Appendix K clarification,Imp

[John D]

Hi guys,I am posting here in the hope that the collective 10/tenths knowledge base would be able to help clarify a couple of questions.

A friend,Doc Fredrik Knutsen,well known Imp racer,is having a bit of bother with the App K rules,which,to me,make no real-world sense.

I realise that,whilst the engine block issue may well be a problem,surely the transmission query must be wrong.

George Bevans and every other Imp I have read of,in period,used Jack Knight gear ratios.Certainly Bevans 3 championship years,his and all the other Imps competing in the British championship used them.

I will insert Docs'original enquiry,copied from another forum below,in the hope that some light could be shed on the subject.

Thanks in advance

John

Docs' post-
"As people who frequent this forum may have noticed, my son Matt and I run Imps in Historic racing in the Nordic countries.
The rules are as per FIA Appendix K, we run to period G2, ie 1970-72. So, if you try to build a car close to the 1971 Bevan specs, you would be a shoo-in for an HTP, right?
Not so. Unfortunately.
Turns out there are two major obstacles.
One is to do with engine blocks. It seems that the FIA will not allow the use of the 930 Sunbeam block, despite the difficulties of obtaining the "straight-edge" Imp blocks over here. Three of our pool of 998 race engines are built on 930 blocks, while the fourth is a pukka Hartwell-built engine in the Imp block, built for me originally in 1979, and unused since a 1982 re-build.
Having the three "new" engines re-done to pacify the FIA will be a financial stretch, not only in finding suitable blocks and having them machined for 998 liners, but also to find Imp crankshafts, having them nitrided, fitted with steel flywheels, and balanced. With the 930 crank using five flywheel bolts, neither of these items are interchangeable with those of the Imp.
The other problem concerns the transmission. Now, there is no doubt that in period, alle the cars ran 4-sp Knight dog boxes.
However, the FIA has decreed that removing synchro rings was not App K legal back then, so, incredibly, Knight dog boxes are not legal in 2010, in Historic racing cars that purport to reproduce the 1970-72 era.
The Chrysler c/r synchro boxes had ratios for cars running 12" wheels in rallies, but when using rear tyres like those run by Bevan in 1971 the gearing is all wrong. It appears that there is a company in Finland that does any Imp ratios you want, for a synchro box, which is what you need to placate Mr FIA. But I am looking at about four grand to have a new c/r synchro box built up...and I have got three racing Imps...
I have one original synchro box which works pretty well, but my other car, which is the re-shelled 1970 Ivor Goodwin car, came with the gearbox that was fitted to the car in 1971, a Knight four-speed dog box and for the sake of originality on a car with a continous racing history, I am most reluctant to fork out for a "new" and different gearbox.
So, do any of the British Impsters have an HTP? And if so, to whats pecs are the cars with reagrd to engine blocks and transmissions?
Any comment would be much appreciated."