Early 8 Port Heads - Date of Casting and First Use

[Pete]

Spoke to Gordon Spice about this. Now you'd think being at Downton and running a car very successfully in the BSCC with their development engines in '66 and '67 he'd have got a sniff of the chance to run any 8 porter Downton had available but he says he didn't. Warwick Banks who finished at the end of '66 doesn't remember any about either.
There's no saying Lewis actually was running a Weslake in '66, could possibly have been Arden. More digging needed.

[Simon776]

Wonder if Autopsport had a kind of Grauniad moment and they mean Edward Lewis who was a well known Mini racer around that time?

[Pete]

No I don't think so Simon because the report of John Lewis ties up with the results. Edward Lewis wasn't entered. Edward Lewis for those who don't know was from the famous 'Lewis Leathers' family who were specialists in leather motoring and aviation gear, biker jackets, boots etc which in my youth (late 70's ) became the clobber to be seen in (anyone remember the Ramones ? ). Edward's business specifically was the 'Westover' arm of the company which sold all the leather race shoes, gloves etc in the 60's, hence the 'Westover Racing' entered Lotus and Mini he drove.

http://www.lewisleathers.com/assets/flash/timeline.swf

[Pete]

This is still the earliest shot of a Weslake I've seen.March 12th 1967.....



It's interesting to note that only a slightly earlier test session photo at Silverstone shows Rhodes' engine bay definately filled with a Weber fed five port.

[sandman]

Can you e-mail me some better photos Rich?

--
Ed_

[251 ENG]

BUGGER

Just made an auxiliary rad. for my car and havn,t seen that picture before

[251 ENG]

Still on a cooper s block not the 1300 blocks they used in 1968.

Early Downton built slide throttle I believe

[guru_1071]

.
There's no saying Lewis actually was running a Weslake in '66, could possibly have been Arden.

lets hope it is!


{rubs hands together at the thought of all those sales........ }

[sandman]

Still on a cooper s block not the 1300 blocks they used in 1968.

Early Downton built slide throttle I believe

Just curious,

What identifys this as a Cooper S block?

The boss under the temp-gauge sender?

Core plugs?

[guru_1071]

Still on a cooper s block not the 1300 blocks they used in 1968.

Early Downton built slide throttle I believe

Just curious,

What identifys this as a Cooper S block?

The boss under the temp-gauge sender?

Core plugs?

massive core plugs

[ivor badger]

There's no saying Lewis actually was running a Weslake in '66, could possibly have been Arden. More digging needed.

Why would Lewis have an Arden head before Neal, afterall Neal took out the 2nd mortgage to pay for the head.

[guru_1071]

Why would Lewis have an Arden head before Neal, afterall Neal took out the 2nd mortgage to pay for the head.

he owns a department store, he must have been minted {may not be the same john lewis.....}

[ivor badger]

Why would Lewis have an Arden head before Neal, afterall Neal took out the 2nd mortgage to pay for the head.

he owns a department store, he must have been minted {may not be the same john lewis.....}

Well having all these MPs buying stuff on expenses, John Lewis must have done quite well.

Is Eric Joyce going to put his fine onto his mp expenes?

[251 ENG]

I did read somewhere there is talk of starting a race series for group5 saloons .

Only for people with very deep pockets

[ivor badger]

Having been discussing the other day the ins and outs of creating historic racing championships with an organiser, it is quite informative on what takes place.

potential competitor "a Jaguar Xk150 had disc brakes so I can fit them to my Xk120?".
organiser " well a 150 was 6cwt heavier than a 120. So if you carry 6 cwt of ballast, yes"
potential competitor

[trevorhp]

email sent to Matt Neal.
Hi matt could you ask Steve if he ever had a BMC/Weslake Cast Iron 8 Port Mini head on any of his cars in 1966 or earlier?
Reply just received:

Hi Trevor
No problem I asked and he said no, Westlake ones were no good…..
He said they had their own alloy Arden head which he and Jim developed together
Hope that helps...
Warmest regards
Matt

I have now asked if he knew who had them first.
tp

[sixtiesracing]

Do we have a date when the Arden head was first used?

[trevorhp]

Not sure about the date offirst use, but I will ask.
Fairly certain they were Homologated for Gp2 at the same time as the 'Weslake' 01/01/70 and submitted April '70 I think Mark1 has the copies somewhere

[gnome64]

A bit late seeing this but I believe john lewis was the first on track with westlake iron head john should of been a works driver but was a bit of a jackale and Hyde he put everything into his racing he was given a weslake head by bmc competition department along with a drawing for camshaft which he got made it cost him a fortune I was told a£1000 pound back in 1966 I believe pistons were to be made by mahle as head was flat chambers were in piston unfortunately there were long delays getting pistons so my dad Bill Baker Chosen Engineering made a compression plate to achieve compression he built engine, tj injection was a pain in ass especially starting on 10mm plugs so dad made manifold with single su which pushed onto 8 port trumpets to get it started , they had to get special permission to run a spacer under bonnet to get clearance,still got parts of the tj injection kicking about, apparently John could out drive the works without tyre smoke just tidy driving thanks for reading Steve Baker

[MiNiKiN]

....,still got parts of the tj injection kicking about, apparently John could out drive the works without tyre smoke just tidy driving thanks for reading Steve Baker

Steve, you should have got an email from me