Air cooled flathead

tony starr

tony starr

Senior Member
I posted this photo on the end of another thread but I think it's worth discussing further. What is benefit vs effort in putting so many holes into a flathead block?!

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Photograph courtesy of Go Cat Speedshop.

Originally posted on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/BTCHWzUFJsC/

-tony.
 
In our case it was a matter of reducing weight. But with MANY more holes of smaller diameter.
 
Someones misguided attempt to remove all casting sand to improve cooling.
Then tapping and installing aluminum plugs to lighten engine.:):D
 
Zephyr Q said:
After the popularity of the French blocks, the Swiss also wanted to get in on the action.
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LOL. I would hook it up with water in the system and make a fountain out of it.

I'd really curious about this and would love JWL's take on it, I'm not understanding how this would work. My thinking is wouldn't you want to leave as much metal as possible to act as a heat sink vs. the holes? How much air is getting in there to cool it off?

At least VW's and Porsche had a dog house and fan to blow air over their fins of their air cooled engines.

What am I missing?
 
:rolleyes: My take . . . when folks go to this extreme to "lighten their car" for racing . . . I usually take one look at the dude, see that he is 25+ lbs overweight and think to myself:

"Hmmmm - maybe he should just skip a few dinners - might be easier in the end and probably has a lot more of a chance for success!". :D
 
Lots of ideas were tried in the attempt to improve performance in racing. A high percent of them were not necessarily good ideas! It was a trial and error deal. As you don't see large numbers of these mods one would conclude it wasn't overly successful.
 
Ive seen a few of these. They were for drag racing.

this block most likely ran on alchohol, which runs cooler than gasoline. Usually no coolant was used, so they drilled holes to be lighter, maybe dissopate heat, and also just to spend more time with that engine block, which is what racers love to do.
 
Jason in TX said:
Ive seen a few of these. They were for drag racing.

this block most likely ran on alchohol, which runs cooler than gasoline. Usually no coolant was used, so they drilled holes to be lighter, maybe dissopate heat, and also just to spend more time with that engine block, which is what racers love to do.
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Yep, I agree, run on alcohol, no coolant, disapate heat,
and builders love to massage their engines. ;):)








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Other than the holes, it looks like a good engine. I'd build it and throw a little Bars-Leak in there and run it :)
 
As I said, we ran an engine with the block SERIOUSLY drilled to reduce weight. My memory is the hole diameter we used was 1/4"---maybe 5/16". We called the engine "old holy". We decided to spend half the winter months "spare time" doing the drilling because the block was damaged and would not hold water and the car was too heavy. The engine finally died when a 404 cam broke and became entangled with moving parts. There are likely hundreds of pictures of "old holy" taken by spectators back in the late 1950's but unfortunately I do not have one. I think I got more questions about that engine than anything else.

Air cooling nor any other reason for the hole drilling was not involved in the engine we drilled.
 
JWL said:
As I said, we ran an engine with the block SERIOUSLY drilled to reduce weight. My memory is the hole diameter we used was 1/4"---maybe 5/16". We called the engine "old holy". We decided to spend half the winter months "spare time" doing the drilling because the block was damaged and would not hold water and the car was too heavy. The engine finally died when a 404 cam broke and became entangled with moving parts. There are likely hundreds of pictures of "old holy" taken by spectators back in the late 1950's but unfortunately I do not have one. I think I got more questions about that engine than anything else.

Air cooling nor any other reason for the hole drilling was not involved in the engine we drilled.
Click to expand...

Were you running methanol?
 
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