For some reason, I keep thinking that there were at least two Replicas made, one from Russia (or other ex-Soviet state?), and one from the Gordon Burford/Ivor F. combine?
I met Gordon in California in '79 at the World FF Champs (Taft), and again in Goulburn NSW, where I also met Ivor F. In the next California WFFC in '93, I met and sort of teamed up with Ivor's son, Tahn Stowe as the Aussie Retreival Team. "Tahn" means "creek or brook" in Gaelic or some such. Anyway, at the '83 WFFC in Goulburn, I took delivery of #11 or 12 of the first batch of Gordon/Ivor "Deezil" 2cc diesels. After that, IIRC, was the high-tech 1.5cc TR "Sesqui" diesel and the Elfin 1.49cc (or maybe the 2.5cc version?). I would bet that Ian Russell would know about this stuff. Somebody send him a PM!!! 
Steve
Steve Thomas has given a link above to a discussion on another forum about the Elfin 1.49cc replica's.
I've cut and pasted the best response on it here. Explains it all.
Beginning of quote.
" RE: Russian Elfin 149 ABC Repro
I may have said this before on this-or perhaps another forum. A synopsis of the Elfin 149 debacle. In the mid 80's, Ivor F-the man behind the earlier highly successful Doonside Mills 75 and Sesqui 1.5 glow and diesel projects commenced work on a replica Elfin 149 PB-these engines being deemed the best of the British vintage 1.5cc/09 cu in designs of their era. Bear in mind that this was before Ebay-and the only alternative to getting lucky and buying a very second hand original, was to produce a replica. And there had been the very successful Mills replica project and the Burford deezil and Elfin 249 replicas.The projected market for the 149 was the Australian and NZ vintage fliers, general sports use, and collectors. Equally bear in mind that the only 1.5 diesels available new anywhere would have been the PAW 149 and the Russian MK17.A number of Australian modelling luminaries were involved, making different parts for the engine. Sadly, there was little overall coordination, and most of the bits-though beautifully made-would not fit together [I have personally witnessed this in Ivor's workshop-and seen all the bins of hundreds and hundreds of completed Elfin 149 parts-that won't fit together. I was there with Lloyd Willis-we were there for the entire afternoon-and in that 4 hour period Ivor managed to assemble 2 engines-one of which I own!]. At this stage the project had lost $50,000 or more-with little hope of recovery. This was back in 1990-22 years ago. Ivor then negotiated with the Russians (who exactly has never been made clear) to produce 1000 Elfin 149 replicas, which could be quickly sold to recover part of the costs-and partially restore the damaged reputation-of the Australian Elfin project. He stipulated that he would personally inspect each engine before finally accepting delivery. The Russians duly went ahead and delivered the engines as contracted-except that they were all ABC (the few Australian made ones had been ferrous)-'I didn't tell you to make them ABC' said Ivor. ''Well zis is the vay ve make zese engines" said the Russians. Mutter mutter mutter went Ivor-and proceeded to make good on his promise of checking each and every one.....
The outcome was something along the lines of 'these 250 are OK-the rest are junk, and I'm not paying for them.....' Mutter mutter mutter went the Russians and went off in a huff uttering dire threats.
So Ivor ended up selling ABC engines that met his quality standards-these are the Doonside ABC Elfins, and they come with a hand written dated certificate from Ivor. The russians of course, now found that they had inherited a lot of dodgy unsold Elfins that THEY now had to get rid of to recoup THEIR costs-so they offloaded them all over-some in Australia, some in the US, some in Europe. Subsequently-perhaps when things had cooled down a bit-it was decided that there was nothing basically wrong with the production methods-and that good old ferrous technology was better in this design-and then the steel Russian made Elfins appeared. I am unsure on exactly when this occurred-my best guess is the mid 1990s. I am equally unsure whether a single Russian manufacturer was involved-or several [I suspect initially there was one, but subsequently manufacturers may have changed.]. So the sequence went: Australian made Elfin 149 (steel)->Russian 149ABC->(sold by IvorF)->reject ABC engines sold elsewhere->Russian steel version produced->sold widely->now both Russian versions available from several sources. Total production unknown-but probably at least several thousand
There is a slight corollary to the story. A supplier-Mach East- in Australia, sold the russian Elfins and a variety of other russian engines-MDS glows etc. He had a NZ agent, the late Des McAnelly, who was a noted CL speed flier and engine man. The Elfins and MK17 diesels were the biggest sellers in NZ, and Des realised the that basic problem with the Elfins was that they were set up to tight and with too much taper. He checked every engine that passed through his hands, and having both the equipment, and the engine knowledge, honed the liners to improve the fits. So a Des McAnelly breathed on Elfin 149 reject was actually a better engine than one of the 'passed Ivor F QC' ones. I should know-I have four in total-an original Ivor F steel, an Ivor F ABC one, a Des McAnelly honed 'reject' ABC Russian one, and an ABC one obtained second hand of unknown status (but probably one of Des' ones). That being said-the Ivor F steel is the best handling one, the Des McAnelly treated reject is the fastest on an 8x4 or 7x4, the Ivor F ABC a bit hard to start but runs OK, and the 'unknown provenance' one has only been bench run and is a pig to start.
So when it comes to replica Elfin 149s its a very tangled web..................
ChrisM
'ffkiwi' " End of quote.
Topic: Elfin 1.49 Diesel (Read 3374 times)