This may be of interest to some:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/203449462378?hash=item2f5e886e6a:g:-0YAAOSwN85gm93V

Note the Bosch injector pump, and early style fuel filter. It will also have feeler pins on the injectors. Shame they managed to break the manifolds.

Same seller also has a Lister FR6 listed as well.

Anyone who has had any significant dealings with the venerable Lister CS diesel engine will appreciate it has number of well known and understood weaknesses, which continue to this day with the supply of Lister clone and Listeriod engine versions of the Lister CS engine.

It now transpires that the MARS Machine Tool Manufacturing Co. Pty. Ltd. of Bridge Street, Fortitude Valley, Brisbane, Australia also recognised these weaknesses.

So way back in 1942 (at the height of Lister CS diesel engine production, and possibly due to war shortages) they decided to build their own range of diesel engines to compete in the Australian market with the Lister CS diesel engine, the 5 H.P. engine they produced clearly had a striking resemblance to the single cylinder version of the Lister CS diesel engine, however coming from a company that already had a well deserved reputation for a range of well established high quality machine tools their engines were superior to the Lister CS diesel engine in a number of respects, such as larger crankshaft, counter balance weight (CBW) crankshaft, wet liner cylinder block, fully enclosed valve gear, proper engine oil dipstick, conventional lip type oil seals, the absence of a reed valve crankcase breather (possibly using a connection to the inlet port to create a crankcase vacuum as per later aircooled Lister diesel engines).

In addition the fuel injection equipment (FIE) was also made in Australia by the PYROX company, again the striking resemblance to the CAV FIE used on Lister CS engines can clearly be seen, the injector even was fitted with a feeler pin (something which CAV dispensed with in later years)

Even after nearly 70 years of continuous Lister clone and latterly Listeriod engine manufacture in India, with the exception of direct injection, wet liner cylinder block, dipstick, and CBW crankshafts. No Indian product can come close to the innovative and quality features found in the 5HP MARS diesel engine.

MARS also built a larger 8HP engine which appears to have being based upon an amalgamation of a Lister JP1 and CS engines with elements of both engine versions clearly visible in the design features, as per the smaller 5HP version it also used the same PYROX FIE, but otherwise less is known about this version of the MARS diesel engine.

Unfortunately neither of these projects were a success for the MARS machine Tool company with only 32 known examples produced of the 5HP engine, and which only 4 engines of this type are known to still exist in the hands of preservationists. Reasons for the failure of this project are unknown, hence the few MARS diesel engines that are preserved remain an interesting footnote in the history of Lister CS engine development, and the rival competitor products that sprang up to compete against the Lister CS diesel engine (in this case unsuccessfully).

http://cobahcastiron.weebly.com/mars-engines.html

http://www.nocarnofun.com/mars-5hp-diesel-engine-completely-restored-and-shows-muscles/#ixzz4kLD50PaW

Note in the background of a rather grainy picture in this link, both versions of the MARS diesel engine are displayed at a machine tool exhibition stand in the 1950's: http://www.lathes.co.uk/mars/

Edited for content, and punctuation

As per the forum thread title, I would be interested to know if the Indian Listeriod engine suppliers ever made parts for, or manufactured a whole cloned version of the Lister VA engine (the air cooled version of the CS).

If so I would be interested to know if the parts would be interchangeable with genuine VA parts, and if so I would be grateful to hear of any contact details for a potential parts supplier.

As I am sure you are all aware a lot of the VA parts are specific to that engine, though some parts (such as the flywheel fan shroud, and air cooled flywheel) do bear a striking resemblance to the 2 and 3 cylinder HA, HB, and HR engines.


Thanks in anticipation of your replies.

For those that follow the price of Lister CS engines and derivatives of the CS, here is an a VA that was on ebay UK recently and failed to sell:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Stationary-Engine-Air-Cooled-VA-Lister-Stationary-Engine-7-5HP-RPM-850-Vintage-/222177657011

Sometime in the past dieselgman opined the following:

"How much $$$ would you be willing to pony up if you could purchase a true replica (perhaps as parts) of one of these Dursleys - recast from an untouched original sample and closely monitored for top quality control?"

With the exception of the QA observation this is basically what the Indians have been trying to do for the last 60 years, i.e. sell a reverse engineered product based upon original Lister CS engine component parts.
As the Indians have well demonstrated, this process is fraught with many difficulties. Unless you have access to highly specialist measuring equipment it’s very easy to miss say a 0.020” radius in the bottom of that piston ring groove, or a 0.4 Ra surface finish on that bearing journal, etc.
Then you have to be prepared to cut up original components for material analysis and tensile testing / Charpy impact testing etc. (I can’t see anyone wanting to do that to genuine Lister CS parts)
Finally on top of all that you need to have access to raw materials (steel and cast iron) which meet the required quality standards.


Then a few days later dieselgman offered up another particularly sagacious piece of advice

I would think the 8/1 would be a good first project along these lines because it would have the widest appeal and probable demand as a genset build.  

On this observation I could not agree more, because possibly more importantly than the above, if this engine was to be reproduced (due to the high degree of parts commonality). It would then be relatively easy to then go on to recreate 6/1, 5/1, 3.5/1, and 16/2 engines, with minimal extra manufacturing effort.

Now this is where it gets potentially very interesting for all you Lister CS forum members, because I have been quietly working away under the RADAR, and after expending a lot of time, effort, and not inconsiderable money. I now have a near complete set of drawings [copied from originals] for the most recent build 01 Lister CS 8/1 engine.
After considerable work on my part, these drawings are now an electronic format (PDF) of the original drawings.
Seeing how the interest in the CS engine has grown in the last 10 years, together with the Indian sourced aftermarket spares that largely supports it. It was my intention as a retirement hobby to go into very limited production of some of the more popular parts using these drawings as the starting point, and therefore offer a substantially better quality product than the Indians could ever hope to produce, but with comparable prices to the Indian product. However a major change in my personal circumstances now makes this a remote possibility.
Hence I am looking to monetise the investment I have made to date in getting this far with this project.

I had been watching this item on ebay uk;

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/lister-cs-startomatic-/131751357779

In spite of needing some work, the sale price was significantly less than I was expecting.

Could this be indicative of a price correction, compared to what these startomatic sets used to sell for.

Here is something for you all to drool over:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/221597428416

However I would speculate that the driving flywheel has been replaced in the past. as there seems to be no Vee belt grooves cut in the rim.

Lister Petter have narrowly avoided going bankrupt (again), after a last minute buyer has come forward, and bailled them out of administration.

http://www.gazetteseries.co.uk/news/11092437.Lister_Petter_to_go_into_administration/?ref=mr

http://www.gloucestercitizen.co.uk/Lister-Petter-leaves-Dursley-80-jobs-saved/story-20980209-detail/story.html