greenwheels, you are almost completely right, but no, I know about the O series. I was thinking about the Moggy, which is essentially the same as the A40. However on checking a parts catalogue I see that I was confused and the difference will be in the region of the sump flange and oil pickup pipe, where the standard arrangement would be right in the middle of the gears. See here: http://www.morrismin...php/engine/sump
And I was also confused by other small 4 cylinder engines of that era that I have worked on ages ago, including Ford and Triumph, which do have the oil pump on the other end of the distributor drive. There is a very good reason for that, apart from not having the pump protruding into the flywheel area, and that is to use the viscous drag imposed by the pump as a damper to minimise the effect of gear backlash on timing jitter.
It is possible that people who want to do non-standard things like separating the engine and gearbox lubrication may find an inline engine block would be a good starting point. Or maybe not...
But there does seem to be total agreement that in normal circumstances it is not worth the considerable aggro.
