I had an A14 in my old 1000 coupe - it's not exactly difficult. Certainly not compared to the difficulties, and expense, of fitting the A14 crank to the A12 block.

I could almost understand a rally competitor doing it though, because they're restricted to using the standard or homologated block with free internals. But for a street engine it seems an awful expensive way to avoid the need for a mod plate.

And even after all that trouble, you won't quite end up with the same result as a normal A14, because your rod to stroke ratio takes a fair bit of a battering (but I don't know what length rod Dodgeman used - didn't he get some weird rare A series rod from USA?). Which essentially means reduced safe rpm limit, reduced mechanical efficiency, and makes the engine less sensitive to valve timing - meaning you won't get full advantage out of your sporty reground cam. And following on from that, I reckon it would reduce volumetric efficiency too. If I was going to rally a 1200, I'd stick with the A12 crank and 76mm bore.