Why did it take an estimated 5000 hours work and a serious amount of money? - well here some examples of the challenges:

1 - Head Casting issues
- 40 + yr second hand castings meant that after starting off with 12 heads - all valve seats were removed - all pressure tested - and they were all leaking like sieves! So I picked out the 6 best and started the laborious welding/repressure testing etc - repeat the process endlessly - so that after one year of work I ended up with 2 ceramic sealed heads which looked fit for purposes.

2 - Block
Started off with 1 block - after removing the liners - they were cracked under the decks. Went to see Ted Martin in the workshop at the bottom of his garden where we unearthed some part machined blocks - which came from his original supplier of castings. With 6 blocks and numerous cranks/cams etc later I started work on building the definitive 2 blocks with machining help from John Gardiner of Crosthwaite & Gardiner.

3 - Cranks
Crosthwaite & Gardiner went through my stock of cranks and picked the 2 straightest and reground 2 cranks

4 - Rods
Started with 40 rods! - which are a fork and blade intricate design - 4 forks and 4 blades per engine. These were all used and needed to be measured for straightness/stretch untill 4 of each were deemed suitable for the actual engine.

5 - Big End Shells
Standard Ford BDG race engine shells had to be machined and modified to fit the rods.

6 - Pistons
2 sets of Pistons had to be made and machined. The first lot were scrapped - head chamber volumes are different on one head to the other - the one with the big chambers had insufficient metal left to machine down. To overcome problem different thicknesses of cylinder head gasket are used on each bank to result in a uniform CR of 10.9:1. One has to remember these were very old thin castings - way before the days of CNC!

7 - Rocker shafts
All machined from 5/8" ground silver steel bar which had to be drilled over the span of the cylinder head - all bolt/oil holes drilled - a big job in it's own right. They were then nitrided and then hand lapped to ensure perfect fit for each rocker. Tappet buckets had to be machined from converted A series items - as per original! - with hardened steel caps and shims - all hand made.

8 - Spark plugs
With the engine installed - you cannot access the plugs. On the original car - they cut the top edge of the chassis away for access. On this car I punched 4 flared holes in line with the plugs - as a neater engineering solution. However please note - chassis is double skinned - if you drop a plug when withdrawing - extracting the plug from the chassis just is not gonna happen!!!!!

9 - Chassis work
In comparison to engine issues - this element of the build was reasonably straightforward! However it should be noted that the Martin V8 has twin waterpumps - one for each bank =- completely isolated. This means pipework installation issues were interesting and complex...In addition the whole chassis was de-revitted and all the oversize holes were welded and resized.

10 - What else could i have done with my time and money?
As it has been pointed out to me - I could have:

1 - Bought a ready to go DFV powered F1 car
2 - Spent a year on holiday in the Caribbean attended to night and day by dusky maidens
3 - Still come back home with some money in the bank! and a relaxed stress free demeanour!