1600 Melos in Complete Kit Car (Issue 74)

[James Doulton]

Just seen a nice looking 1600 Crossflow Melos in CKC in an article about a group that visited a rolling road dynamometer in Devon. There are two pictures of Q38CPF, owned by Phillip Higgins, but no DOC sticker.

The car is a pretty standard 1600 with single carb and a 4-branch exhaust and he got a power figure of 68bhp at the wheels, which they extrapolated back to about 90bhp at the flywheel. There were many other cars, but only one that had less power (a Quantum saloon with 65bhp at the wheels).

The article didn't say how they estimated the power at the flywheel but they definitely didn't use a simple efficiency factor across all of the cars, in the worst case the power at the wheels was just 71% and in the best case it was 85%. For the Melos, the figure was 76%.

It was good to see a Dutton in the magazine and it was looking in very good condition, so well done Phil, where ever you are.

[Dave Adams]

yeah i saw that article, my old 1600 xflow on the road came in at just over 70 hp at the wheels back in 1998, it was considered quite respectable for the 1600.

[James Doulton]

What I find staggering is the amount of heat that has to be lost by the transmission. In the case of the Melos, it equates to 16KW. That is a lot of heat to get rid of, it's a wonder that the rear axle isn't boiling its oil and melting all of the rubber seals (is it safe to mention rubber on here?).

In the case of the Robin Hood with an ST170 engine, the transmission had to dissipate a whopping 30KW - that is probably more than my house boiler! It is a wonder that it doesn't glow in the dark. I am assuming that they do the measurements in 4th gear (direct drive) so that they minimise the gearbox loses.