Our Elva sports racer arrived battered, broken and missing the original drivetrain: no intake manifolds, no Weber side-draft carbs, no charging system, no header, no exhaust system.
Again, we had plenty of work to do.
Coventry Engines: A Racer’s Favorite
Elva originally equipped our Mk VI…
Unless you happen across an FPF engine for sale, you could always try a Rally Imp engine -
https://www.imps4ever.info/development/engine-development.html Pretty reliable and you can get quite good power out of them. And you could always tell yourself you were competing for Index of Performance....(they were getting around 100 bhp out of them).
I haven't priced what the correct engine for the car would cost today but it is probably pretty substantial. In the old days when I started racing I turned down a bobtail Cooper Climax for around $2000 - this was back when they were just 'old used up race cars'. 
Heck, I should have been trying to buy every 4 cam Porsche engine I could find when they cost what in retrospect was a ridiculously low price - best automotive investment I can think of.
I'm surprised you didn't have hte FWP block modified. It's essentially the same block as the FWA, albeit with smaller liners. To convert an FWP block all you have to do is punch two holes in the side of the block for the oil line fittings and bore it to take the bigger liners. From what I recall you can even go to the FWB sized liner to make it an FWE if you stick with the stock FWA crank. I've even been told with modern rods, you can fit the FWB crank to the FWP/A blocks to make it FWB size.
I assume the reason for sourcing an FWA was the crank and other bits (oil pump, probably had later FWB type rods, etc).
I do have a question about the cylinder head in the picture, the last FWA cylinder head I had, had the dynamo mount cast into it. The head in the pic looks like it's a bolt on piece. Is the head really and FWA head or is it a modified late FWP head (with the casting on the side for the dynamo mount)?
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