Think in terms of "cores". The head, water pump, cam etc ought to be useful for trade-ins if you need to do an engine job. Also: get used to wearing gloves around the old goopy junk that comes out of engines. A little exposure isn't going to hurt. It's the cumulative toxic effects over the years.
If I was some kind of millionaire philanthropist slash X1/9 enthusiast, I would happily inundate you with all sorts of insane X1/9 based projects. Sadly however, I suspect those two things are mutually incompatible. Might be something to do with the car being labelled "a poor man's Ferrari", I suspect that's the least of it, but never stop dreaming eh. Consider this: the X1/9 is perhaps the only production car with a prototype name. This is because the production car carried through enough of the design features of the prototype. The Bertone Runabout, closely resembles the Lancia Stratos plus a windscreen, and closely resembles the X1/9 plus a rear luggage compartment, and both have pop up headlamps. The inherent underlying racecar thinking in the design geometry, means the X1/9 would be an interesting platform upon which to build a Pike's Peak time attack car to run in the NA 2-litre modified production car class or something like that. Alfa Romeo D2 motor Hewland manual sequential Single central driving position No glass, no windscreen, no roof. Aeroscreens like on the Runabout but one in the middle instead of driver & passenger. Would be insanely fast would be a potential winner imo it's good to have dreams 😊
I will take that engine and rebuild it. I'll just need you to reconsider your position on not shipping it. If i pay for shipping, and you strap it to a pallet, that engine will live on.
