Vauxhall 12-port (!) head on a grey

[Harv]

Vauxhall cranks I have heard of. This is the first I have seen of a 12-port Vauxhall head Frankensteined onto a grey. Tres cool


Youtube


Came from a post here:
https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/thr ... t-14674233

cheers,
Harv

[Blacky]

That’s an old video - I tried to find more info on this to no avail …….

[ardiesse]

I wish . . .

It would appear, then, that the bore spacing of a Vauxhall six is the same as a grey. Does a Vauxhall six have fifteen head bolts or fourteen? But the first thing to do is get a Vauxhall head gasket and lay it on top of a Holden head gasket.

Off-topic - I've found out, by poring through online piston ring catalogs, that Rambler, &*#@ Zephyr, and Vauxhall piston ring sets suit grey motors, with the proviso that the grey's been bored out to 3-1/8". Some of these sets are for 5/64" compression rings, and one's for 3/32" compression rings. I've seen aftermarket grey pistons for both size of compression rings.

Rob

[Harv]

As far as I know, the 12-port head came out in the 1958 PA Velox and Cresta. I'm not sure that we got that head locally though.

http://vauxpedianet.uk2sitebuilder.com/ ... lox-cresta

Vauxhall PA cylinder head porting.JPG (174.06 KiB) Viewed 3645 times

Cheers,
Harv

[Harv]

I think I can start to see why this would be no simple bolt on task. I might not have the right PA engine, but cannot see any reference to a later head in the parts images.

Assuming I've got the correct PA engine, the image below shows a PA head gasket next to a grey motor one.Not quite the same scale, but you get the idea.

Vauxhall versus grey head design.png (144.69 KiB) Viewed 3637 times

The PA has 14 head bolts, whilst the grey has 15. You might get away with most of them, but the carb/inlet side centre bolts on the Vauxhall line up to the grey's water port (red circles). The Vauxhall's bolts all appear to be inline, whilst the two outer carb/inlet side bolts are offset in the grey (blue circles).

The water jackets would also be interesting... not much line-up (at least by eyeball), and looks to be waaay out on the sideplate side (green circles). This is probably the reason for the external coolant manifold on that video.

Cheers,
Harv