Jim Whitehouse Arden Enineering 8 port Westlake carburettor

[Dai Bos]

These are a set of 4 1" 3/4 HIF su's which Jim done for the 8 port Westlake down draft head in the 70's. I find they to work better on injection or Amel carb's, they give you better fuel delivery and more BHP on a 1275 engine which should be bored out to the right specification. I have also had, for many years a car with 1275 engine with a down draft Westlake head, with this carburettor system on it and it develops more brake horse power than most of the injection cars I have got. If you look at the way it is done the su's deliver the fuel, there's no spindles or butterflies, they are actually built into the spacers. You can change the jets and needles to what ever is suitable and if you look around these carburettors you will see that they have got no dash port dampers.

I'm putting them up for sale, if anyone is interested, phone calls only, no texts. My mobile number is 07974608333

I'll put some photo's of Jim Whitehouse's workshop, where he produced the Arden heads and also the race cars etc.

Many thanks

Dai Bos

[Dai Bos]

Part 2

[Dai Bos]

Part 3

[Dai Bos]

Part 4

[Dai Bos]

Part 5

[Dai Bos]

Part 6

[ivor badger]

Why would JW fit these carbs to a Weslake head in the early 70s when he was beating the works cars with his own alloy head by 1969.

4x 1 3/4" HIFs, not a bit big when 2 would normally suffice for a 5 porter.

Why would JW fit these in place of Amals when he was selling his own alloy head engine with fuel injection in 1970.

HIFs in the early 70s!

So

[pad4]

You know, i was only thinking about this the other day, wondering if there was an alternative to Amals or the 8 ft long webers poking out of my bonnet.

And there is the solution - 1 3/4 HIF would only be the equivalent of a single 45 weber barrel wouldn't it - which is right on for a good size 8 port race motor I'm guessing.

Love the butterflies in the spacers, thats an interesting idea as well

pad

[kariya]

I have only one word.....Wow!

kariya

[JC T ONE]

Thats one cool setup


Jens Christian

[ivor badger]

And there is the solution - 1 3/4 HIF would only be the equivalent of a single 45 weber barrel wouldn't it - which is right on for a good size 8 port race motor I'm guessing.


pad

and what would be the point of a single 45 choke per cylinder except to put the smallest std choke available, iirc 34mm. Now you can get 34mm chokes for a 40 and much more sensible gas speeds through the carb. So why not just fit twin 40 DCOEs, which is what some people did.

These look like a collection of carbs salvaged from SD1s right down to the manifold inserts.

[Astro]

How does these look like when mounted on a Weslake head? Can one still see the track? It's difficult to imagine.

[Tim]

They do look pretty cool, like two DU dual choke SUs together, maybe a QU, or would it be an FU?

Tim

[Jack of all trades]

Fit a Weslake or an Arden head that's like a Weslake? maybe they fit so something like this;



Jim really made some gems in his time!

It goes to show there's allways something we havn't seen seen before.

[guru_1071]

that's quite a neat idea, to use the HIF body just as a sort of dumb fuel metering unit

I suppose they have an advantage over amals as the fuelling will be far easier to sort out, particularly for a garage used to s.u's.

I can sort of see the direction of thinking on the making of them, as they must have been a very cheap 'lash-up' when compared to a set of period fuel injection!

[Astro]

I can sort of see the direction of thinking on the making of them, as they must have been a very cheap 'lash-up' when compared to a set of period fuel injection!

but they do not fit under a bonnet! It's a shame that the new Weslake heads are not available. Otherwise we could have tried it.

[mk1]

That's only the second time I have seen one of those Arden / Weslake hybrid heads.

A really rare interesting bit of kit.

M

[Dai Bos]

Why would JW fit these carbs to a Weslake head in the early 70s when he was beating the works cars with his own alloy head by 1969.

4x 1 3/4" HIFs, not a bit big when 2 would normally suffice for a 5 porter.

Why would JW fit these in place of Amals when he was selling his own alloy head engine with fuel injection in 1970.

HIFs in the early 70s!

So

Dear Ivor Bodger,

Jim was asked by BL Special Tunning to produce this system to put on some of the BL race cars and I also think, eventually, the rally cars (but I'm not quite sure about that). He produced the downdraft Arden alloy heads because he was fed up of the iron heads cracking between the valves, I not sure if you know this but alloy heads are better for cooling. The Weslake iron head and Arden downdraft alloy head could not be opened out on the inlets ports enough. That's why he produced the sidedraft Arden head. I have a number of Arden downdraft alloy heads and the Weslake iron heads which I will put on the site to show in the future. I also have some of the billet head blocks. I'm aware that Weslake are making the 8 port heads again, my advice to whoever has given them a deposit on these heads it to ask for your money back. You can move the water cooling jackets around the heads as much as you want, but don't you think all this was tested 40 odd years ago? The only way you could do it is to make the casting about and inch and a half bigger around the head but it would probably look very silly.

My advice to anyone is to look for an early Weslake or Arden 8 port head and sort out the cooling outside the head. Even the 940, 185 and 163 were played around with by many clever engineer but the still couldn't improve anything on the inside. I believe that somebody has made a 5 port head where they have moved the water jackets around, personally I don't think it would make much of a difference.

I'll put some more tunning part on next week to see if you can pick any holes in them as I know there are a lot of geniuses on this site.

Many thanks

Dai Bos

[Astro]

Hi,

it’s really interesting to learn this. But just a genius’s question . Is there any picture to show this carburetion mounted? We do some competition following FIA rules. That means, we can do everything has been done during these years. Our first attempt realizing an 8-port failed due to the quality of the Weslake recast. The second one with an older Arden and modified valve guides and valve seats seems to work. But there will be always place for improvements.

[12G940]

I remember these being played with at the time, but my recollection was on the billet head, but the fitment was for the Marina, would anyone else other than Jim Whitehouse have been doing this, and was it just for Leyland, and also who actually made the billet heads.