Grey motor heads

[MeFB]

I decided that I would keep the major components original and just work on them to get the best (driveable) performance.

Well, in that case, you should have bought Steve's Snowcrest White / Cameo Beige EK sedan that had the Cameo flashline flashkit. It had a mild grey (twin Strombergs, 25/65 cam) and it was quite drivable and spritely. I know because I used it as a wedding car.

Steve and I arm-wrestled over that car for quite some time, and it very nearly did find a home with me. I ended up buying 'the Plastic' FB from out at Parkes instead (coincidentally, the Plastic was one of Steve's wedding cars back when he Owened it).

Unfortunately I've been bitten by the 'forced-induction' bug, and have a hankering to build a low-boost set-up. One of the reasons for this is that, after the head-work is finished, there's the issue of getting back the lost compression by skimming the head. Seems like a neat solution to skip all of that and take advantage of the lower compression (and extra capacity) by bolting on a nice little blower instead. Add a cam, a stud-girdle to the bottom end and Robert's your mother's brother

I'll have to look into one of those SC14's that Mick mentioned, but the old Paxtons look pretty I'd paint it grey to match the rest of the motor and make it all look as 'stock' as possible (not too much into the engine-bay bling-bling thing)



Anyhoo...probably a bit of a hi-jack. Sorry Browno. Hope the discussion is useful to you though.

[PEARO]

Or has anyone thought of a Norman supercharger

Rob

[MeFB]

Or has anyone thought of a Norman supercharger

Rob

Yes indeedy, but finding one is the problem. Unfortunately he didn't start making superchargers until well into the red motor years and I'm not sure how many he made for greys. There probably weren't that many guys that would have bought one when they could just do a red motor transplant.

From the research that I've done, it seems that making power through high revs damages motors more than forced induction. Stud girdles are available for grey motors and should be enough bottom-end strengthening for street driving with low boost.

One of the other good things about a draw-through supercharger is that you don't need an intercooler (the vaporising fuel cools the charge), so the whole system can be very, very neat and simple.

[browny]

no need to worry about hi jacking the thread MEFB
thanks for the genral hp figures
what about a non crossflow head with supercharger hp ??
vauxhel cranks whats the go with these much to do to make them fit they would be hard to get on to one anyway id say
wouldnt mind a small roots blower on a grey would be different

i picked up another ek ute might pull the motor out of it work it hard if i get the time and if it spits the dummy aw well
i will put the pics up of this ute in my build thread when my bro sends me the pics

[Stygian]

The Vauxhall L model crank will need to be machined to fit. A bit of work but my engine builder knows what's involved.
Eldred Norman made the Type 65 supercharger for the grey motor. I could have bought one of these back in '04 for a grand. Regretted it ever since. They were made to fit a stock grey. His book - Supercharge - is up on the net somewhere.
That Sonic Injection guy on eBay says they are planning a sc14 kit for the grey. But one of these would look out of place on a grey, imho.

[MeFB]

I have to agree that a modern supercharger would look a little out of place. I'd like to stay vintage.

I've read Supercharge. It's interesting what he said about turbochargers being too expensive to produce. I get the feeling that he would have dabbled with them a little more if they were easier to get hold of.

I won't be bothering with a crossflow head, impossible to find and too expensive to reproduce. Would be pretty cool though.

I guess the bottom line is that I'm not really interested in going fast, I'm interested in making it work and having something interesting to talk to other bald old guys with beards about

Also, at some point, it would lose the character of a grey motor if it had too many transplanted bits.

[bootlegger]

I managed to get a supercharger off a commer knocker truck with the conversion to run belts off it. There may be a thread on grey powered boats showing a pic of a comer knocker wade supercharged grey.

[Stygian]

I managed to get a supercharger off a commer knocker truck with the conversion to run belts off it. There may be a thread on grey powered boats showing a pic of a comer knocker wade supercharged grey.

That would be cool. I would imagine that it would have a few people scratching their heads - "Is that a Norman?" - particularly if it was in a period hottie.

[bootlegger]

Commer knockers had a wade supercharger. They are rated to 4 litre. The pic of the blown grey
Is in the grey powered boat thread.

[Stygian]

Is this the one Dave?

[bootlegger]

yeah thats it. I went and looked at this boat a few years ago. The guy did a brilliant job setting the blower up but he could never get it to run right. he gave up in the end. the boat is in perfect condition up in the roof of his single car garage. I wonder if he is still alive.

[GreyEJ]

The biggest thing I'm toying with is a low-boost supercharger, maybe a vintage Paxton? Teeheehee

Seen a few Normans over the years, It's the ultimate, Rare looks the part and will make it fun to drive, because they are low boost they don't stress the engine and basically bolt onto a stock one.