and were a bit cheaper to acquire. A lot of stuff interchanged.