When I had my Cooper S one of the other lads built up an Anglia with a 1500 pre cross flow. It had, I think, an fast road cam - A2 maybe? - and twin dellorto carbs (twin choke side draughts like the more usual Webers). It was slightly lowered and ran on the Lotus 5.5 inch wide steel rims there wasn't much between us on the corners, the Cooper being just a little more sure footed and less scary, but I couldn't stay with him on the straights even though I had a Downton fast road conversion on the engine. ("No substitute for cubic inches" as my American friend would say) What I really envied him for was the sound of those carbs with their open throats on full throttle - a sound that put a chill up my spine! Tickover was "nicely" lumpy too! I later had a '66 Cortina Mk1 1500 GT but it ran on it's standard twin choke downdraught carb so didn't sound anything like the Anglia. It was a nice reasonably quick car in it's day but hardly "exciting" like my "S" had been. By then I was already "shackled" so wasn't allowed to indulge in such wasteful pursuits as spending money on "unnecessary" bits for the car.Pre crossflow Fords were my favourite, you could fit a 109E crank and rods in a 105E to change 997cc to 1340cc and unless stripped down no obvious external difference.
The 1500cc engine looked very similar at a quick glance to the 997cc, but you also gained a very strong 5 main bearing crankshaft and the only changes needed were to swap the flywheel spigot bearing over and bend the throttle arm up to match the 5/8ths (I think) difference in engine height, all mounts and hoses interchangeable. Plus you could also use the 997cc flywheel with the 1500 clutch so you had the benefit of a lighter flywheel without skimming etc.
Also I seem to recall if you got hold of an engine block with a casting number of T12 ( I think) it was the last from that mould and the block was thicker which meant it could be bored to a larger over size.
There were many other "shoe string " mods for penny less apprentices to do.